Author: Umberto Eco

2011, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Filed Under: Literary, Historical.

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There’s but one fictional element to Eco’s newest novel: the main character. Every other character, conversation, and event in this dense novel is pulled from historical records, or else constitutes an amalgamation of real persons or happenings. This is Eco’s claim, and if true–and I’m inclined to believe it is–this book is even more impressive than it would be on a blind read.

Set in Europe in the last quarter of the 19th century, The Prague Cemetery tells the tale of Captain Simonini, a French-Italian document forger who works, more or less freelance, as a subversive agent for a number of different governments. His profession sometimes has him infiltrating radical groups in order to incite incidents (in hopes of swinging public or political favor back to the ruling party), and other times falsifying documents and news stories in order to influence public opinion or have someone tossed in jail. He’s a murderous villain, but Eco’s comprehensive and careful narration makes him easy to cling to as a narrator and as a character–in that regard he’s got a bit of Iago in him.

The improbability of a reader finding Simonini likeable is all the more exacerbated by his personal agenda. Simonini is ferverntly anti-semitic. The novel is steeped in the nationalist ideologies (and fear-mongering) that was so rampant in the decades building up to the great wars of the 20th century. Much of that boiled down to deeply anti-semitic movements across most of Europe. The Prague Cemetery opens with a chapter-long racist tirade, not only denigrating the Jews, but pinpointing and exploiting ethnic and cultural stereotypes and hateful prosaisms about every race and nation in Europe. By opening the book with a tearing-down of everyone, Eco cleans the slate for Simonini. He’s not a fascist, because he would hate the fascists too. Instead Eco has created a character that represents that dark part in our collective mindset, the one that, amongst other things and whether we agree with them or not, recognizes stereotypes and associates them with groups and cultures. …
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Author: R. William Bennett

2011, Shadow Mountain

Filed Under: Literary, Historical.

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I’ve been reading a bunch of Halloweenish books lately (you’ll notice werewolves and cemeteries in my upcoming reviews), and while Bennett’s retelling of A Christmas Carol does feature ghosts, it’s (somewhat obviously) a full-on Christmas story, probably even more so than its inspiration.

The story begins just a little before the events of Dickens’s classic. Marley is alive and a ruthless business man. He forsook any sort of interpersonal relationship for the almighty buck. He takes on a young financial prodigy as a partner (Scrooge audaciously refuses to apprentice), teaches him all he knows about being ruthless, then dies with only Scrooge begrudgingly by his side, waiting with impatience to sieze his mentor’s assets. But just before dying, Marley has an ephiphany, and he regrets his avaricious life.

Because of this final moment, Marley finds forgiveness in the afterlife. He does penance by wandering the world as a shade, dragging heavy, chest-laden chains that rattle behind him. Marley blames himself for Scrooge being and even crueler, more miserly dick, so he petitions the spirits of the afterlife to allow him to help Scrooge. If he fails, Marley will have to continue to drag his chains–and Scrooge’s–for eternity. From there the book is a faithful retelling of A Christmas Carol, written from the perspective of Marley, who, Bennett tells us, was always there, just invisible to Dickens’s protagonist.

Despite it occurring on a Christian holiday, I’ve always read A Christmas Carol as largely, like much of Dickens’s work, more about social contract and free will than any sort of lesson in piety. But Marley, and through him this book, seems more concerned with Scrooge’s eternal salvation. Scrooge’s redemption as Dickens wrote it was not a Christian repentance. He reforms his ways for the betterment of man, and finds personal reward in that offering. Bennett’s tale offers more of a trickle-down morality scheme, a golden-rule, pay-it-forward kind of thing. In the end, of course, the resulting message is the same: as Abe Lincoln once put it, “Be excellent to each other–and party on, dudes.” …
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Author: Bernard du Boucheron, translated from the French by Hester Velmans

2008, Overlook Duckworth

Filed Under: Literary, Historical.

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For a debut novel by a 76 year-old man, this is a pretty ambitious book. It’s not long (a slim 120 or so pages), but it is fairly dense. The Voyage of the Short Serpent tells the tale of a medieval Scandinavian bishop sent to the Greenlandic colonies to restore order. The church believes the colonies have fallen into abject hedonism (accompanied by incest and cannibalism) and need salvation. That political mission becomes a lifelong adventure, however, as traversing the arctic in a tiny wooden boat is no simple task. A grueling adventure follows, and from it springs a story of surprising depth. …
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