As a Man Grows Older made me suffer. However, from time to time, it has become one of my favourite sufferings. Emilio and Angiolina will jump into your life and cause you to think a lot about love. Please don’t say I didn’t warn you.
With As a Man Grows Older, Svevo puts the reader in the mind of the character Emilio. While examining the minds of men of his time, we also witness how love blinded people. Emilio is not an easy character to love. Even though I was nervous about his perspective on women and love, I couldn’t help but pity the man for what happened as I progressed in the book as a female reader. The novel describes the chaos of man in an exquisite way. If you do not object to being a little uncomfortable and slowing down a little, I think you might like it. Enjoy!
As a Man Grows Older
Not so long ago Emilio Brentani was a promising young author. Now he is an insurance agent on the fast track to forty. He gains a new lease on life, though, when he falls for the young and gorgeous Angiolina – except that his angel just happens to be an unapologetic cheat. But what begins as a comedy of infatuated misunderstanding turns darker, as Emilio’s jealous persistence in his folly – against his friends’ and devoted sister’s advice, and even his own best knowledge – may lead to severe consequences in his other relationships.
Marked by deep humanity and earthy humor, by psychological insight and an elegant simplicity of style, As a Man Grows Older (Senilità, in Italian; the English title was the suggestion of Svevo’s great friend and admirer, James Joyce) is a brilliant study of hopeless love and hapless indecision. It is a masterwork of Italian literature, here beautifully rendered into English in Beryl de Zoete’s classic translation.
Italo Svevo
Aron Ettore Schmitz, better known by the pseudonym Italo Svevo, was an Italian writer. Also a businessman, novelist, playwright, and short-story writer.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
