SOURCE: "Obsessed by Death," in Saturday Review, Vol. 50 (L), No. 23, June 10, 1967, pp. 36-7.

Below, Guzzardi describes the similarities between the works of Svevo and French novelist Marcel Proust, commenting that Svevo's "contribution almost matches Proust's influence on contemporary literary currents, and it is time that Svevo's fame in the U.S. won some new boosters. " In this review of Short Sentimental Journey, and Other Stories, Guzzardi states that the translators showed "considerable ingenuity in putting into decent English Svevo's tortured and turgid prose."

To call Italo Svevo the Italian Proust is to rob him of his truly original creative strength. Still, the resemblances between them—although Svevo never read Proust—conveniently position Svevo for Americans who know little about him. They were contemporaries; they both shared in shaping the new directions of the modern novel; they were both extraordinarily sensitive to and understanding about the workings of the...