The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
by Umberto Eco, Geoffrey Brock, trans.
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 1304)
Read in January, 2008
recommended to Laura by:
Nilsrecommends it for: Nils Thingvall
Such an interesting premise: our protagonist awakes after a near-fatal stroke to find himself ensconced in a mental fog. Although he retains his common knowledge (how to tie his hoes and brush his teeth) and his wealth of literary memories (collected over a bibliophilic 60 years), his private, emotional memories that define his worldly experience and give his life context are painfully absent.
He seeks to reclaim these personal mental treasures by returning to the places of his childhood, fo...more
He seeks to reclaim these personal mental treasures by returning to the places of his childhood, fo...more
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Read in May, 2007
I expected a lot from this book when I bought it, and I have to say that I was quite dissappointed.
I liked the lead character a lot, and the offset for the plot was excellent, but it seemed to me that he (Eco)didn't play around enough with all the possibilities which his character's situation allowed.
At Solara, the idea of trying to recover his history by surrounding himself with his childhood things was very appealing to me, but at some point I got sick of rummaging through old vinyl dis...more
I liked the lead character a lot, and the offset for the plot was excellent, but it seemed to me that he (Eco)didn't play around enough with all the possibilities which his character's situation allowed.
At Solara, the idea of trying to recover his history by surrounding himself with his childhood things was very appealing to me, but at some point I got sick of rummaging through old vinyl dis...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in May, 2007
Umberto Eco is always prone to uncontrollable wordiness but the reader is usually compensated by the fascinated plot, complex characters, and general atmoshpere of his books. It is also generally the case that when Eco goes off in a tangent, it is to show off his knowledge in history and symbolism which personally I find interesting.
This books is an exception. It preserves the charactistic verbosity of the author bu the plot fails to become gripping or evolve in any significant direction. Al...more
This books is an exception. It preserves the charactistic verbosity of the author bu the plot fails to become gripping or evolve in any significant direction. Al...more
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Read in February, 2005
Es triste despertarte una mañana y ser incapaz de reconocer a tu mujer e hijos, abrir los ojos y no recordar tu profesión, ni donde vives o tus gustos. Esa es la realidad de Giambattista Bodoni, un hombre de sesenta años que, después de sufrir un accidente, ha perdido por completo la memoria personal, la más ligada a las emociones, y conserva la memoria histórica, así que sabe muy bien quién es Napoleón, pero ve su propia vida como si acabara de inaugurarla.
Para ayudarle en su proce...more
Para ayudarle en su proce...more
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Read in November, 2007
I read every 449 pages of this book... and feel like I wasted a lot of time. This book needs SO MUCH editing. The premise and some of the ideas presented had great potential for a very interesting story, however it fails in almost every way. There is no characterization, the story barely moves from page 1 to page 449, and there are many story lines which are left unfinished. 90% of the book is tedious description of dated material such as books, records, photographs, etc. which are suppose to...more
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Read in February, 2008
The reviewer lady on the main page of this book got it pretty well.
I love the idea of the book and much of its execution.
The only problem is it doesn't read quite as well as it should. I am not sure what I want from it, but it seems almost brittle in its language and story flow. Thin.
Eco does a fine job of excavating his narrator's personal history through his odd remnants of songs, comic books, and quiet memories, that's for sure. You really get a sense of what it's like to...more
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Read in November, 2007
recommends it for:
those who use books as landmarks
I remember what the word "giraffe" looked like in the last chapter of Fun With Dick & Jane, where it sat on the page beneath the campy illustration of school kids at the zoo. I remember that I read Black Beauty curled up in a corner of my aunt and uncle's living room in Connecticut, feeling homesick and out of place, and that I bought The Unbearable Lightness of Being in a train station in England and read it straight through on the plane from London to Orlando. The lights were off...more
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Read in April, 2008
I'll admit that I was initially drawn to this book because of the great pictures - reproductions of pop culture media from the 30s and 40s. I have liked previous books by Eco as much for their interesting plots as for their philosophical ruminations. Unfortunately, this book was really short on an interesting story line and seemed to be purely a vehicle for Eco to riff on the themes of memory, identity, childhood in wartime Italy, and whatever else occurred to him.
The first section of th...more
The first section of th...more
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Read in December, 2007
This is the first book that I did not completely mangle in my comings and goings from work. The pages are still crisp and the cover has not fallen off. I consider this an accomplishment, because for me, the sign of a good book is one that is beaten up and dog-eared. I LOVED this novel. It is the first Umberto Eco book that I have read and it was a delight to read.
The main character, a very loveable Italian gentleman named Yambo awakens from a stroke to find that his personal memory bank has be...more
The main character, a very loveable Italian gentleman named Yambo awakens from a stroke to find that his personal memory bank has be...more
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Read in March, 2008
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
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Read in January, 2006
This is an amazing story of a man who wakes up with amnesia. Fortunately for us readers, it's not just regular amnesia, it's a special kind, where he loses his personal memory. He remembers quotes, events, etc. that did not affect him personally, but cannot remember his wife's face, his parents' death, or his first love. He returns to the family's country home to rest, & starts looking through his childhood belongings, attempting to look at something that will trigger his personal memory. It...more
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Read in February, 2008
I have enjoyed this book, not for its thrilling action, but for the historical perspective it gave to the reader. I learned about the WWII from a point of view that I had never come across. I enjoyed the analysis of music, comic books of the time and more that the author makes during the search for his memories.
The style of the book is very "thick" and thorough. The ending of the book was a little bit surprising and despite the fact that it was not disappointing, it left me longing...more
The style of the book is very "thick" and thorough. The ending of the book was a little bit surprising and despite the fact that it was not disappointing, it left me longing...more
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Read in April, 2007
I was about 150 pages into the book when I started feeling the way you feel when you're looking through stacks of photo albums with someone you don't really know, who's telling you very detailed stories about people you've never met and places you've never been -- people and places to whom you have no connection.
In the end, the concept of the book (which is what drew me to it in the first place) was what made it weak. People are interesting because of their experiences, their memories of the...more
In the end, the concept of the book (which is what drew me to it in the first place) was what made it weak. People are interesting because of their experiences, their memories of the...more
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Read in July, 2008
This book is proof (as if proof were neccesary) that Umberto Eco can write beautifully about anything. A man loosing all his personal memory is an interesting concept for a story, but this book just didn't go anywhere. Eco spends hundreds of pages and gives full color pictures of the objects Yambo rediscovers, but a clear picture of who he was doesn't emerge until the very end. As a result, the book reads like a bunch of beautiful, flowery reminiscences about the objects of Eco's own childhood, ...more
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10.19.07
Listening to this on another digital audio-book thing. I love the library!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
anyway the first half of the book went smoothly for me, i was engrossed in the plot and taken in by the gimmicky premise. and Eco's language (well, in translation) can be lovely. but the abundant literary allusions....what can i say, got on my fucking nerves. and after a while, the amnesia dude's search for his past (that could just as easily have been told to him, for the most part) starts to ...more
Listening to this on another digital audio-book thing. I love the library!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
anyway the first half of the book went smoothly for me, i was engrossed in the plot and taken in by the gimmicky premise. and Eco's language (well, in translation) can be lovely. but the abundant literary allusions....what can i say, got on my fucking nerves. and after a while, the amnesia dude's search for his past (that could just as easily have been told to him, for the most part) starts to ...more
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Read in September, 2007
Four stars because rarely is a book able to engage me, interest me and frustrate the crap out of me all at once.
I feel I may be missing the deeper picture of the book. Maybe I was trying to read too much into it (it's a man trying to piece together the story of his life.) However, and this is what I found frustrating, the tangent stories that break the narrative (not, I think, with intention by Eco) and go off to reflect on ______ for far longer than it should. Why does the protagonist only ...more
I feel I may be missing the deeper picture of the book. Maybe I was trying to read too much into it (it's a man trying to piece together the story of his life.) However, and this is what I found frustrating, the tangent stories that break the narrative (not, I think, with intention by Eco) and go off to reflect on ______ for far longer than it should. Why does the protagonist only ...more
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Read in September, 2007
A fun shout out to all your history, comic-book, old movie, and Catholic dogma trivia, this book strings together all the incidental things that we absorb and make us who we are.
The premise is that a man, through some accident has lost his memory. He remembers events as one would have read about them but not as he experienced them. The book is his quest to restore those memories. He delves through old books, papers, records, comic books, etc, hoping to glean a bit of himself from them. In th...more
The premise is that a man, through some accident has lost his memory. He remembers events as one would have read about them but not as he experienced them. The book is his quest to restore those memories. He delves through old books, papers, records, comic books, etc, hoping to glean a bit of himself from them. In th...more
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Read in January, 2008
recommends it for:
People who skip the words
The only reason I am giving this book 2 stars instead of 1 is that the pictures are, for the most part, wicked cool. I highly recommend taking this book off the shelves, looking at the pictures, and then putting it back.
It's tricky to comment on the writing style of a book in translation, but if Eco is a compelling writer, then he is poorly translated here.
I guess I can't believe that I finished this book. The characters are non-existent. You could make the argument that this is on ...more
It's tricky to comment on the writing style of a book in translation, but if Eco is a compelling writer, then he is poorly translated here.
I guess I can't believe that I finished this book. The characters are non-existent. You could make the argument that this is on ...more
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Read in May, 2007
recommends it for:
eco fans, cultural studies students with an interest in fascist era Italy
Starts off really well with an interesting premise - an antiquarian bookseller loses his personal memory but retains the memory of what he has read. The first section which deals with his initial recovery is quite good with all the referential/personal identity fun you would expect from an amnesia tale written by a semiotician.
Then the second section begins, with the main character visiting his childhood home, trying to recreate his past through the artifacts there of 30s and 40s Italy. Fa...more
Then the second section begins, with the main character visiting his childhood home, trying to recreate his past through the artifacts there of 30s and 40s Italy. Fa...more
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recommends it for:
Monique
So far I am really enjoying this book. It's the story of an Italian antique book dealer who loses him memory in an accident. Now he is forced to try and put the pieces of his life back together one tiny fragment of a memory at a time. While he is incapable of remember his own wife and children, his memory of every line of every book he had ever read is in perfect tact. The dialogue is a little forced, with characters speaking in long and eloquent paragraphs with no interruptions, and it is he...more
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book data (includes all editions)
avg rating (all editions): 3.25 (821 ratings) avg rating (this edition): 3.24 (699 ratings) number of reviews: 141popular shelves
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quote
"Memory is a stopgap for humans, for whom time flies and what is passed is passed."
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