false 11417235 732428 10507 0156029065 9780156029063 164 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166253877m/10507.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10507.Baudolino 3.53 1952 Baudolino, he hands his narrative to an Italian peasant who has managed, through good luck and a clever tongue, to become the adopted son of the Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, and a minister of his court in the closing years of the 12th century. Baudolino's other gift is for spontaneous but convincing lies, and so his unfolding tale--as recounted in 1204 to a nobleman of Constantinople, while the fires of the Fourth Crusade rage around them--exemplifies the Cretan Liar's Paradox: He can't be believed. Why not, then, make his story as outrageous as possible? In the course of his picaresque tale, Baudolino manages to touch on nearly every major theme, conflict, and boondoggle of the Middle Ages: the Crusades; the troubadours; the legend of the Holy Grail; the rise of the cathedral cities; the position of Jews; the market in relics; the local rivalries that made Italy so vulnerable to outside attack; and the perennial power struggles between the pope and the emperor. With the help of alcohol and a mysterious Moorish concoction called "green honey," Baudolino and his ragtag friends engage in typical scholastic debates of the period, trying to determine the dimensions of Solomon's Temple and the location of the Earthly Paradise. And when the Emperor needs support in his claims for saintly lineage, who but Baudolino can craft the perfect letter of homage from the legendary Prester John, Holy (and wholly fictitious) Christian King of the East? A giddy and exasperating romp, Baudolino will draw you into its labyrinthine inventions and half-truths, even if you know better. --Regina Marler ]]> 1730 3.86 30272 2680 6921 3.97 27011 2465 5 0 false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Tue Jan 01 19:41:31 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 02 18:28:18 -0800 2008
It's set in the 12th/early 13th century, and follows Baudolino through his youth and adulthood and on adventures more suited to the marginalia of medieval mss than the histories in them. He is adept at languages and telling stories, traits that lead the savvy Italian peasant boy to the bosom of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, with whom he shares a close father-son relationship. Baudolino hates war, which is unfortunate, since it is common fare for the circles he hangs out in, so he's always trying to come up with ways for the emperor to look good without the emperor's having to destroy cities. These involve everything from fabricating relics to mindless ceremonies. And it's all about preserving the emperor's image. It doesn't really matter what the real picture is.

The book is also about story-telling, and Baudolino's story is presented to us as he narrates it to a Greek as Constantinople burns. One of my favorite moments in the book comes at the beginning as Baudolino recounts his early days as a student of Bishop Otto, who remarks one day to his student, regarding Baudolino's remarkable prowess for telling stories, "If you want to become a man of letters and perhaps write some Histories one day, you must also lie and invent tales, otherwise your History would become monotonous. But you must act with restraint. The world condemns liars who do nothing but lie, even about the most trivial things, and it rewards poets, who lie only about the greatest things."]]>