A review by flying_monkey
Baudolino by Umberto Eco

adventurous challenging mysterious slow-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

For some reason I had never read this historial fantasy novel by one of favourite writers, Umberto Eco (RIP). And it's doubly mystifying because it is exactly my thing. It's based on a combination of real historical events and personnages of the mid-C12th and early C13th and the worlds, peoples and beasts of the mediaeval imagination, and trips easily between the two, with Eco's costomary fluidity and ease with a massive range of knowledge. And, as usual with Eco, conspiracies and plots abound, characters, including or especially the narrator, are fundamentally untrustworthy, and diversions, blind alleys and shaggy-dog stories proliferate. It's not his best, but it's still all very satisfying to someone like me, however it will probably irritate the hell out of anyone who likes a straight story.