Umberto Eco is one of those authors who frustrates me. I truly enjoyed The Name of the Rose
The novel is about Giambattista "Yambo" Bodoni, a Milan rare book dealer in his 60s. Yambo comes out of a coma to discover he has a unique form of amnesia. He can remember the plots of and verbatim passages from virtually every book he has read, including comic books. He does not, however, remember his name, his wife, his children or any other detail of or event in his life. In fact, even his vivid literary recollection is without a frame of reference as he is unable to place any work in the context of his own life. As a result, all his memory and knowledge lack emotion and nuance. As he tells his wife when she comments that a compliment he pays her seems uncharacteristic, "You'll have to forgive me. I can't seem to say anything that comes from the heart. I don't have feelings, I only have memorable sayings."
The first part of the book deals with Yambo awakening from his coma and his initial attempts to cope with life as a person who can't "remember images, or smells, or flavors. I only remember words." He finds, though, that relying on friends and family to try to recapture his past means he is just learning their memories, not his own. Thus, in the second and longest part of the book, Yambo goes to his childhood home, large portions of which he abandoned decades ago. He rummages through a long-closed attic and a variety of rooms to see if the contents will resurrect his memory. This portion of the text is highlighted with illustrations of covers of and pictures from books, sheet music, magazines, records and a wide variety of detritus. In an interview, Eco says the images are those of his personal memorabilia and they certainly lend authenticity to Yambo's endeavor.
Article comments
1 - Mark
Yes, how dare an Italian author write about Italy! All books published in America should be America-centric! We are such a great nation that we don;t need to know anything about anywhere else. Hoo-Hah!
If the "critic" disliked Baudolino so much he could not even be bothered to FINISH IT, why bother trying yet another book he may be inclined to dislike? LOANA's back cover copy makes it clear that it is not at all like ROSE or PENDULUM: arguably, it suggests more similarities with BAUDOLINO (faulty memories being great liars).
All told, this review is empty and swell-headed. LOANA, on the other hand, may delight fans of nonspoonfed novels (as well as Eco fans).
2 - Erik
I'm still reading Loana, but it is a worthwhile point that Eco's latest novel is stubbornly Italian, despite his worldwide fame. Loana is a unique beast, because it is entirely grounded in the pop culture of Eco's youth, but there are countless references to contemporary or recent Italian figures and events that few readers outside of Italy will pick up on.
That said, I've created an online set of annotations to the novel, the Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana Annotation Project. It's a wiki that anyone can contribute notes to:
http://queenloana.wikispaces.org/
3 - erik
I'm still reading Loana, but it is a worthwhile point that Eco's latest novel is stubbornly Italian, despite his worldwide fame. Loana is a unique beast, because it is entirely grounded in the pop culture of Eco's youth, but there are countless references to contemporary or recent Italian figures and events that few readers outside of Italy will pick up on.
That said, I've created an online set of annotations to the novel, the Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana Annotation Project. It's a wiki that anyone can contribute notes to:
http://queenloana.wikispaces.org/
4 - erik
whoops- the computer was stalling- please delete these multiple comments!