SOURCE: A review of Further Confessions of Zeno, in The New York Times Book Review, Sec. 7, December 28, 1969, pp. 12-13.

Below, Simon favorably assesses Further Confessions of Zeno, perceiving "a cheerful banter that can swerve as easily into madcap satire as into genuine pathos, but most of the time remains just serenely and profoundly funny. "

Readers who rightly recognize Italo Svevo's The Confessions of Zeno as one of the most, important novels of the century, might be put off, at first glance, by Further Confessions of Zeno. Bits and pieces of an unfinished novel, they might think, and a sequel at that. Bits and pieces they are, for the most part, but if that sounds uninviting, let us give them (borrowing from Svevo's favorite philosopher, Schopenhauer) the Greek words for left-overs, "parerga and paralipomena," and forthwith it all becomes respectable. Yet these fragments of a great last work are...