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The narration in the novel is that of Zeno Cosini, a fifty-something year old bourgeois from 1915 Trieste who sets himself the task of writing his memoirs for his psychoanalyst. This highly unreliable narrator manages to weave an extraordinary tale in which much is disclosed that is not openly acknowledged. It becomes the reader’s task to psychoanalyse Zeno’s narrative, and to do so a deep psychological insight is needed, together with an acute sense for the often farcical comedy of the delusions and concealments of our social life in the modern era.

Any reader may see some truth in the psychoanalyst’s final diagnose of Oedipus complex, according to which Zeno’s self-chastisement at his own smoking habit would be a way to punish himself for his rivalry with his father over his mother. In this light, his adoption of Signor Malfenti as a surrogate father figure explains his intimate need to form part of the Malfenti household by marrying one of the four daughters. But there is more to Zeno’s relationship with Ada, the most beautiful and serious one, who rejects him, than meets the eye. Knowing from the beginning –though hardly admitting it to himself� that she will consider him to be below her aspirations, Zeno semi-consciously sabotages his own chances at winning her by trying to seem funny while he admires her precisely for her seriousness. His self-deprecating attitude succeeds in winning the heart of Augusta, the ugliest of the four sisters, though by no means the most simple, as will be seen, and therefore Zeno’s surprisingly fulfilling married life begins, while Ada chooses Guido, an attractive though unpractical young man who will prove to be far from devoted to her. Zeno will –again, only semi-consciously� oversee the destruction of Guido’s business and this man’s suicide in just two years, while pretending to try to help and to be deeply concerned for the worsening of Ada’s health. In fact, eventually he wins Ada’s admiration, if not her love, as she finds herself floundering in front of Augusta’s healthy progress. The irony and the comedy are that in his struggle to gain the favour, respect, and eventually the submission of the Malfenti family, Zeno has had to conceal his evil actions by producing a narrative of his life that justifies his behaviour while at the same time shamefully exposing it.

This novel is a must-read for anyone interested in psychoanalysis and in the modern condition, as it also explores the moral constructions man must struggle, often deceitfully, to create in order to justify his own selfish, sometimes criminal actions in a world deprived of the guidance of religion.