| Baudolino | 
 enlarge | Author: Umberto Eco
Creator: William Weaver
Publisher: Harvest Books
Category: Book
List Price: £9.77
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Avg. Customer Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 1674058
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 544
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.9
ISBN: 0156029065
Dewey Decimal Number: 853.914
EAN: 9780156029063
ASIN: 0156029065
Publication Date: October 2003
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Dispatched from the US -- Expect delivery in 2-3 weeks. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy!
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Amazon.co.uk Review
In Baudolino the ever ingenious Umberto Eco draws on the medieval legends surrounding Prester John--a mythical Christian emperor of the Far East--to create a sprawling, picaresque adventure yarn. The eponymous Baudolino is the book's hero and chief, although deeply unreliable, narrator. After a brief foray into Baudolino's youthful attempts at autobiography, the novel opens in Constantinople in 1204, at the time of the Fourth Crusade. Baudolino has helped Niketas Choniates, the chancellor of the basileus of Byzantium, to flee the city. As the men make their way to safety Baudolino begins to recount, with numerous digressions and contradictions, his extraordinary life story. Born an Italian peasant, Baudolino claims to have been adopted as a boy by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. Sent to Paris to learn "the art of saying well that which may or may not be true" Baudolino fell in with a band of good fellows and fell in love with his stepmother. After being embroiled in the canonisation of Charlemagne; finding the sacred remains of the Magi and helping Frederick with a siege or two, Baudolino and chums, armed with the Holy Grail, set off on a particularly monster strewn journey to find the holy Prestor John. Teaming with Eco's customary metafictional games, intellectual jokes and elaborate (and even ludicrous) theological discussions, this novel is possibly his most accessible, and arguably enjoyable, since The Name of the Rose. --Travis Elborough
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| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
 Dreadful book by a writer capable of much better October 29, 2008
Baudolino promised to be good. It is set in the Dark Ages, culminating with the sacking of Byzantium by the rabble of the Fourth Crusade. I like the (so-called) Dark ages. I like tales of adventure and warfare, and this book promised all this. I also like clever writers, and Eco is certainly clever.
The first chapter of Baudolino is fantastic. It is supposed to be the narrative of Baudolino, scrawled on parchment filched from his mentor. He has scrapped it clear of what was written on it, but imperfectly. Also, Baudolino, at this stage, is only semi-literate. So the opening chapter is confused and exhilarating, as we pick our way through the jumble of Latin fragments from the text that preceded Baudolino's, straining to catch the meaning of his erratic syntax and spelling. It is a treat. This, surely, is what clever Professors turned writers should be doing - showing us, in a playful way, what a delight the simple act of reading can be.
Unfortunately, after that fabulous opening gambit, Eco decides not to bother with the shambling prose of his peasant boy hero, and fast forwards to his dotage, where he recounts his life to Niketa, a Byzantium official recently rescued from maurading Crusaders. So out goes the teasing muddle of the opening chapter, and it is replaced by a very long, eventful tale, which is rendered lifeless by the bland and spiritless style in which it is told.
It shouldn't be like this. There are endless sieges, battles, a murder mystery, a quest, sex with fantastical creatures and Parisian whores, debates about the nature of the world, faith, and enough major characters to populate a small Balkan country. Just typing that list makes me think, "This must be a great book!"
But the flaw is the way in which the tale is told. It is like Eco used up all his energy in that first chapter, and after that can't be bothered trying to make the subsequent tale challenging, or even interesting. One is tempted to speculate that he dreamed up the idea for the opening chapter, then had to come up with a story to append to it.
It might seem odd to accuse the author of a five hundred page book of not bothering, but that's what it feels like. Scenes and events seem to bore him, so he trundles on another dramatic happening to see if that one will be more amusing. It isn't, so along comes another, and another. Soon, one realises, a lot of stuff is happening, but nothing important is occurring. The treatment of Baudolino's wife is an example. She is introduced on page 228. By page 231 she is dead. We've barely had time to learn her name, and she is out of the book. In between, she hasn't had time to develop as a character, so we don't feel much sorrow at her passing, so the references Baudolino makes to her lack emotional power.
A lot of the problems of the book lie in the style of writing. This is a serious charge to level at a semiotician. But the writing is bland and uninteresting. Some of it is told in the first person past tense, some in the third person, but neither perspective has impact, interest or tension.
Sometimes, it gets plain careless. On an epic quest, the companions confront many dangers. Here is how one of them is described:
"At midnight, as the men were thinking they might get some sleep, crested serpents arrived, each with two or three heads. With their tails they swept the ground and they kept their jaws wide open, with in which three tongues darted. Their stink was perceptible at a mile's distance, and all had the impression that their eyes, which sparkled in the lunar light, spread poison, as for that matter, the basilisk does ..."
There are several problems here. First of all, the passage is boring. An encounter with giant serpents at night should be terrifying to read, not bland. People should be yelling, all our senses should be used to convey the intensity of combat. Apparently, however, no-one even bothered to utter a word during the skirmish. Second, there is little description. What do the serpents smell like? Burning tyres? Sewers? Boiled cabbage? Third, Eco forgets one of the first rules of creative writing - show, don't tell. How do the companions discover the serpents are mutli-headed, multi-tongued, and possessed of a lethal gaze? The description above reads more like a cargo dispatch. DELIVERY: One dozen triple headed serpents, stinking. Finally, Eco presents the information in the wrong order. The first thing that the companions would have become aware of was the smell (whatever it was). Then perhaps the sound of things moving in the darkness, the hissing of all these multiple heads. Then something moving in the shadows, then the realisation that they were confronting something unnatural and terrifying.
Now, imagine this encounter is one of several, each recounted in the same bland style, each offerring no hope that this one will be the last. At one point, Eco indicates he has tried to use different voices in the writing:
"As he [Baudolino] had been tender and pastoral in telling of Abdul's death, so now he was epic and majestic in reporting the fording of that river."
Only, there is no noticable difference in tone between different sections. The whole book, apart from the excellent first chapter, is told in the same monotonous voice, as far as this reader can judge.
The book is very long, and through out it is written in a boring style devoid of drama and interest. the characters are unappealing and the polt, though trying to be reminiscent of Cervantes, Swift and goodness knows who else, is alternately either just boring or silly. Read (or as I intend to, re-read) The Name of the Rose, which is a much better book than this.
 Beautiful and wordy July 3, 2008
It is a beautifully written and a very clever book. At the beginning I could not understand where it was going, later at some point I thought that the story became unnecessary and felt like just skimming through it but at the end you see how the author took you exactly where he wanted and everything beautifully lies in its place. And the main idea of the story is just admirable. However, I would not recommend it to people who are not much into the game of words and imagination.
A good yarn April 5, 2008
I enjoyed reading this novel, both a good exploration of the medieval fantasy of the exotic and a window into the real politics, culture and personalities of the time. The in-jokes are indeed amusing, for example the notion that the Holy Grail and the legend of Prester John were both dreamed up by the medieval equivalent of a bunch of stoned students!
It's a bit disconcerting how, after the 3rd Crusade, the characters leave a credible world to arrive in a presumably invented orient inhabited by skiapods, blemmyae, unicorns and satyrs, then returns to the real world- and how events resume there as though there were no delineated boundary between the credible and fantastic. Is the reader supposed to suspend disbelief or think 'hang on, this guy's telling porkies?' The narrative switches between first and third person, and one is lulled into taking the impossible stuff at face value.
One flaw I detected in the novel was that Baudolino tells his story to Choniates in the ravaged city of Constantinople, after rescuing him there from the rampaging 'pilgrims' of the Fourth Crusade. I can't believe the courtier would have had time or inclination to sit down and listen to someone's ramblings while his world was burning down in the background and his family remained in some danger. He would have had more pressing concerns! It would have been better to have Baudolino commence his narrative after they had all got away to safety, and things had calmed down a bit, and after Choniates would have recovered from the shock of the outrage, a shock which isn't quite adequately conveyed. Another slight criticism might be that there is little sense in Baudolino's account, of the characters aging or maturing mentally, although the story takes place over an entire lifetime. These things aside (and irrelevant theological digressions notwithstanding), I found it an engaging and at times engrossing book and would certainly recommend it.
 Baudolino October 22, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Umberto Eco is known for creating difficult first chapters for his novels. If a person will not work through the first chapter of the book, then how can they be trusted to handle the complications of the remainder of the novel? This approach worked with The Name of the Rose and Foucalt's Pendulum because those novels were intelligent, clever and witty. It fails horribly in Baudolino. If you cannot make it through the child-Baudolino's first attempts at writing, do not worry too much - the rest of the novel isn't worth the effort.
Baudolino is 'adopted' at an early age by Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor, who was impressed by his ability to read and write. Later, Baudolino is sent to Paris to study, where he meets various people who function as both clear and veiled references to historical figures from the time. He returns to Frederick and is part of an honour guard until the monarch's death under mysterious circumstances. From there, his Paris friends and a few others head East to the mythical lands of Prestor John. Eventually he returns to Constantinople, where he meets Nicetas Choniates, a Greek historian and tells the story of his life.
If I have glossed over the plot, it is because ultimately, it does not matter. The novel may be split into two parts, the first of which is involves Frederick, the second concerning the 'Twelve Wise Men's journey to Prestor John's land, but it is more honest to discuss the novel based on its two themes - deceit and history.
It should first be noted that Eco is a tremendously intelligent man, with an astonishing thirty honorary doctorates from universities around the world. He is a famous medievalist, and uses this knowledge as a base for the environs and times of Baudolino. This is fine - he manages to throw enough history and clever 'in' jokes into the mix to show that he is a smart man.
Now to the first theme, deceit. We are told, early on and throughout the novel, that Baudolino is a liar. The text shows this quite often, though it is surprising to note that for a novel written in the first person, as narrated by Baudolino to Nicetas, there is virtually no introspection, no thoughtful analysis, no internal dialogue. Baudolino is a man of action, though the action is poor.
So, a liar. Baudolino happens to be present at various points of significant historical interest, and it is through his self-serving and self-interested machinations that history progresses. For us, the twenty-first century reader, this is clever, because we know the truth, as it were. But it is dishonest. Baudolino makes up a variety of events and items to prove the existence of Prestor John, including creating the Holy Grail from the drinking bowl of his dead father. We chortle because everyone back then was so superstitious, we chortle because the Grail is a Big Deal even day, but ultimately, the laughter is empty. What is the point of such deceit? Is it to consider ourselves more clever and better than the people of those times? Is it to believe that Baudolino himself is more clever than anyone else? If yes, why do we care? Baudolino is a personality-less archetype, that of the wanderer. As above, there are no insights into his thoughts or motives, and his adventures aren't exciting enough to excuse this omission.
To continue further: Baudolino was educated in Paris. He could read and write in many languages. He would have known the grand scale to which his deception would reach, and yet he was willing to deceive the Church. Why? His character showed no great dislike towards religion. The argument could be put forth that it was to further honour Frederick, to enhance his greatness but again, why? The character, as shown, does not display, in thought or word, much gratification for what Frederick did to him. It is too large a leap to expect the reader to believe that a man who, throughout the narrator of his story never really praises his adopted father, would go to such world-changing lengths for him.
The second theme involves mythology. Eco draws heavily from the Nuremberg Chronicles, an early illustrated world history that is one of the best surviving examples of an early printed book. The Nuremberg Chronicles is filled with all manner of wondrous creatures: the skiapod, with its one great foot that it uses to hope along at tremendous speeds; the blemmyes, or people who have no head but a face in their chest, and so forth.
Baudolino encounters these and many other mythical creatures throughout his travels. Can we believe him? No. But, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. In the hands of a good author, mythological creatures are just fine. And Eco is a good author, right? No, not in this novel. He describes the weird and wonderful creatures, and then they become little more than jokes. Only one, a skiapod named Gavagai, develops a personality, but it is a joke personality. He speaks in stilted, child-like dialogue, and functions primarily as a guide throughout the world of monsters.
I suppose it is nice that Eco is writing a novel that draws heavily from the Nuremberg Chronicles, just as I suppose it is nice that he weaves history and myth into his story of the 13th century, but the question that must be asked is: Why am I bothering reading this book?
At the end we find out. A character says, 'in a great history little truths can be altered so that the greater truth emerges.', and the text of the novel supports this. Does it matter that Baudolino lied about probably everything that ever happened to him? No, it does not. If a greater truth is revealed, it doesn't matter how many lies are told. But Eco has no greater truth. The idea that history changes based on our perception is not new, nor is it worthy of devoting an entire book.
Perhaps the worst part of this novel is that there are other authors who write historical fiction better than this. Generally, a lot of what is written is pulpy, but the authors usually provide a strong plot, strong characters, and no end of excitement. Take that away, and we have a history book. Sadly, Eco doesn't even provide this, because the history we have is too full of lies, and what is true is not fully explained. In the end, we have a book that could have been done better by almost anyone, and which has virtually no reason to exist whatsoever. Eco is a better writer than this book shows.
a tall tale August 15, 2007
Eco certainly knows how to spin a tale, and this is what he has done here, using the character of Baudolino to tell stories (or lies?) all the way through the book. Full of fantastic detail, the book's 500+ pages are also filled with long discussions about belief, religion, philosophy, poetry, the vacuum ... and much more besides. This can become tedious, and often the dialogues are long-winded. Nevertheless, at times it is a gripping tale, somewhere between medieval adventure and fantasy with a good dash of religion, love, battles and lots and lots of history.
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