Italo Svevo
Una Vita

In 1892, Italo Svevo published his first novel, originally titled "Un Inetto", but later and permanently named "Una Vita".

The novel tells the story of Alfonso Nitti, a bank clerk with literary ambitions, knowledgeable in Latin and a passionate reader of poetry, who feels uncomfortable in his role within society, surrounded by a humanity that appears petty and ignorant in his eyes. A turning point in Alfonso Nitti's life seems to arise when he is invited to dinner by his employer Maller and befriends young Annetta, the banker’s daughter: the two will have numerous encounters, inevitably falling in love. However, Alfonso later leaves the city to join his mother in his native town, to assist her during her last days. After his mother’s death, he returns to the city and his job, where everything has changed, where he begins to be avoided by the few friends he had in the office where he has been demoted, and where Annetta has meanwhile become engaged to Macario, his rival in love.

In "Una Vita", Svevo seems to take a first step toward what is perhaps his most successful and certainly most famous work, "La Coscienza di Zeno" (1923). Although the common theme of the two novels, as well as of "Senilità" (1898), the second novel of the Trieste author, is indeed the inadequacy fully embodied in the figure of the protagonist, there are nonetheless differences among the three novels: in Una Vita and in the immediately subsequent work, Svevo narrates in the third person, highlighting a noticeable disparity between his point of view and that of the protagonist, not hesitating to judge him negatively because of his inadequacy. In "La Coscienza di Zeno", however, the narration is in the first person, where the distance between the author's consciousness and that of the protagonist diminishes more and more until it disappears in favor of a total overlapping. While one might even come to feel sympathy for a Zeno Cosini who goes so far as to claim the merits of his own inadequacy and mental illness, one definitely ends up feeling pity for an Alfonso Nitti, a pity veiled, however, also by disgust and blame often expressed by the author himself, too frightened to seize the opportunity before him, an opportunity to escape the alienating and monotonous existence that lies ahead. Svevo seems to play in the novel with the opposition between Alfonso and Macario, who soon becomes for the protagonist a sort of rival in love: Alfonso is a man of letters, who feels superior due to his literary ambitions and knowledge of Latin but ends up being shy and clumsy, while Macario is brash, self-confident, and also a bit of a show-off. Svevo will continue to play with the character differences of the figures he presents in "Senilità".

Alfonso, at the moment when he seems to have succeeded in an endeavor seemingly impossible for him, after having surpassed what appeared to be an unbeatable rival in love, and thus having united with Annetta, finds himself at a point of no return, where only an ultimate act of courage can change his life. But at that very moment, here returns his inadequacy, like a shadow that had silently followed him until then, now making its presence felt again and leading him to give up everything, causing a complete reversal of the situation. Alfonso will not be able to make the move that could lead him to change precisely because he is inept and enveloped by a fear that seems to almost paralyze him, fear that will lead him, however, to commit what paradoxically looms as the most decisive and sadly resolving act of will a man can perform. Alfonso will prefer until the end to escape an ever more castrating and gray reality by taking refuge in dreams, where in a very Freudian manner his most intimate desires are fulfilled. However, Svevo seems to propose in "Una Vita", in addition to the psychological or, if the term is correct, existential theme, also the social theme of the figure of the clerk, and above all of the intellectual more or less forced to adapt to an increasingly standardized society under the sign of a bourgeoisie that Svevo analyzes by highlighting its vices and virtues: the author, however, seems to show a small preference for the former, as evidenced by the banker Maller's servant/mistress.

In conclusion, "Una Vita" is not presented as an easily readable novel, but it emerges as an important work, along with "Senilità", to understand the evolutionary process that would lead Svevo years later to write his certainly most famous novel, the already mentioned "La Coscienza di Zeno".