Another Damn'd Thick, Square Historical Novel, eh, Mr. Eco?

Baudolino - Umberto Eco

Using postmodern irony, paradox, and unreliable narration, Eco gives a wonderful sense of medieval thought and culture. Doing so, he explores the impact of fantasy, fabrications, and gossip upon what we ruefully agree to call “reality.” “I had not yet realized that, imagining other worlds, you end up changing this one,” the hero of the title says.

Eco is often accused of writing professorial prose, but in this novel Eco’s alchemy combines the historical, political, fantastical, picaresque and adventurous to create magic. But I confess at the 2/3’s mark I was flagging. One reason was the endless Games of Thrones-type intriguing and fighting amongst factions. Another reason I was weakening was the vast erudition of the author. I quailed in particular due to his deep knowledge of medieval history, as well as the myths and legends that infuse it – not to mention our own images of it, fed by, for example, Ivanhoe or Eaters of the Dead or The Name of the Rose or movies from Robin Hood with Errol Flynn to the forgotten 1981 epic Excalibur (which would be cool, come to think of it, with a head full of mescaline).

I had the impression that Eco had a lot of fun writing this novel. I also imagine that he enjoyed running down countless sources to enrich and embellish the prose with a range of tones, sometimes ironic, sometimes melancholy, sometimes amazed or ostentatiously learned to the point of laboriousness of detail, calling to mind another detail-ridden novel The Quincunx.

In the second part Eco introduces the reader into a surprising collection of peoples, creatures, monsters and legendary characters in a journey into the unknown that comes close to the fantasy genre. I recommend this big novel to readers that derive pleasure from getting overwhelmed in literary labyrinths.