book data
1262 ratings, 3.39 average rating, 90 reviews
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published
August 1995
(first published 2003)
by Plaza & Janes Editores, S.A.
binding
Paperback
isbn
9509924873
(isbn13: 9789509924871)
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avg 3.39
Read in January, 1998
was enthralled by The Name of the Rose as a work of historical fiction; loved reading Focault's Pendulum (anyone who enjoyed reading The DaVini Code should read this to experience a real historical-religious thriller.
The Island of the Day Before? this book inspired me to swear never to read a book written by Umberto Eco again. why? i had not made it all the way through Chapter 1 when i encountered the following sentence:
"It is only later that he will assume, in dreams, that the p...more
The Island of the Day Before? this book inspired me to swear never to read a book written by Umberto Eco again. why? i had not made it all the way through Chapter 1 when i encountered the following sentence:
"It is only later that he will assume, in dreams, that the p...more
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Read in January, 1996
Usually, I have one of three reactions to a book: I love it and plow through it, I hate it and put it down within 50 pages, or I like it and take my time, possibly reading other books simultaneously. This one ... oy. Because of The Name of the Rose, I kept expecting it to be good - or, more accurately, to get better. I waited 100 pages. Then 200 pages. Then 300 pages. Finally, I threw it across the room in frustration at 35
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Read in August, 2008
I originally read this when it first came out, but have just completed a reread.
It might be described as the ultimate shaggy dog story. Eco explores language to a large extent in this book with phrases that include multiple variations on a common stem, such as it was necessary that the necessities were provided or his intention was to intend on inattention. That kind of thing anyway.
His protagonist is stranded on a ship somewhere near the 180th meridian and writes of his past life, loves...more
It might be described as the ultimate shaggy dog story. Eco explores language to a large extent in this book with phrases that include multiple variations on a common stem, such as it was necessary that the necessities were provided or his intention was to intend on inattention. That kind of thing anyway.
His protagonist is stranded on a ship somewhere near the 180th meridian and writes of his past life, loves...more
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2 comments
Read in September, 2007
This book is really the pits. A total drag. I kept idiotically dreaming it would get better after the first hundred pages (as per Eco's post script to "Name of the Rose," which is a TRUE DREAM!)...two hundred...three hundred...and then I finished it. Should have thrown it against the wall like the previous reviewer.
Gave it two stars hoping the cosmos will hand one over to
"Name of the Rose."
Gave it two stars hoping the cosmos will hand one over to
"Name of the Rose."
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Read in January, 2007
recommends it for:
everyone!
This book fits the pattern I've come to expect in Umberto Eco's writing: an excellent story lost in a haze of random thoughts, obscure references, and all together too many words. I would love it if someone took this book's concept and turned it into the brilliant book that it deserves to be.
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Read in January, 2003
Definitely my favorite Eco book. Got to give Annie props for recommending this one to me. Who knew that longitude could be such an interesting ontological motif?
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Read in January, 1997
I really hated this book. I choked through it due to the sheer fortitude engendered by my unreasonable need to finish every book that I start. Every. Single. Book. Had I been able to dismiss it, I would have. A friend once told me that I should read Eco's essays, and that his fiction was an attempt to destroy overly-used literary devices of current literature by gluttonously indulging in them. I've never actually bothered to look into whether or not it was true because, truthfully, it's t...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in April, 2008
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
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I love words and beautiful writing, and therefore I love Umberto Eco.
The Island of the Day Before is like the finest red wine... deep, rich, layered with countless flavors and nuances, and deeply satisfying.
A man awakes to find himself on a well-stocked but abandoned sailing ship, moored in a tropical harbor. Young, nervous, and unable to swim, he is effectively held prisoner in this tropical paradise. Safe on board with provisions enough to feed an army, he has plenty of time for exerci...more
The Island of the Day Before is like the finest red wine... deep, rich, layered with countless flavors and nuances, and deeply satisfying.
A man awakes to find himself on a well-stocked but abandoned sailing ship, moored in a tropical harbor. Young, nervous, and unable to swim, he is effectively held prisoner in this tropical paradise. Safe on board with provisions enough to feed an army, he has plenty of time for exerci...more
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recommends it for:
Madame Charlotte
L'auteur commente un mystérieux journal de bord, retrouvé sur une antique épave du 17e. Ledit journal a été rédigé par Roberto, espion, malgré lui, au coeur de la course au secret des longitudes.
Le bateau de Roberto échoue non loin du méridien du changement de date. Coincé, incapable de nager pour rejoindre l'île, il se mettra à réfléchir et philosopher à voix haute pour le lecteur, commentant de manière à la fois farfelue et réaliste son époque et ses problématiques.
...more
Le bateau de Roberto échoue non loin du méridien du changement de date. Coincé, incapable de nager pour rejoindre l'île, il se mettra à réfléchir et philosopher à voix haute pour le lecteur, commentant de manière à la fois farfelue et réaliste son époque et ses problématiques.
...more
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3 comments
Read in March, 2008
recommends it for:
history buffs, intellectuals
Bust out the champagne - I finished this book and my head didn't crack. It is one of the most amazing, yet difficult, books I've ever read. The story presents itself on multiple levels: narrative, metaphoric, historical, imaginative, etc. I'd give it five stars if it wasn't for the convoluted writing style, which made me want to give up numerous times. I forged ahead because the question of "what's on the island?" kept nagging me.
I loved the historical portrait of this period,...more
I loved the historical portrait of this period,...more
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Read in November, 2007
recommends it for:
anyone who wants to have an idea of what cerebral hemmorhaging is like without the final effect.
Hmmmm...
I really need to read this again to be able to give a better picture. I have only read The Name of the Rose by Eco before this and I recall liking that one much more. I'll definitely read this again in a couple of years to get a better idea of how I feel, but here is my partial present synthesis:
Eco mixes history, foreign language, mystery, life, the occult, philosophy, and essentially anything else an average person would consider esoteric. I kept a dictionary and my computer...more
I really need to read this again to be able to give a better picture. I have only read The Name of the Rose by Eco before this and I recall liking that one much more. I'll definitely read this again in a couple of years to get a better idea of how I feel, but here is my partial present synthesis:
Eco mixes history, foreign language, mystery, life, the occult, philosophy, and essentially anything else an average person would consider esoteric. I kept a dictionary and my computer...more
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uwwww
sepertinya yang ini seruwww...
tapi kira2 gw bisa ngabisinnya ga yuah? bukunya tebel banget dan biasanya Eco memeakai bahasaya yang 'agak berat' hihihih....
pengen.....
"From Publishers Weekly
In this tale of an Italian nobleman shipwrecked in the South Pacific in 1643, Eco's storytelling abilities and his love for esoteric historical detail, so beautifully balanced in The Name of the Rose, are sadly out of kilter, with the arcana overwhelming the plot. As part of a cabal instigated by French Cardinal Mazarin and his protege Colbert, Robert della Griva has been traveling in disguise on an English ship whose mission is to discover the Punto Fijo, the means by which navigators can plumb "the mystery of longitude." Cast adrift during a storm, Roberto fetches up against another ship, the Daphne, whose crew has mysteriously vanished. Although the vessel is moored only a mile from an enchanting island (the two may be on opposite sides of the date line, giving the book its title), Roberto, a nonswimmer, is as marooned as though in mid-ocean. The text consists of a third-person narrator's retelling of Roberto's manuscript recounting his adventures on the ship and such previous experiences as his participation in the siege of Casale and life among the erudite of Paris. There are some magical descriptions of Roberto's moonlit solitude aboard the Daphne, but the introduction of a third story line involving his imaginary evil twin hopelessly tangles a narrative already overloaded with lengthy exegeses on such obscure 17th-century devices as the Powder of Sympathy and the Specula Melitensis. Eco's postmodernist games?he directly addresses the reader, explaining how little the narrator knows?wear thin, and some delightfully secondary characters who appear too briefly only remind us how unfocused the novel is. Perhaps Eco himself was aware of the novel's faults when writing it?for his narrator criticizes Roberto's tale as "narrating so many stories at once that at a certain point it becomes difficult to pick up the thread." Author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. "*...more
sepertinya yang ini seruwww...
tapi kira2 gw bisa ngabisinnya ga yuah? bukunya tebel banget dan biasanya Eco memeakai bahasaya yang 'agak berat' hihihih....
pengen.....
"From Publishers Weekly
In this tale of an Italian nobleman shipwrecked in the South Pacific in 1643, Eco's storytelling abilities and his love for esoteric historical detail, so beautifully balanced in The Name of the Rose, are sadly out of kilter, with the arcana overwhelming the plot. As part of a cabal instigated by French Cardinal Mazarin and his protege Colbert, Robert della Griva has been traveling in disguise on an English ship whose mission is to discover the Punto Fijo, the means by which navigators can plumb "the mystery of longitude." Cast adrift during a storm, Roberto fetches up against another ship, the Daphne, whose crew has mysteriously vanished. Although the vessel is moored only a mile from an enchanting island (the two may be on opposite sides of the date line, giving the book its title), Roberto, a nonswimmer, is as marooned as though in mid-ocean. The text consists of a third-person narrator's retelling of Roberto's manuscript recounting his adventures on the ship and such previous experiences as his participation in the siege of Casale and life among the erudite of Paris. There are some magical descriptions of Roberto's moonlit solitude aboard the Daphne, but the introduction of a third story line involving his imaginary evil twin hopelessly tangles a narrative already overloaded with lengthy exegeses on such obscure 17th-century devices as the Powder of Sympathy and the Specula Melitensis. Eco's postmodernist games?he directly addresses the reader, explaining how little the narrator knows?wear thin, and some delightfully secondary characters who appear too briefly only remind us how unfocused the novel is. Perhaps Eco himself was aware of the novel's faults when writing it?for his narrator criticizes Roberto's tale as "narrating so many stories at once that at a certain point it becomes difficult to pick up the thread." Author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. "*...more
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Read in May, 2007
I don't know if this book would deserve five stars if not for the fact that immediately after reading it, I read Labyrinths. Spotting all of the Borges in Eco's books has suddenly become a fun task, and this book somehow manages to incorporate all of his most popular themes and elements without being overbearing.
A man in the 1600s is shipwrecked during a wild storm, only to find himself saved and then trapped on a derelect ship. Over the course of his stay on the Daphne, as he learn...more
A man in the 1600s is shipwrecked during a wild storm, only to find himself saved and then trapped on a derelect ship. Over the course of his stay on the Daphne, as he learn...more
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Read in April, 2008
I took a class at UofI in Metaphysics. Maybe Umberto took the same class. I wrote a song about that class and the words went something like this. "Metaphysics was too hard today, but it doesn't matter anyway. If we can't agree on what exists, then I don't really see the point in this."
There were many times that Umberto just wouldn't let it go. One example, 4-6 pages on what a rock thinks about its world and if it has a soul. Come on dude.
Umberto is obviously super smart, and...more
There were many times that Umberto just wouldn't let it go. One example, 4-6 pages on what a rock thinks about its world and if it has a soul. Come on dude.
Umberto is obviously super smart, and...more
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Read in July, 2006
Eco's gift is his ability to make you see a different reality. He makes you see the world as other's (long before) saw it. How would our view of the world, and our ability to navigate the seas, change if we had no concept of longitude? Setting out on a jourbey to find the international date line (before such a thing existed) our hero Roberto finds himself on an apparently abandoned ship, giving him plenty of time to reflect on his childhood, his fears, mistakes and his imaginary half-brother who...more
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Read in February, 2008
Not quite as good as The Name of the Rose, or Baudolino- about on par with Foucault's Pendulum and about as long. Even though it was about 200 pages longer than I felt it needed to be, Eco still manages to draw me into his often tedious descriptions of middle age and renaissance life and philosophies. The dialogue is witty and often laugh out loud funny, and the plot meshes so well with the philosophies that he is exploring that you'd think he had planned it or something. I admit that I sometime...more
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Read in January, 2008
recommends it for:
Eco compleatists
I laughed, I cried, .....then mostly, I cried. I lost interest in the main character's ramblings shortly after the Jesuit father, the only other present character in the book, found his watery demise on page 340. I soldiered on in solitude (or, rather, in Roberto's random and fantastical thoughts) for another 100 pages, before giving up the effort...with still 70 pages left in this massive tome. Really, Umberto, could you edit a little? Your stories and writing can be exceptionally interesting, ...more
Wow! I didn't know if I was coming or going, but I certainly wanted to keep reading. Very deep and particularly involving, this book was like a Terry Gilliam film written out in story form. Eco is truly a master at delivering fully sustainable and realized worlds that never existed before he sat down to whip them up.
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Read in August, 2007
Generally I'm quite the fan of Umberto Eco, in fact I consider him one of the greatest authors yet living. Unfortunately, I don't think this novel is one of best works. There are about 200-250 pages of really incredible material, however it's scattered throughout 510 pages of randomness. There really isn't much room for the reader here - very little to engage with and he doesn't so much paint pictures as throw them at you.
Despite this it is a good book in terms of style and some ...more
Despite this it is a good book in terms of style and some ...more
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