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Baudolino
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| Part No: | 0156029065 |
| Manufacturer: | Mariner Books |
| MFG Part: | |
| Customer Rating: | 4.0 / 5.0 |
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The most playful of historical novelists, Umberto Eco has absorbed the real lesson of history: that there is no such thing as the absolute truth. In
Baudolino, he hands his narrative to an Italian peasant who has managed, through good luck and a clever tongue, to become the adopted son of the Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, and a minister of his court in the closing years of the 12th century. Baudolino's other gift is for spontaneous but convincing lies, and so his unfolding tale--as recounted in 1204 to a nobleman of Constantinople, while the fires of the Fourth Crusade rage around them--exemplifies the Cretan Liar's Paradox: He can't be believed. Why not, then, make his story as outrageous as possible? In the course of his picaresque tale, Baudolino manages to touch on nearly every major theme, conflict, and boondoggle of the Middle Ages: the Crusades; the troubadours; the legend of the Holy Grail; the rise of the cathedral cities; the position of Jews; the market in relics; the local rivalries that made Italy so vulnerable to outside attack; and the perennial power struggles between the pope and the emperor. With the help of alcohol and a mysterious Moorish concoction called "green honey," Baudolino and his ragtag friends engage in typical scholastic debates of the period, trying to determine the dimensions of Solomon's Temple and the location of the Earthly Paradise. And when the Emperor needs support in his claims for saintly lineage, who but Baudolino can craft the perfect letter of homage from the legendary Prester John, Holy (and wholly fictitious) Christian King of the East? A giddy and exasperating romp,
Baudolino will draw you into its labyrinthine inventions and half-truths, even if you know better.
--Regina Marler
It is April 1204, and Constantinople, the splendid capital of the Byzantine Empire, is being sacked and burned by the knights of the Fourth Crusade. Amid the carnage and confusion, one Baudolino saves a historian and high court official from certain death at the hands of the crusading warriors and proceeds to tell his own fantastical story.
Born a simple peasant in northern Italy, Baudolino has two major gifts-a talent for learning languages and a skill in telling lies. When still a boy he meets a foreign commander in the woods, charming him with his quick wit and lively mind. The commander-who proves to be Emperor Frederick Barbarossa-adopts Baudolino and sends him to the university in Paris, where he makes a number of fearless, adventurous friends.
Spurred on by myths and their own reveries, this merry band sets out in search of Prester John, a legendary priest-king said to rule over a vast kingdom in the East-a phantasmagorical land of strange creatures with eyes on their shoulders and mouths on their stomachs, of eunuchs, unicorns, and lovely maidens.
With dazzling digressions, outrageous tricks, extraordinary feeling, and vicarious reflections on our postmodern age, this is Eco the storyteller at his brilliant best.
| Umberto Eco | 2010-02-18 | 5 / 5 |
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| If you want a historical fiction view of the Middle Ages, this is perfect. While cassette tapes are rarely used, these arrived in perfect condition. The sound is excellent. |
| Ultimately Unsatisfying | 2009-09-16 | 3 / 5 |
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| This was the first (and so far only) work of Umberto Eco I have read and it ultimately lost my interest. I am loath to put a book down without finishing it, but this was a rare exception for me. I really enjoyed the story when it focused on the growth of the Italian city-states and when Eco focused our attention on the emergent Alessandria, but as the story continued and Eco left this behind to delve into the quest for the Holy Grail and the Kingdom of Prester John the book just lost my interest. It's well written and the characters are well developed, the plot was just too scattered across theology, mythology, the Sack of Constantinople, and the Italian city-states for my taste. |
| the fourth, another different UE novel | 2009-03-29 | 5 / 5 |
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I swallowed this book as the most delicious dessert - as I did with other Eco's novels. He's getting older and maybe the mind game is not that powerful as in foucault's pendulum but his craft-man-ship-ness just increases.
Baudolino is almost epic. No, it is epic. As any epic novel which imply the hero's travel there and back. But still this epic canvas is underlaid with post-modern historical (in many ways) discussions.
Viva Umberto! |
| Intellectual AND entertaining | 2009-02-27 | 5 / 5 |
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In this delightful and intriguing tale of adventure, Umberto Eco leads us through 12th-century Italy, France, Byzantium and lands much farther east. We move through history and myth, from the Holy and Roman Emperor Frederick to the realm of Prester John.
The protagonist of the story is an Italian peasant boy named Baudolino. He is a born teller of tall tales, but after Frederick adopts him, he puts his creative mind to work in many ingenious ways, often solving otherwise intractable diplomatic problems. Baudolino is educated in Paris. With a group of friends from his student days and some from his hometown, he joins Frederick on the Third Crusade. After Frederick dies in mysterious circumstances, Baudolino and eleven others set out to find Prester John.
With his usual skill with language and his intimate knowledge of medieval history, Eco leads us through wild lands where Baudolino and company encounter all the mythical creatures they have read about in books in Europe. They finally arrive at the city of the deacon who is the designated successor of Prester John. Near this city, Baudolino falls in love with a Hypatia and fathers a child with her. But before the child is born, a war breaks out, Hypatia sends word that she and her people are fleeing, and Baudolino and company head back west.
Back in the west Baudolino tells his tale to a Byzantine official named Niketas. He then learns, to his astonishment, that he may have inadvertently contributed to the death of his adopted father Frederick. Devastated, he becomes a stylite for a while (i.e., he takes up residence in a small hut at the top of a pillar, a form of monasticism). After several months of this, he heads back east again, to fulfill some promises he made along the way and to seek Hypatia and their child.
The story starts out in a very interesting fashion, and ends leaving us wanting more, but reasonably sure that Baudolino will fulfill his dreams. |
| The picture of a middle ages historian as a liar? | 2009-01-12 | 3 / 5 |
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The Holy Roman Empire was a misguided attempt to resurrect a civilization that should have been left dead? In the Umberto Eco romp through semi-ancient history, he lies about Prester John and other topics much as he did in his other novels like the entirely fake Foucault's Pendulum? The Greek -Christian kingdom of Ethiopia is usually thought to be the root of the Priest John kingdom?
I see, here, Umberto Eco talking about himself as being Baudolino like?
A liar who makes up historical myths
when he knows better?
I'm not a big fan of this sort of historical distortion. |
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