Umberto Eco
Baudolino

LA RECENSIONE

What can be said about this novel that hasn't already been said and better?

Well, there's plenty (what did you expect?) and I'll say something too, just be a bit patient, and to honor my usual brevity, I won't recount the plot since it's not that important and you can find it here (a great review was indeed written on DeB just over two years ago by my friend musicanidi) and there anyway…

First of all, I must admit that the beginning is captivating as well as very comical due to the way it's written (a mix of semi-educated Italatin), too bad it lasts only a few chapters and then gradually becomes more serious and monotonous, filled as it is with more or less verified historical data. In fact, after the first half, I was tempted to quit but to honor this great Italian writer, I held on till the end, but alas it became less and less appealing (from my point of view obviously).

It talks about emperors, kings, popes (bishops, priests, etc.), mercenaries, Saracens, Christian crusaders, Turks, French, Germans; the "green honey" (hashish) is also mentioned and used, along with wines of all kinds from medieval times and places, maidens, prostitutes, and queens (who all have one thing in common… don't ask me for clarification, as you know very well what the hell it could be).

It narrates long & short battles and long & short journeys undertaken by our valiant ones to achieve results dear to them, and it ends with Baudolino who, once abandoned by the brave and returned to his path, decides despite his age to continue that journey whose destination is the journey itself… and nothing, or rather, to me it seems as if at a certain point Umberto Eco got fed up with writing this story and ended it by making Baudolino into an endless pilgrim.

p.s. oh yes, I almost forgot, in short, this is the story of Baudolino, a very ingenious little peasant liar who becomes the emperor's protégé… and that's it.

2nd p.s. for just these two responses the book deserves to be read, Umberto Eco was asked: Do you think Sicilian readers will enjoy it too?
UE: "I hope so. I did not pretend to do philology. I invented an imaginary Italian. These are not scholarly pages, they are comic pages."

and then: And will the League like this book?
UE: "I don’t think so... Studying that era, I understood many of the reasons for the crisis of Italian politics today."