![]() ![]() ![]() Remember when we were supposed to boycott French Fries? I recognized (not in myself, but in others) a spiteful hatred of all things French. People are never so completely and enthusiastically evil as when they act out of religious conviction …they talk with horror about sex, but every day you see them getting out og an incestuous bed without so much as washing their hands, and they eat and drink their Lord, then shit and piss him out. I found myself not as appalled by the equal hatred directed toward the hypocrisy of the clergy Hatred, and its progenitor stereotyping, is a slippery slope. Of course, I found myself repelled by the venom directed toward the jews. His most vicious bile is reserved for the jews throughout the novel. Then we are given more than a glimpse – we are immersed in the mind of an equal opportunity hater (“O di ergo sum. The novel begins (“A passerby in the grey morning”) like a hand-held camera giving the audience glimpses of fin de siècle Paris. The Captain and his Froideian (sic) alter-ego Abbe Dalla Piccola are writing the diary of the major events of their life (with occasional commentary from The Narrator). Many of these will certainly be familiar to the reader: Garibaldi, Dumas – and others who probably will not be. ![]() I finished it! I finished it! Eco gives us a look into the fractured mind(s) of one Captain Simonini, a fictional character who (in the novel) is surrounded mostly by actual names from history. Phew! Umberto Eco’s latest turned out to be (for me) the classic slog. ![]()
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