ABSTRACT
To re-read in bulk the writing of the American 1920's is to induce a state of literary vertigo at the difference between the best work of the time and much of the work which was held up to public admiration as the best. There is a special awfulness that defies the historical imagination about novelists; poets; playwrights; critics. Lewis emphasizes segments of time because of his interest in the objects and furnishings of middle class life; Italo Svevo, in his different way, emphasizes fragments of time in his concentration upon states of boredom, memory, and awareness of self. Svevo did all that Lewis set out to do and more, and in doing so, he joined the very small company of writers who could combine humanity with satire. Like Sinclair Lewis, Svevo satirized the middle class, but lovingly and without Lewis’ unrestrained burlesque.
