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Jul 14, 2008

Roy rated it:

There were three reasons why I read this book. One, Eco, I'd heard so much talk about his work (fiction and non-). Two, the setting, the Middle Ages, a historical period that is a bit of a gap for me. Three, an unreliable narrator, Usual Suspects is one of my favorite movies for this reason. Fictional stories are all lies, but in that world, you expect truth, but when you find out the fiction you are experiencing is also a fiction, well that is just delicious.

I enjoyed Baudolin More...

3 comments like (9 people liked it)

Jan 23, 2008

MkB rated it:

I'm a total sucker for medieval stories, which made up for the fact that I know sweet eff-all about the various finer points of Christian theology that so much of the book revolves around. I suspect the novel might be rather boring if you're into neither knights nor Jesus.

Predictably, the language is complex and interesting (a testament to the translator as well), and carries the novel through some of the slow passages. There's also a convenient point at which the story breaks pret More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 09, 2011

Dan rated it:

"Sometimes, when what we've sought is almost within our grasp, we make our faith a lie so that we don't have to give up our quest by achieving its goal."

When I finished Thomas Pynchon's V. last month, the sentence above was my entire review of it because I felt that was the most important thing I took away from that reading of the book. As I read V. I sensed it possessed a similarity of "aura" with Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum. Toward the end of Baudolino I r More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 20, 2011

C.e. rated it:

Baudolino is in his sixties when he saves a minister of Constantinople during its sacking by the Fourth Crusade. This provides opportunity for him to recount his life story, one that begins as a historical fiction centered in the Holy Roman Emperor in the company of Barbarossa, but lends itself to fantasy once he engages upon a journey that leads him into an unlikely version of the middle east and India.

I liked The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum, but this novel was easily t More...

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Dec 22, 2011

Ensiform rated it:

Translated by William Weaver. A 12th-century tall tale of court intrigue, mystery, Mysteries and lies, narrated by the titular character. Baudolino is a peasant with a gift for tongues and a born liar. He meets Frederick Barbarossa as a young boy and gets into the emperor’s good graces; from there his life takes off, as me takes part in the century’s monumentous events, from the founding of Alessandria to the siege of Constantinople. He dedicates his life, as well, to finding the lost Nestor More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 20, 2011

Christian rated it:

I am absolutely thrilled by this book. Umberto Eco weaves a Forrest Gump-like tale through history leading up to Marco Polo.

Prior to Marco Polo's travels, fantastic stories would be told by "travelers" who had seen amazing things... a river of rocks that flowed like water, humans with a single huge leg, or no head and faces in their chests, etc. As people traveled further and documented their travels (like Marco Polo), these wild fantasies were slowly debunked, and the world More...

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Jul 28, 2011

Sam rated it:

Il n’est plus nécessaire de présenter Umberto Eco, cet académique qui s’est imposé comme un auteur majeur de roman historique avec un seul roman à son actif, le brillant « Le nom de la rose » dont l’adaptation cinématographique en a fait fantasmer plus d’un (enfin, au moins un). Vingt-cinq ans après la sortie de ce premier roman remarquable et remarqué, il n’a à son actif que 5 romans dont le dernier n’est sortit qu’en 2004, « La mystérieuse flamme de la reine Loana », qui nous plonge dans un ma More...

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Jan 12, 2011

Lis rated it:

Is this a fantasy? It's hard to say with any certainty. Undoubtedly we see many fantastic and magical things as Baudolino recounts his journeys, but Baudolino's a liar.

We meet Baudolino in 1204, as Constantinople is being sacked and burned by the Fourth Crusade. He rescues a high-ranking court official and historian, Niketas Choniates--a real person who did survive the sack of the city and subsequently wrote a history of Byzantium including the story of the sack. He then asks Niketas t More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 18, 2010

Jenna rated it:

This book was a struggle for me to get through. It was also a strange sort of awakening- as the story progressed I realized it was getting further and further away from the truth- but wait, does that mean the the story was deviating from reality, or perhaps, it was all a lie from the beginning and I was only realizing now that it wasn't the truth? What to believe? Was any of it real?

That last question is how I left the end of the book feeling. Was any of it real? Does it matter? More...

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Feb 24, 2011

Ben rated it:

While I enjoyed the book, at points it was simply too rambling and ridiculous. I recognize that Eco was trying to tackle a difficult set of concepts (writing a story that is being told to the 'author,' who is recounting it; tackling Medieval conceptions of the world and theology; relativity of truth v. fiction), but often I simply found character decisions or attitudes a bit implausible. Until the very end, it didn't seem that any of the main characters had any malice towards each other, or towa More...

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Aug 03, 2010

Jorge rated it:

Reconozco que, antes de leer a Umberto Eco, me sentía intimidado por él. Su aura de filósofo y semiólogo me daba pavor y me imaginaba que sus novelas serían una especie de ensayo hermético plagado de citas en latín, guiños para historiadores y referencias a textos que nunca leeré.

Pero no. Aunque sigue demostrando su erudición en historia, lenguas y filosofía medieval, Eco tiene una prosa sencilla y elegante. Crea personajes interesantes y divertidos, trabaja situaciones absurdas y su More...

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Mar 11, 2009

Annie rated it:

The narrator is so perfect for this book. I have laughed at least ten times and I am only 40 minutes into it. It is hilarious!!! I actually originally wanted to read instead of listen to it because I looked through it in a bookstore once and read the strange introduction - a rough draft of sorts with strikeouts included to show the struggling writer's attempts. But I saw the audiobook for it at the library so I figured why not? I am so glad I did because Guidall includes all of those mess-ups ve More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 05, 2011

Hansen rated it:

Umberto Eco’s novels are the Harvard doctorate to Dan Brown’s middle school nonsense. Whereas Brown fascinates the masses with half-truth historical art and religion, Eco is a stunning scholar, simply overwhelming the sophisticated reader, pleasurably, with ancient languages (“Ave, evcharisto, salam” (376)) and (sometimes arcane) belief systems. His characters may not be as deep or personable as less ambitious novels (“I decided that if this was my fate, it was useless for me to try to become li More...

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Aug 08, 2010

Ratiocination rated it:

Not having been too impressed with The Island of the Day Before, it took me a while to get back to this one, which I picked up at the same time. I'm glad that I finally did. I'd have no hesitation recommending this to someone who enjoyed The Name of the Rose: Including Postscript-- they strike a similar balance. The historical setting is very strong, the narrator is interesting and well-realized, and there's literary depth rather than the self-conscious cleverness that often passes for it.
More...

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Dec 17, 2011

Emily rated it:

Gloriously unreliable from start to end, the lies and deceit of the narrator and protagonist, Baudolino, become an art form.

Lying, and the inherent falsehood of storytelling, is shown as both a wonderful and a terrifyingly destructive force. Eco skilfully reveals both sides of the human capacity for self-construction. Baudolino and his friends are simultaneously lazy no-hopers who scrounge their existences from those who fall for their lies, and heroes of a great search for a land of t More...

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Sep 30, 2010

40 rated it:

Eco is once again the king of the "story within the story" and the unreliable narrator.

With Baudolino we get his familiar fascinations with the Holy Grail, and the medieval concepts of paradise. In Foucault's Pendulum we are let in on the falseness of the plot as its main characters create a story in front of the reader.

Baudolino takes a similar approach, but one in which it is never outlined for us which parts of his tale are true specifically. Baudolino alre More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 16, 2011

Drew Patrick rated it:

This review is from the PFS Book Club. More on the website.

What I Liked: Eco manages to cram this book full of so many things: there's the a hero's quest for the Holy Grail (with the needed echoes of King Arthur's knights), several romances, metafiction with the most unreliable narrator I've ever seen, a continuous study of religion and how it effects people, allusions up the wazoo, and multiple languages weaving in and out of the text. It's amazing to see a master at his work and st More...

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Jan 04, 2009

MD rated it:

Baudolino begins as the story of a young man who unwittingly changes the course of history in the 12th century. Later, parts of the book reminded me of Gulliver's Travels or of Avram Davidson's stories. Throughout, it is full of sly humor and irreverence. Those who will probably enjoy it the most are those who have some knowledge of Latin, Italian history, and/or history of the Crusades, but much of the humor is very accessible such as this example: "My friends, Rabbi Solomon said to ca More...

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Jan 05, 2011

Phillip rated it:

Umberto Eco has a illuminating set of essays published in a book called Serendipities: Language & Lunacy, one essay of which deals with a fraudulent letter written in the middle ages that purported to be from Prester John, a priest king from an exotic East that spoke of a land of wonder and wealth, a letter which was circulated among the rulers of Europe and led explorers to seek out the fabled land it spoke of. Baudolino is Eco's brilliant imagining of how that letter came to be and the journe More...

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Jan 12, 2008

Paul rated it:

Really detailed and interesting account of a group of traveler's trying to find the legendary Christian King of the East, Prester John. Eco's usual insane level of scholarship is integrated in a more palatable way than Foucault's Pendulum.

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Jun 18, 2011

Jan-Maat rated it:

This is a novel that I love to return to.

Baudolino, a self declared liar tells the story of his life to a Byzantine court official and historian who he has rescued from the sack of Constantinople during the fourth crusade.

Baudolino's story takes in the life and career of his imperial majesty the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, study at the university of Paris, the third crusade up to the death of the emperor, the acquisition of the mummified bodies of the three kings for Cologn More...

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Nov 07, 2009

LeAnn rated it:

In Baudolino, Eco has created a mediaeval Everyman, an archetypal Western European moving out of the Dark Ages and into the High Middle Ages, when the chaos of the preceding centuries has given way to the order and unifying presence of the Pope and the Catholic Church and established Christian kings. Baudolino, a native of a northern Italian town born in the mid-1100s and gifted at learning new languages, finds himself adopted and educated by the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II. He spends the n More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 28, 2010

Jan rated it:

Eco's picaresque novel's title is also the name of its main character, a peasant's son adopted by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in the 13th century. The language of the meandering story of Baudolino's travels and adventures is delightfully earthy, yet believably medieval, like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. While the long tale of Baudolino's journey through life borders on the fabulous and the fantastic, and may occasionally bore the modern reader, Eco slyly says a lot (indirectly, of course) ab More...

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Jan 28, 2009

Martin rated it:

Baudolino

The story of a peasant who rises to power when he's taken under the wing of Frederick Barbarossa, adopted in all but name.

A story full of inextricable ambiguities because Baudolino's special talent is to lie persuasively, and he constructs a tapestry of complex, involuted lies, mostly concerning the dazzling kingdom of Pester John to the East, which is already part of the mythic fabric of Europe. Therefore he and four coll More...

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Jun 10, 2010

Maik rated it:

Eine Rezension muss ein Buch bewerten. Eine Rezension muss ein Urteil über ein Buch fällen. Manchmal muss sie loben und manchmal muss sie tadeln. Doch der Rezensent zögert – vor allem mit letzterem – wenn es sich bei dem zu verreißenden Roman um das Werk eines der größten lebenden Autoren handelt: Umberto Eco. Und was, wenn der Grund für das Misslingen seines Schelmenromanes Baudolino weniger im Inhaltlichen als im Technischen der Erzählung zu suchen ist?
Wie kann man hier vorgehen?, übe More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 17, 2011

Katie rated it:

Baudolino is a difficult book to summarise, because the more you read, the more you realise that the plot is merely incidental and the book is really about something else entirely. In fact, if you were to read this book for the plot you would be very confused very quickly. The story is a first person account by the eponymous Baudolino of his life, as told to Niketas whom he rescues from the sack of Constantinople. It chronicles his adventures from 1155 when he was adopted in all but name by E More...

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Jul 25, 2010

Mike rated it:

Although I've enjoyed Baudolino a little less than the other Eco novels I've read so far (Rose and Pendulum) I can still recommend it, and I know you'll enjoy it; I don't think I enjoyed it as much because the pace at which the tale takes place was just a little too slow, and the things we stopped and talked about on the way were (how should I put this) just a little too different than the things I am used to caring about, and although the characters' ponderings were often funny (the debates abo More...

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Jan 18, 2012

Shari rated it:

Rich, hilarious, poignant, decadent and witty. The story of Baudolino is divided into two parts. One is about his life with Barbarossa and the other his search for the kingdom of Prester John in the East. The second part is the better read. Full of adventure and excitement as Baudolino and his friends meet places and people that are just out of this world. The mystery wouldn't let up and kept me in suspense up to the very end. Their story tells of how we can easily live our lives believing in t More...

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Aug 10, 2010

Paul rated it:

This is a very good book, if not in the same class as Eco's first two brilliant books. The best part of the book is the first half. Once the characters actually embark on their journey, I think the book loses a lot. But the return to Constantinople provides a good conclusion.

The thing Eco does better than anything else, I think, is get you inside the heads of people with radically different ways of seeing the world--you understand why and how they thought. Medieval European thinking More...

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Dec 24, 2011

Ahmad rated it:

I wish that I had read this novel before I had visited Istanbul. I most certainly would have visited the remnants of the hippodrome (at the Sultan Ahmet Square), the labyrinthine cisterns with its Medusas’ heads and the other places mentioned in the novel. At least there is a lot left to see for my next trip.Baudolino is a richly-woven, engrossing, comical and erudite novel. The many characters are engaging and fairly well-developed. Most would find this novel entertaining until the point where More...

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