The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco

Translated from the Italian by Richard Dixon.

I am a huge fan of Umberto Eco, but the world always appears a little weirder after I read something by him. My experience with The Prague Cemetery, Eco’s newest novel, was no different. It follows Simone Simonini, a forger, as he writes a diary of his strange life in an attempt to regain lost memories.

Simonini is a wholly odious character full of epic levels of hatred and deceit. “Not that he felt any particular love for himself, but his dislike of others induced him to make the best of his own company.” At the beginning of the book is a series of rants by Simonini about his various hatreds of various races and peoples. In the hands of a less skilled author, I don’t think Simonini’s story could have captured my imagination, and, more than once, I marveled that I somehow wasn’t being induced to throw the book across the room.

Simonini’s “I hate therefore I am,” attitude merely lays the groundwork, however, for a twisted tale (with many twisted characters) of conspiracies and counter-conspiracies, hoaxes and fabrications, multiple personalities and murder. It’s all very strange, but not at all improbable. In fact, the whole story is based on real history, and is merely a fictionalized suggestion of how the seeds of actual significant events could have been planted. Of course, not being an adequate student of history, I didn’t know any of this, and had to rely on the author’s notes at the end of the book.

The Prague Cemetery has left me feeling the way I usually do after reading one of Eco’s novels. I feel kind of mind-freaked, and just a teeny bit paranoid, now that I’ve been introduced to a strange, unfamiliar underbelly of the world. I feel wholly entertained, often by a kind of black humor that I’m not sure is really supposed to be amusing. I’m a tiny bit confused, largely because the historical nature of the story is beyond my feeble knowledge. Most of all, however, I feel complete and total awe for the author, who can put together something of this magnitude and scope, unique style (I love and am bewildered at the same time by the long lists that often appear in Eco’s work), absolute brilliance, and historical and societal relevance. Someday, I hope I am good enough to be able to even write about Eco’s work in a way that does it justice.

…and the world just got a little weirder.


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