Senilità Add a review

Senilità, translated into English as As a Man Grows Older or Emilio's Carnival, is Italo Svevo's second novel, first published in 1898. The novel's protagonist is Emilio Brentani, a failed writer torn between his longing for love and pleasure and his regret for not enjoying either.

In the novel, Svevo addresses the problems of ineptitude and of the inability on the part of the protagonist to manage his own inner, sentimental life. The indecisiveness and inaction with which Emilio deals with affairs in his life lead him to shut out his memories, leaving him in a state of spiritual old age (hence the title "Senility").

The story was adapted into the 1962 film Careless, directed by Mauro Bolognini. and again in 1986 by Andrea Barzini as Desiderando Giulia.