false 10503 34 The premise of Umberto Eco's <I>The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana,</I> may strike some readers as laughably unpromising, and others as breathtakingly rich. A sixty-ish Milanese antiquarian bookseller nicknamed Yambo suffers a stroke and loses his memory of everything but the words he has read: poems, scenes from novels, miscellaneous quotations. His wife Paola fills in the bare essentials of his family history, but in order to trigger original memories, Yambo retreats alone to his ancestral home at Solara, a large country house with an improbably intact collection of family papers, books, gramophone records, and photographs. The house is a museum of Yambo's childhood, conventiently empty of people, except of course for one old family servant with a long memory--an apt metaphor for the mind. Yambo submerges himself in these artifacts, rereading almost everything he read as a school boy, blazing a meandering, sometimes misguided, often enchanting trail of words. Flares of recognition do come, like "mysterious flames," but these only signal that Yambo remembers something; they do not return that memory to him. It is like being handed a wrapped package, the contents of which he can only guess.<p> Within the limitations of Yambo's handicap and quest, Eco creates wondrous variety, wringing surprise and delight from such shamelessly hackneyed plot twists as the discovery of a hidden room. Illustrated with the cartoons, sheet music covers, and book jackets that Yambo uncovers in his search, <I>The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana</I> can be read as a love letter to literature, a layered excavation of an Italian boyhood of the 1940s, and a sly meditation on human consciousness. Both playful and reverent, it stands with <I>The Name of the Rose</I> and <I>The Island of the Day Before</I> as among Eco's most successful novels. <I>--Regina Marler</I> 1797159 book 2004 The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana total:1552|5:212|4:444|3:540|2:250|1:106| 1552 5062 2567 238 3 4 false false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon May 07 22:56:36 -0700 2007 Tue May 08 00:01:51 -0700 2007
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 sit...more...]]> 4 3 false false Sat Aug 16 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 16 14:53:06 -0700 2008 Fri Aug 22 15:11:54 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 3 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Sat Jul 28 09:57:23 -0700 2007 Sat Jul 28 09:57:23 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 2 false false Mon Apr 07 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Nov 05 13:48:33 -0800 2007 Tue Apr 08 07:39:14 -0700 2008 more...]]> 1 3 false false Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Nov 04 11:20:04 -0800 2007 Fri Nov 30 07:13:07 -0800 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon Jan 05 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Dec 23 04:19:43 -0800 2008 Mon Jan 05 04:24:35 -0800 2009
As a translator, I am confident in stating the problem with translation is translation. The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana is meant to be read in its original and by those who truly appreciate pop culture and memories thereof. The words are well translated into ...more...]]> 2 1 false true Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Sun Aug 17 14:37:31 -0700 2008 Wed Aug 27 01:24:06 -0700 2008
The narrator, Yambo, suffers a stroke and upon awaking has lost all his memories except of what he has rea...more...]]> 4 1 false false Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Oct 29 07:54:18 -0700 2007 Wed Nov 21 15:38:20 -0800 2007 more...]]> 5 1 false false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Mon Jul 23 11:28:16 -0700 2007 Wed Dec 19 12:49:18 -0800 2007 more...]]> 3 1 true false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Jun 14 12:56:42 -0700 2007 Thu Jun 14 13:17:21 -0700 2007 more...]]> 2 2 false false Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Mar 24 14:47:58 -0700 2007 Sun Apr 15 18:02:35 -0700 2007 more...]]> 2 1 false false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Aug 28 13:49:04 -0700 2007 Tue Aug 28 13:52:09 -0700 2007 But I don't think he's a great novelist, and this book is why. This book was trying to swallow an enormous amount of philosophical pondering that is only barely sugar-coated by narrative. Really hard to take in, worst wa...more...]]> 4 1 false false Fri Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Tue Apr 24 06:29:06 -0700 2007 Tue Apr 24 06:29:11 -0700 2007
While an interesting premis...more...]]> 3 1 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Sep 22 11:03:32 -0700 2007 Sat Sep 22 11:03:32 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Feb 21 21:36:06 -0800 2009 Sat Feb 21 21:38:23 -0800 2009 once Author: Umberto Eco
Translator: Geoffrey Brock

It has a been a long time since I have read “The Name of the Rose’ it is one of the most fascinating books. Since then the Catholic Church and its politics have intrigued me. So when I got ‘...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Feb 14 03:35:33 -0800 2009 Sat Feb 14 03:59:31 -0800 2009
The basic story is of a man trying to find out who he is. He can remember everything he has read but not anything personal. W...more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Feb 05 09:33:31 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 09:33:31 -0800 2009 Eco, known for his philosophical musings, witty allusions, historical and literary criticism, and play with the postmodern world of signs and semiotics, writes with deep intelligence in this novel of ideas. For those who haven't memorized Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, Queen Loana is, at heart, a s...

more...]]> 0 0 false false Fri Nov 28 06:39:59 -0800 2008 Fri Nov 28 06:40:34 -0800 2008 I was becoming...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 30 08:43:33 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 30 09:22:04 -0700 2009 1 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Aug 18 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 18 18:39:53 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 18 19:19:35 -0700 2009 The Name of the Rose). Once I got into it, I wouldn't say that it was always riveting, but it was intere...more...]]>