Umberto Eco
Ed. Bompiani
pp. 532
In the third shelf from the bottom of my bookcase (one of many), we find Umberto Eco's books, among these, two days ago, I found "The Prague Cemetery", from me not yet read.
It is a beautiful bound volume, with a hardcover, and a shiny dust jacket with a staircase in the foreground and above, the dark image of a man against a light wrapped in a cloak and with a top hat on his head.
I take the book in my hands and look at it closely trying to understand if it is worth trying to read it in the remaining two days of vacation. I am reminded of my last reading of Eco, "Foucault's Pendulum", started three times and finished only once, after at least ten years from the first attempt at reading, of course, another ten years have passed since then and hundreds of books read ... but with Eco the risk of running into something not easy to understand is always there, and it is very high.
I accept the risk, with pleasure I would say, I like challenges.
I begin to read ... I immediately come across the protagonist, Captain Simonini. A strange character that helps the author to retrace part of the history of Italy, France and Europe ... or perhaps of the whole world. The stories told, all of them really happened (or almost!) Develop over the time span of the second half of the 800, and lay the foundations for hatred of Jews so successfully ridden by European states.
Reality or fiction, will you say?
Reality ... but also fiction, history but also novel. Real and invented characters take center stage, leading the reader by the hand through the events of the unification of Italy by Garibaldi, the (accidental?) Death of Ippolito Nievo, the church scandals, the Dreyfus affair .. but also good food, from Sicily to Paris.
A great Umberto Eco, historian first of all but sublime novelist, accompanied me in the last two days of vacation, until a few minutes ago, with his cemetery in Prague, which after being read for pleasure now must be read differently, as object of study, like a history book, to understand where the novel ends and History begins ...
Alessandro Rugolo
