Yambo, a sixtyish rare-book dealer who lives in Milan, has suffered a loss of memory-he can remember the plot of every book he has ever read, every...
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May 08, 2007
Joanne
rated it: 
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 o 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 o More...
Aug 22, 2008
Sara
rated it: 
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana tells of an antiquarian book dealer who has suffered a stroke and lost all memory of the people in and events of his life. At the novel's outset, the protagonist, Yambo, begins the daunting work of trying to reinsert himself into the life he has forgotten. He finds that he does not recognize his family or closest friends, but can still appraise a 17th-century work of natural history. His only sparks of memory relate to books he has read. These come back to
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Feb 09, 2012
Guy
rated it: 
The beauty and richness of Eco's language is as good as it gets in this book. Every sentence was a work of verbal art. The language sang, to me. I was awed by its power. Truly a great novel.
Example:
This man, a failure since birth, not only reads, he also writes. I could write, too, could add my own monsters to those that scuttle with their ragged claws across the silent sea floors. That man ruins his eyes over pages on which he sets down his obsessions in muddy ink from inkwe More...
Example:
This man, a failure since birth, not only reads, he also writes. I could write, too, could add my own monsters to those that scuttle with their ragged claws across the silent sea floors. That man ruins his eyes over pages on which he sets down his obsessions in muddy ink from inkwe More...
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(3 people liked it)
Jul 28, 2007
Kate
rated it: 
This book really disappointed in the end, after giving a fairly fascinating glimpse of the culture of an Italian childhood under Fascism. I was enjoying the plot and then suddenly it ends in this inexplicable way, as if Eco suddenly got horribly sick of writing the thing. I'm keeping it for the gorgeous color reproductions.
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Apr 08, 2008
Sarah
rated it:
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 secti More...
The first secti More...
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(2 people liked it)
Nov 30, 2007
April
rated it: 
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
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(5 people liked it)
Dec 16, 2009
Lavina
rated it:
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 memorie 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 memorie More...
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Jan 05, 2009
Melissa
rated it:
I rounded up 3.5 stars...
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 English; the ideas are adapted properly to English; the strain lies in this: Latin-based language speakers culturally use five sentences where an English-speaker would use one. Normally, this is not a More...
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 English; the ideas are adapted properly to English; the strain lies in this: Latin-based language speakers culturally use five sentences where an English-speaker would use one. Normally, this is not a More...
Aug 27, 2008
kt
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Dec 19, 2007
Samantha
rated it:
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 ha More...
The main character, a very loveable Italian gentleman named Yambo awakens from a stroke to find that his personal memory bank ha More...
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Jun 14, 2007
Dimitri
rated it:
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 direc 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 direc More...
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Apr 24, 2007
Jenny
rated it:
A bookseller wakes from a coma with no memory of his life, and the only frame of reference he has for any conversations are direct quotations from books he has read. He journeys to the home he used to spend summers in to try to uncover the truth about his past.
While an interesting premise, this book has major tedious moments. Anyone with an interest in obscure Italian fascist literature should read this. He includes entire songs, book covers, and comic books that the main character e More...
While an interesting premise, this book has major tedious moments. Anyone with an interest in obscure Italian fascist literature should read this. He includes entire songs, book covers, and comic books that the main character e More...
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Sep 22, 2007
Mike
rated it:
I've really liked some of Eco's books and haven't been able to finish others. This is the first of his history-heavy books that I've read that draws on 20th century history (here, mainly Italy during the war), rather than the more distant past. His writing is amazing as always, but for my taste I still find that he wanders a bit too much through long lists of names, songs, whatever, that can distract from the story. The underlying story here was good, but the book probably could have been a t
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Dec 17, 2009
Chris
rated it:
First of all, I like Umberto, and I think he's an intellectual superstar.
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 was the 50 pages of random literary and philosophical associations littering the beginning of the book.
The only reason this gets 2 stars is I liked all the historical anecdotes from Italy in the More...
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 was the 50 pages of random literary and philosophical associations littering the beginning of the book.
The only reason this gets 2 stars is I liked all the historical anecdotes from Italy in the More...
Apr 20, 2010
Joyce
rated it:
Sixty-year old rare book dealer Yampo wakes up in a hospital in Milan after a stroke with only one aftereffect a complete loss of his personal memory. He can remember every line of every book he ever read, but does not know who he is, who his wife and children are, what he looks like, what he feels like (he has no memory of what his skin feels like) in short, his whole personality is gone.[return][return]What follows is a journey for Yampo into recovering his past. The process of recovering
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Feb 21, 2009
Sonia
rated it:
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
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 ‘The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana’ I was thrilled, would it be like 'The Name of the Rose’ so beautiful, so intriguing? No it isn’t, or am I missing something. The reviews that I read mention that it is d More...
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 ‘The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana’ I was thrilled, would it be like 'The Name of the Rose’ so beautiful, so intriguing? No it isn’t, or am I missing something. The reviews that I read mention that it is d More...
Feb 14, 2009
Melanie
rated it:
This book has a dash of neurology, a hint of possible biography, and a liberal splash of philosophy and a base of history. Together they make an unusual cocktail.
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. Who are we if we cannot remember our developemental history? The book is divided into 3 sections- the man coming to terms with his stroke induced loss of memory about himself; the man trying to discove More...
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. Who are we if we cannot remember our developemental history? The book is divided into 3 sections- the man coming to terms with his stroke induced loss of memory about himself; the man trying to discove More...
Feb 05, 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 simple detective story. Awaking from a coma, a man seeks to recover his identity (not to become a better person, as the more clich_d version might have it, but to relive the memory of Italians who live
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Nov 28, 2008
I’m reading a rather strange book, with a ridiculous title; The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. I don’t know yet the significance if any, of that name. It’s by Umberto Eco, the Italian philosopher who achieved world fame, or notoriety, with his novel, The Name of the Rose.
I was becoming jaded with non-fiction. I had just finished another history of World War 2, this one by Ian Kershaw and it dealt with the seminal year of 1940, the year that showed the world different possibilities; the B More...
I was becoming jaded with non-fiction. I had just finished another history of World War 2, this one by Ian Kershaw and it dealt with the seminal year of 1940, the year that showed the world different possibilities; the B More...
Dec 30, 2011
Avery
rated it:
Um homem de 60 anos sofre um acidente vascular cerebral e não lembra mais da mulher, filhos, netos, nem do próprio rosto. A Amnésia, porém, não atinge a parte racional do cérebro.
Livreiro e bibliófilo, Yambo lembra de citações e obras diversas, mas perde o arcabouço emocional que lhe fazia ser quem era. Por isso parte em busca de seu passado vasculhando a memória de amigos e parentes, velhas revistas, discos e livros. O passeio pelas letras é acompanhado por imagens. É um romance il More...
Livreiro e bibliófilo, Yambo lembra de citações e obras diversas, mas perde o arcabouço emocional que lhe fazia ser quem era. Por isso parte em busca de seu passado vasculhando a memória de amigos e parentes, velhas revistas, discos e livros. O passeio pelas letras é acompanhado por imagens. É um romance il More...
Oct 02, 2011
Jean
rated it:
My other favorite author. Usually not an easy read, but you end
up less stupid for it.
The main character lost his memory and relives his childhood by
examining the litterature he was reading as a child in fascist
Italy: comic books, translated novels, fascist propaganda. It is a
very good look at a fascinating world. Later, when the main
character regains his memory, he takes stock of his life and looks
at how his life was shaped by patterns and events in his youth and
teenage years.
I was a little p More...
up less stupid for it.
The main character lost his memory and relives his childhood by
examining the litterature he was reading as a child in fascist
Italy: comic books, translated novels, fascist propaganda. It is a
very good look at a fascinating world. Later, when the main
character regains his memory, he takes stock of his life and looks
at how his life was shaped by patterns and events in his youth and
teenage years.
I was a little p More...
Aug 07, 2011
Ron
rated it:
Eco's warmest and most accessible novel is also maddeningly impenetrable on a certain level. It is a thinly veiled literary autobiography couched as an amnesiac's mystery, but what could have been a fascinating tale of memory and its construction is undercut by a ceaseless nostalgia for cultural artifacts that only Eco himself could fully appreciate. Most readers will not connect with anything that he references until the protagonist explores the 1950s paper trail of his past, and what little he
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Jun 21, 2011
David
rated it:
An older book dealer suddenly and unexpectedly holds in his hands Shakespeare's first folio from 1623 and the shock of the discovery triggers a coma from which the narrator is attempting to recover his memory and re-discover himself. It's an intriguing premise as the book dealer revisits an attic to dig through boxes of his old books to learn what light they can shed on his remembrance of lost time. The books, dating from his childhood, trigger memories of life in Fascist Italy, as he re-learns
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Feb 18, 2011
Toni
rated it:
Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose “filled up my senses.” The movie—even with the matchless Sean Connery—only glimmered a sense of what the book conjures.
I opened The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana with “great expectations.”
I could sense the fun that Eco was having as he wrote about Yambo, a man who loses his memory for all things personal but retains his professional and intellectual mental faculties. In order to help reconstruct his personal life, he goes to the home of his y More...
I opened The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana with “great expectations.”
I could sense the fun that Eco was having as he wrote about Yambo, a man who loses his memory for all things personal but retains his professional and intellectual mental faculties. In order to help reconstruct his personal life, he goes to the home of his y More...
Aug 30, 2009
Shawn
rated it:
For Eco, the past is always with us in the present, and every sign, symbol, image, memory, is potentially part of the key that shows in what ways the present is a rewriting, a palimpsest, of the past(s). In The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, as in The Island of the Day Before, the main character is caught in a hazy present, and we/he invent a curious quest to reconstruct the past to make sense of that present. You can see the influence of the crime story here, as in The Name of the Rose. On
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Aug 18, 2009
Alex
rated it:
I had trouble getting into this book at first (I'd bought it in hardcover when it first came out five years ago, started and stopped reading it, then picked it up after reading his earlier novel, The Name of the Rose). Once I got into it, I wouldn't say that it was always riveting, but it was interesting and a unique concept for telling a story--a person trying to recreate his personal history in order to try and actually remember his past. I knew enough about Italian/Roman and World War II hist
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May 11, 2009
Cathyb
rated it:
Imagine waking up and not remembering your life. Admittedly, this is something that I worry about all the time so I was intrigued when I read the back cover of The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana and found it to be the premise of the novel.
The main character, Yambo, finds himself unable to remember anything about his life and attempts to piece together his past - a mystery of sorts. Throughout the novel, the reader is treated to an endless barrage of list upon list of songs, cartoon More...
The main character, Yambo, finds himself unable to remember anything about his life and attempts to piece together his past - a mystery of sorts. Throughout the novel, the reader is treated to an endless barrage of list upon list of songs, cartoon More...
Aug 06, 2009
Dan
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Jun 26, 2010
Marcus
rated it:
I read, struggled to read, half of The Mysterious Flame, then stopped. It's a frustratingly boring book by a nostalgic, older bibliophile about, surprise!, a nostalgic, older bibliophile. The story starts shortly after the protagonist suffers a sudden onset of amnesia. To reconstruct his life, he spends several days in an attic reliving his childhood through books and music.
The plot has potential, but the writing is so contrived and the story moves so slowly that it comes out feelin More...
The plot has potential, but the writing is so contrived and the story moves so slowly that it comes out feelin More...
Nov 15, 2011
Ellen
rated it:
An extremely imaginative work, Umberto Eco's "The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana" takes the reader through the history of Italy from the pre-WW II era through the early 2000s, following a man's desperate effort to remember his life after suffering an "incident" - a brain event in which he's lost the part of his memory that contains his personal experiences, the details of his life, his childhood, and especially his emotions as they relate to his life. When he awakens from a
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