Baudolino Harcourt Brace and Company Oct 2002 isbn: 0151006903 $27.00 buy

Umberto Eco, October 15

Tuesday, 6pm
Askwith Hall
Cambridge
free and open to public

*Starred Review* "The challenges and joys of this Italian professor's internationally best-selling Name of the Rose (1983) indicated that literary and popular are not necessarily mutually exclusive terms. Eco's latest novel continues to support the concept. In keeping with his customary practice, Eco sets his story in the past--in this case, twelfth-century Europe and the Near East. A man named Baudolino, of northern Italian peasant stock, finds himself in Constantinople as the Crusaders are sacking the Byzantine capital. He tells his life story to a court official whose life he has saved, and what a story it is. As a youngster, he was adopted by the great Holy Roman emperor Frederick Barbarossa. Baudolino not only received his University of Paris education at the emperor's behest but also learned the geographical, cultural, and political dimensions of a much wider world than he could have ever known on his own as he accompanied Frederick on the emperor's exploits in maintaining the security of his realm. But for years Baudolino's dream was to travel east to visit the mythological domain of Prester John, a legendary priest and king. Eco's novel is dreamlike itself. He weaves with deeply colored threads a fantastical narrative that beautifully mixes the elements of an adventure story with intellectual discussions of theology, government, language, geography, and politics. The most provocative aspect of the tale, however, is the overarching question it poses about truth versus imagination in the act of recording history. This is historical fiction at its best: smart, enrapturing, and authentic."--Booklist