Confessions of Zeno (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Aron Hector Schmitz
- First Published: 1923
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Psychological realism
- Time of Work: The 1880’s to 1916
- Setting: Trieste, Graz, and Lucinico, Austria
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction
- Subjects: Nineteenth century, 1910’s, Substance abuse, Adultery, Drug addiction or addicts, Business or business people, Austria or Austrians, Psychoanalysis or psychoanalysts, Smoking
- Locales: Trieste, Austria
Characters Discussed
Zeno Cosini (ZEH-noh koh- SEE-nee), an Italian businessman in Trieste (then part of Austria). The book is supposed to be a narrative that Zeno prepared for Dr. S., his psychoanalyst. Zeno first discusses his attempts to stop smoking, in which he displays his usual pattern of taking a “health-giving bath of good resolutions” that are never carried out. The same irresolution appears in the two most important aspects of Zeno’s life: sex and business. He wins his plain but affectionate wife after proposing in vain to two of her sisters (a third has...
[The entire page is 652 words long]
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