Svevo and Joyce

James Joyce and Italo SvevoAuthor(s): Thomas F. StaleySource: Italica, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Dec., 1963), pp. 334-338Published by: American Association of Teachers of ItalianStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/476822 .

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JAMES JOYCE AND ITALO SVEVO

James Joyce's life on the Continent has been well covered by Richard Ellmann in his massive biography, and many of Joyce's friendships have been illuminated by the friends themselves such as Paul Ldon and Eughne Jolas. One curious relationship, however, has received too little emphasis. Joyce's more famous friendships began when he had achieved a certain degree of fame, but his friendship with Italo Svevo (Ettore Schmitz), the Italian novelist, began when Joyce was a young and almost unpublished writer. This rather obscure but persistent relationship is worth particular attention. Svevo was someone in whom the young Joyce could confide the difficulties of his life as well as of his art. Joyce was too young to have much influence on Svevo's novels, but Svevo, in one way or another, helped to shape the main character in Joyce's masterpiece, Leopold Bloom. The relationship spans much of Joyce's literary career.

James Joyce and Italo Svevo (Ettore Schmitz) met in Trieste in 1907. The friendship continued until 1928, the year Svevo was killed in an automobile accident. Svevo first came to Joyce to study English; he knew some already, and he wanted to perfect his skill so he could study English literature. He was also fluent in French and German. Joyce quickly realized that Svevo was more than an ordinary pupil, and the two of them immediately responded to the other's interest in literature. Thus began many long conversations on literature and writers. When Joyce was living at 32 via Barriera Vecchia, a modest street in Trieste, Svevo was a frequent visitor in the Joyce apartment. Mary Kirn, a maid in the Joyce household remembers his long visits with Joyce that would go long into the night.' She also remembers Svevo's wife Livia making visits there with her husband. Mary Kirn was with Joyce and his family from g19o to 191 1, so Joyce and Svevo had known each other for four years during this time.

Much like the two friends who met there, Trieste was a city of international flavor. It had been a free commune since

334



JAMES JOYCE AND ITALO SVEVO 335

the 12th century. Although Trieste was under Austrian rule, it retained the Italian language and culture. The Italian flavor of the city was what attracted Joyce to it. According to Svevo, Joyce's culture had a " marked Italian bias."2 Then, too, as Svevo points out, Trieste was a great deal like Dublin. Mary Kirn says that during the time she knew Joyce he would go for a walk through the streets of Trieste everyday, stopping in shops, pausing at windows, and talking to people he would meet along the way. Svevo would accompany him on occasion, and he tells of how Joyce enjoyed these long walks through the city.

Stanislaus Joyce, four years after the death of Svevo, in 1932, wrote an introduction to the first English edition of As a Man Grows Older. In his introduction he points out that Svevo was able to read and write in English before he met Joyce, so that from the very beginning of their friendship they were able to use Italian, French, or English in their conversations. Perhaps they spoke Triestino, a dialect with many curious expressions.

One can't help but think how fortunate Svevo was to come

upon such a teacher as Joyce. Although the English lessons bored

Joyce, he must have been quite good at it, for he always seemed to have students. A student as interesting as Svevo certainly made his task more agreeable. At the time the two met there was very little to commend either of them as literary figures. Joyce was just twenty-five and had published only a slim volume of verse, a few reviews, and three stories in an Irish magazine. Svevo had published two novels; both were quickly forgotten, and were probably printed at Svevo's expense. It must have been a humorous sight to see the plump, middle-aged, Trieste businessman and the frail, youthful Joyce walking and talking together along the Canal Grande of Trieste. This scene might possibly have been the photograph of the portrait of Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom walking through the streets of Dublin in Ulysses.

Harry Levin, Richard Ellmann, and Stanislaus Joyce all

suggest the resemblance between Svevo and Leopold Bloom. Svevo was a Jew; Bloom resembles him very closely physically. The humor and the view of life seem to be similar in Svevo and



336 THOMAS F. STALEY

Bloom. Svevo, however, was far too literary for Bloom's tastes.

Stephen and Bloom were about the same difference in age as

Svevo and Joyce. Like Bloom, Svevo changed his name, but, as Ellmann points out, only for literary purposes. Both Bloom and Svevo married gentiles. The most important resemblance,

however, is noted by Stanislaus Joyce: "... and it may not be

too far-fetched to see in the person of Bloom, Svevo's maturer,

objective, peaceable temper reacting upon the younger writer's

more fiery mettle." 3 When Joyce returned to Trieste in 1919, he renewed his

old friendship with Svevo. The atmosphere of Trieste had

changed after the war. The international flavor of the city had

gone, and Joyce soon left for Paris. In 1921 he wrote Svevo in

official Italian and Triestino to ask him to bring notes on

Ulysses left in Trieste the next time he or one of his family came to Paris. Svevo brought the notes to him personally in

March of 1921. It was not until 1924, however, that Joyce had

an opportunity to repay Svevo for his many kindnesses to him

in the past. Joyce wrote several friends praising Svevo's new

novel about a man who is trying to quit smoking, Confessions

of Zeno. It was principally through Joyce's efforts that Svevo

became recognized in Italy and Europe. In 1924 Joyce wrote

Svevo that he was making use of his wife's name (Livia) for

the heroine (Anna Livia Plurabelle) of his new work, Finnegans Wake.

Because of the difference in age, the relationship between

Svevo and Joyce was close to formal. Mary Kirn, the maid and

nurse in Joyce's household, said that there was a business-like

formality about Svevo that kept a slight distance between them. He was always prompt to the minute for his lessons, even after

he had known Joyce for several years. This formality never

disappeared, but there was always a closeness, a literary friend-

ship certainly, but more, a mutual respect. In a limited edition of fifteen hundred copies, New

Directions in 1950 published a lecture delivered by Svevo in Milan in 19g7. In this lecture Svevo reveals not only a great deal of respect for Joyce's work, but he also speaks with affection



JAMES JOYCE AND ITALO SVEVO 337

for Joyce himself. At the beginning of the lecture Svevo says: "... we Triestines have a right to regard him with deep affection as if he belonged in a certain sense to us." Svevo felt called upon to defend Joyce as a decent father in spite of the

public charges that he was " loose " and " licentious." Svevo's comments on Joyce's work are primarily introductory, but he makes several cogent points that reveal his thorough understanding of what Joyce had done in his work. Svevo was interested in Freudian psychoanalysis, and he points out that

Joyce was not, but that his works reveal a great deal of depth psychology.

Unlike many of Joyce's relationships, his friendship with Svevo continued until the latter's death. In a letter to the editor of Solario, Joyce wrote of his friend:

The thought will always please me that chance gave me an op portunity to have a part, no matter how small, in the recognition that his own country and an international public accorded Svevo and an admiration of long standing that matures, rather than weakens, with the years.5

Perhaps the greatest similarity between Joyce and Svevo is the reaction of their countrymen to their work. Both Joyce and Svevo had difficulty getting read. Svevo did not have the trouble getting published, because, as Stanislaus Joyce suggests, he might have had his first two novels privately printed. Svevo and Joyce were Continental writers in the true sense of the word. Both were neglected in their own country, while they were

being read in Paris and other European cities. Svevo and Joyce had much in common philosophically. They cover a primarily pessimistic view of life with rich humor and irony. Joyce, of course, is the major writer and Svevo the minor one, but their interesting relationship seems to weave a pattern that reflects the profitable experience that results from a friendship of this kind. It was through Joyce that Svevo received attention from the major Continental critics; but perhaps it was Joyce who



338 THOMAS F. STALEY

profited more, if in any way Svevo helped him to create one of the most remarkable and genuine characters in literature.

THOMAS F. STALEY

University of Tulsa

SSee my article, " James Joyce in Trieste ", The Georgia Review, Winter 1962-63.

2 Italo Svevo, James Joyce (Limited Edition), New Directions, 1950, P- 3-

S Stanislaus Joyce, " Introduction ", As a Man Grows Older, New Directions, 1932, p. xii.

4 Svevo, op. cit., p. 2.

SEllsworth Mason and Richard Ellmann, eds., The Critical Writings of James Joyce, Viking, 1959, P. r59.



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Svevo and Joyce