Baudolino - Hardcover

Eco, Umberto; Weaver, William

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151006903 ISBN 13: 9780151006908

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002

Synopsis

Born a simple peasant in northern Italy, Baudolino, a young man with a gift for languages and a talent for lying, narrates the story of his life, from his meeting with and adoption by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, his education in Paris, his and his companions' search for the legendary priest-king Prester John, and his arrival in Constantinople during the turmoil of the Fourth Crusade. 400,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

In Baudolino the ever ingenious Umberto Eco draws on the medieval legends surrounding Prester John--a mythical Christian emperor of the Far East--to create a sprawling, picaresque adventure yarn.

The eponymous Baudolino is the book's hero and chief, although deeply unreliable, narrator. After a brief foray into Baudolino's youthful attempts at autobiography, the novel opens in Constantinople in 1204, at the time of the Fourth Crusade. Baudolino has helped Niketas Choniates, the chancellor of the basileus of Byzantium, to flee the city. As the men make their way to safety Baudolino begins to recount, with numerous digressions and contradictions, his extraordinary life story. Born an Italian peasant, Baudolino claims to have been adopted as a boy by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. Sent to Paris to learn "the art of saying well that which may or may not be true" Baudolino fell in with a band of good fellows and fell in love with his stepmother. After being embroiled in the canonisation of Charlemagne; finding the sacred remains of the Magi and helping Frederick with a siege or two, Baudolino and chums, armed with the Holy Grail, set off on a particularly monster strewn journey to find the holy Prestor John. Teaming with Eco's customary metafictional games, intellectual jokes and elaborate (and even ludicrous) theological discussions, this novel is possibly his most accessible, and arguably enjoyable, since The Name of the Rose. --Travis Elborough

Review:

PRAISE FOR BAUDOLINO
"Baudolino, with its richly variegated haul of medieval treasures, remains compulsively readable." --The New York Times Book Review
"Eco puts forth the question that perpetually beguiles him and with which he perpetually beguiles the rest of us: If a teller of tales tells us he's telling the truth, how can we know for sure what really happened?"-The New Yorker
"Baudolino manifests many of the exuberant extravagances that made The Name of the Rose so hugely enjoyable." - -Iain Pears, Los Angeles Times Book Review
PRAISE FOR BAUDOLINO
"Baudolino, with its richly variegated haul of medieval treasures, remains compulsively readable." --The New York Times Book Review

"Eco puts forth the question that perpetually beguiles him and with which he perpetually beguiles the rest of us: If a teller of tales tells us he's telling the truth, how can we know for sure what really happened?"-The New Yorker

"Baudolino manifests many of the exuberant extravagances that made The Name of the Rose so hugely enjoyable." - -Iain Pears, Los Angeles Times Book Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0151006903
• ISBN 13: 9780151006908
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 528