Baudolini [Import] [Paperback]

Umberto Eco (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 526 pages
• Publisher: Fabbri - RCS Libri (December 2002)
• Language: Italian
• ISBN-10: 8845247368
• ISBN-13: 978-8845247361
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6.3 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,443,684 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Liar is Liar is a Liar...., December 12, 2001

By 

Dieter Boehm (Wien) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Baudolini (Paperback)

Umberto Ecos „Baudolino" - a picaresque novel of the Middle Ages

In his fourth novel, Umberto Eco, the professor of semiotics from Bologna, has returned into the epoch that has become his second home since his world bestseller "The Name of The Rose": the Middle Ages. This time we find ourselves in the 12th century and the background of the plot is the conflict between Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa and the Upper Italian cities and the third crusade (led by Barbarossa), the plot taking place in Upper Italy as well as in Freising, Paris, Rome, Byzantium and the far and unknown Lands of the East.

Eco himself has called "Baudolino" a picaresque novel, and indeed the eponymous hero (that not accidentally does carry some character traits of Eco's) is a sly and clever liar, who is seduced by an amazing talent of storytelling to decisively influence the course of history - often against his will. The first story he makes up helps the son of a farmer from Alessandria (the city Eco was born in) to get adopted by Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa, and from that story on he achieves a further stroke of genius in nearly every chapter of the book. The cunning Baudolino („It is my pleasure to let things happen and to be the only one who knows that they are of my doing!") is present at every major historical event of his times and leaves his sly imprints on all of them.

A list of miracles of the Middle Ages that can be traced to Baudolino would be too exhaustive, just take for granted that in this novel more than one shot is taken at our knowledge on this era acquired in school, e.g. when Baudolino tells the "truth" about the relics of the Three Wise Magi in Cologne, about the canonization of Charlemagne, about the famous archpoet at the court of Barbarossa and the letter of Presbyter John (equivocally regarded as a forgery by historians), whose legendary empire on the far side of all known regions of the world Baudolino and his fellowship are trying to explore. But the two true treasures of these waxworks are Baudolino's version of the legend of the Holy Grail and - there can't be a novel by Eco without it - a mysterious case of murder. Barbarossa himself being the victim contrary to our recent assumption of him having drowned bathing in the river Saleph on the crusade simply puts the Emperor's crown on top of this perfect mystery.

But the murder mystery remains on the sidelines of the story and we meet the blind wise man Paphnutios, who solves it in the end, only on the 20 final pages of the book. "Baudolino" is rooted in the tradition of the picaresque novel and therefore dedicated to pure storytelling and the desire to tell endless tales. With these Eco keeps the reader entertained for long stretches of the rather voluminous novel, but the descriptions of faraway countries, unknown fairy tale creatures, human and manlike peoples and philosophical disputes on the form of the earth (tabernacle, disc or even sphere?) are too detailed and full of adjectives that left me behind feeling a certain lack of substance. But Eco achieves to countermand these parts with passages entrancing the reader with their subtle humor and the characters which are kept at a distance by Eco's style of storytelling are suddenly dear to you and you feel with them, for example during Baudolino`s three unhappy love affairs that make him experience the most serious tragedies in the rare moments of absolute sincerity or at the death of Baudolino's fathers Gagliaudo and Friedrich Barbarossa.

In the end Niketas Choniates, historian and chancellor of the basileus of Byzantium, who is told the whole chaotic story by Baudolino, who saves his life ("I think that when you tell a story you must always have somebody to tell it to, only then can you tell it to yourself."), has such grave doubts in the credibility of Baudolino, that he does not write the story down. Only Eco the author lets himself be unmasked as even less trustworthy by the wise Paphnutios who says: "Sooner or later somebody will tell this story, who is even more of a liar than Baudolino!" With this state of the art trick that is vintage Eco he has once more (like in some of his earlier works) achieved it to keep us completely in the dark about the trustworthiness of his sources.

But as Baudolino himself says: "Yes, I know it is not the truth, but in a great story you can change little truths to make the bigger truth reveal itself." This literary sleight of hand alone, by which the exposure of "Baudolino" as the story of a liar about a liar is put into perspective again, makes this novel that easily outweighs the typical products of the booming mass market of historical novels a pleasure to read.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful historic fantasy, January 11, 2002

By 

Ventura Angelo (Brescia, Lombardia Italy) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Baudolini (Paperback)

Rely on Umberto Eco for giving you a perfectly crafted and exquisitely erudite historical novel. You'll find yourself among the scholars in Medieval Paris,among the warriors in Italian Communal wars, and you'll see the first fall of Byzantium. You'll know the relative meaning of reality and truth, you'll find the Holy Grail and go to the quest to Prester John's realm; you'll solve maddening mystery puzzles whit the acumen worthy of Ellery Queen, and look at strange and fantastic peoples and cultures that Umberto Eco depicts in an ironic way that reminds me of the love of paradox of Italo Calvino and the refined accuracy of Jack Vance.You'll enjoy and savour it!

15 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Medieval Gesta, February 11, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Baudolini (Paperback)

I have somewhat mixed feelings about this book, I liked wery much the first half, but the second half was somewhat dissapointing. Although the story is medieval, its style, aims are completely different from The name of the rose, its rather a "Gesta", not a crime story. What I really enjoyed in this book is Eco's ability to show the medieval way of thinking, in an extraordinarily interesting, complicated (and somewhat shameful) period of European history. Howewer in the second half of the book the connection with reality is more and more lost, some kind of solution is lacking, and I found the crime story that is also present on the sidelines somehow unnecessary. (This review is based on the Polish edition)