book readin'
Aug. 19th, 2006 12:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kip_w.
I finished Baudolino, by Umberto Eco, yesterday. By coincidence, it was the work of the same translator, William Weaver, who also made the English version of The Late Matthia Pascal, by Luigi Pirandello, which I read earlier in the summer.
Anyway, Baudolino is an interesting read -- the beginning hooked me immediately, then he switched gears and I sort of ran in place for a while. I eventually bogged down around page 100 and read some other books before coming back to it, after which I got more and more into it, finally polishing it off last night.
The book is the story of a habitual liar who believes what he says much of the time. A peasant child rescued from illiteracy by an eccentric monk, he comes to the attention of Fredrick the Great and becomes almost a son to him. Baudolino has a gift for languages that helps bring him to the University of Paris, where he falls in with other dreamers and becomes obsessed with Prester John. (The disputants' bull sessions give us a taste of some of the same doctrinal hair-splitting that flavored The Name of the Rose and Foucalt's Pendulum.) Even in the course of a life that affects much of the known worls, Baudolino returns again and again to the Presbyter, whose kingdom he believes in sincerely even as he fabricates details of it.
Along the way, we see the ups and downs of Baudolino's eventful life, his joys and his guilt, and -- despite the absence of Sherlock Holmes in any form -- a challenging locked-room mystery. I was peeking to see if the book's text went all the way to the last page and accidentally glimpsed the final chapter heading, and thought I had ruined the end for myself, but in the course of reading on, I got there and found that I hadn't after all, so that was cool.
It's a good book and an interesting life, complete with the eventual sadness that tends to come with biography. He may be a liar, but he's not dull.
.
I finished Baudolino, by Umberto Eco, yesterday. By coincidence, it was the work of the same translator, William Weaver, who also made the English version of The Late Matthia Pascal, by Luigi Pirandello, which I read earlier in the summer.
Anyway, Baudolino is an interesting read -- the beginning hooked me immediately, then he switched gears and I sort of ran in place for a while. I eventually bogged down around page 100 and read some other books before coming back to it, after which I got more and more into it, finally polishing it off last night.
The book is the story of a habitual liar who believes what he says much of the time. A peasant child rescued from illiteracy by an eccentric monk, he comes to the attention of Fredrick the Great and becomes almost a son to him. Baudolino has a gift for languages that helps bring him to the University of Paris, where he falls in with other dreamers and becomes obsessed with Prester John. (The disputants' bull sessions give us a taste of some of the same doctrinal hair-splitting that flavored The Name of the Rose and Foucalt's Pendulum.) Even in the course of a life that affects much of the known worls, Baudolino returns again and again to the Presbyter, whose kingdom he believes in sincerely even as he fabricates details of it.
Along the way, we see the ups and downs of Baudolino's eventful life, his joys and his guilt, and -- despite the absence of Sherlock Holmes in any form -- a challenging locked-room mystery. I was peeking to see if the book's text went all the way to the last page and accidentally glimpsed the final chapter heading, and thought I had ruined the end for myself, but in the course of reading on, I got there and found that I hadn't after all, so that was cool.
It's a good book and an interesting life, complete with the eventual sadness that tends to come with biography. He may be a liar, but he's not dull.
.
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no subject
Date: 2006-08-19 10:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-19 10:07 pm (UTC)B
no subject
Date: 2006-08-22 10:30 pm (UTC)I haven't read Calvino. Yet. [opt: Insert predictable "Calvino and Hobbo" joke here. or not]
Italo Calvino
Date: 2006-08-23 10:56 am (UTC)There are so many to choose from.
B
Re: Italo Calvino
Date: 2006-09-02 08:19 pm (UTC)I can't say if I drew it before the book came out, but I know I drew it before I heard of the book. Great minds!
Baudolino
Date: 2006-08-19 10:07 pm (UTC)And I've heard people say that they had the same problem with The Name of the Rose. (I had no problem reading that book.)
B
Re: Baudolino
Date: 2006-08-22 10:28 pm (UTC)(The only book I can think of that was translated to the screen in what feels like a literal fashion was the original Night of the Hunter, directed by Charles Laughton. I saw the movie and was vastly impressed with how atmospheric it was -- like a silent movie, with sound -- and when I read the book, I realized how closely it was adapted. Still haven't seen the remake.)
Re: Baudolino
Date: 2006-08-23 10:52 am (UTC)B