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3.01 AVERAGE
3.01 AVERAGE
This book felt unfinished, but the part here was interesting. Lots of long monologues that might have made more sense if I knew Italy better. I loved the single woman who was delightfully in her own world as the joie de vivre foil.
Umberto Eco cada vez mais fácil de ler... Será de ele estar a ficar mais velho? Ou sou eu que como também estou mais velha desde O Nome da Rosa que o percebo melhor?
Seja como for é um autor do qual gosto muito!
Bom livro sobre os meandros do jornalismo, recomendo!
Seja como for é um autor do qual gosto muito!
Bom livro sobre os meandros do jornalismo, recomendo!
Fake news and an elaborate conspiracy theory. A different sort of work for Eco: short, somewhat satirical and (probably intentionally) self-parodying. Numero Zero seemed like a condensed, more comic version of Foucault's Pendulum. I wasn't able to follow the conspiracy theory very far, but that's okay. It's not as if any of that stuff is real. (looks around furtively)
Tot driekwart van het boek was het best vermakelijk, daarna werd het een beetje te veel van het goede met complottheorieën, name dropping en aanslagen.
What is real and what is not? How do those around us make our lives real... or not? This is an entertaining book and makes one think of the above questions. It can be hard to track all of the historical names. I am not sure how much of the history is true, although my brief knowledge of the capture and death of Mussolini seems to agree with the account in the book. Yet, that seems to be unimportant. What is true is simply a matter of a culture's collective memory. This book will get you thinking.
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This is an interesting novel in a number of ways. It's a scathing indictment of the media - mainly the print media here, but I have a feeling Eco was extending it to all mediums - both in terms of the main cover up in the narrative and the grungy and misleading articles the magazine discuss publishing.
However, as a novel, it's very anticlimactic. This is not pleasure reading in the normal sense of the term - the size of the book may be small (my hardcover copy amounted to a little under 200 pages) but the content is dense and can sometimes feel like a slog.
But, if anything, it's interesting because of Eco's great ear for literary dialogue.
However, as a novel, it's very anticlimactic. This is not pleasure reading in the normal sense of the term - the size of the book may be small (my hardcover copy amounted to a little under 200 pages) but the content is dense and can sometimes feel like a slog.
But, if anything, it's interesting because of Eco's great ear for literary dialogue.
Not being dramatic when I say this is the worst book I've read in a long time, and that's saying something since I recently read, Go Set a Watchmen. Still fumbling at what the point of this book was--ideas not developed, characters not fleshed out. Rubbish.
I looked forward to reading this book after first reading The NY Times ArtsBeat advance notice of it. It took awhile for my local library to get the English version. (First time I took home the reserved book it was in Italian and I hadn't checked beyond the cover till sitting down to read it.)
This is not a long book and it might have taken me a shorter time stretch to read it, but I just couldn't read it. I started with high hopes, being familiar with Umberto Eco's previous works. However, what some may find as interesting stories were just blabbering and run on thoughts and sentences to me.
Yes, I was a little curious to see how the romance played out and what the "big" event would be that caused the events of the opening chapter. But beyond that, somewhere around page 141, I stopped reading verbatim and turned to fast skimming. The skimming sufficed.
With that said, I ultimately realized that Eco wanted to tell a truth about Italy and perhaps about governments, in general. Satire. I got it, but in his telling it didn't grab me. But it did grab Tom Rachman, as you can see in his NY Times Sunday Book Review (published online yesterday and in print tomorrow.)
This is not a long book and it might have taken me a shorter time stretch to read it, but I just couldn't read it. I started with high hopes, being familiar with Umberto Eco's previous works. However, what some may find as interesting stories were just blabbering and run on thoughts and sentences to me.
Yes, I was a little curious to see how the romance played out and what the "big" event would be that caused the events of the opening chapter. But beyond that, somewhere around page 141, I stopped reading verbatim and turned to fast skimming. The skimming sufficed.
With that said, I ultimately realized that Eco wanted to tell a truth about Italy and perhaps about governments, in general. Satire. I got it, but in his telling it didn't grab me. But it did grab Tom Rachman, as you can see in his NY Times Sunday Book Review (published online yesterday and in print tomorrow.)
I'd lost all faith in everything, except for the certainty that there's always someone behind our backs waiting to deceive us.
I am not sure of the circumstances of the Maestro's passing. This novella offers the idea that Eco was going to explain the moral decline of Italy through the prism of its media and the thugs like Berlusconi who owned and transformed them. Eco didn't quite succeed as Numero Zero appears inchoate, as abortive as the newspaper (and expose describing it) are in the course of his narrative. There are a number of literary allusions but just enough to leave a pang that there won't be any more.
I am not sure of the circumstances of the Maestro's passing. This novella offers the idea that Eco was going to explain the moral decline of Italy through the prism of its media and the thugs like Berlusconi who owned and transformed them. Eco didn't quite succeed as Numero Zero appears inchoate, as abortive as the newspaper (and expose describing it) are in the course of his narrative. There are a number of literary allusions but just enough to leave a pang that there won't be any more.