In the Shadow of the Mammoth: Narratives of Symbiosis in La Coscienza di Zeno

Abstract

Freed from the stifling tutela of the psychoanalyst in the last pages of the novel, Zeno becomes more and more solitary, wandering along the metaphysical banks of the Isonzo river until the war separates him permanently from all the ties, obligations and social expectations that had wrapped him in their dense web. The book, which began with Zeno's solitary exercise of remembrance, returns in the end to the intimacy of raccoglimento. In between, the narrator unravels the arrhythmic story of consciousness, which, as the chapter headings suggest (La morte di mio padre, La storia del mio matrimonio, La moglie e l'amante, Storia di un'associazione commerciale), unfolds as the story of Zeno's various associations with his others.2 This essay will attempt to penetrate this tight web of associations, the symbiotic in-between where Zeno's subjectivity narrates itself. To understand the intersubjective relation of Zeno with his others it is helpful to reexamine a text that preceded the composition of the novel and directly inspired the philosophical pessimism of its