The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana – My Reaction
Posted on June 24, 2005 by Tito
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
by Umberto Eco, translation by Geoffrey Brock
I do not recommend this book. While there were parts I enjoyed – the start and the finish – its shortcomings were too much for me to forgive. The middle section, in which the star, Yambo, goes over the artifacts of his childhood during an amnesiatic retreat to his boyhood country home, is a litany of cultural references from Italy during Mussolini’s reign. Not in itself a bad idea, but to me – who was born well after and far away from this place in time – it seems that Eco feels he can tell a story by proxy…as if cleverly (?) mentioning a number of books, songs & news stories suffices in the place of developing a realized character or fluent plot.
During a recent talk in San Francisco, he admitted that on one level ("first and foremost" were his words, I believe) this novel should only be read by Italian-born men of approximately his age. Awesome. He then retreated from this by saying, that of course, anybody could read and enjoy this novel (available for purchase and signing in the lobby, naturally). During the same talk, he also talked about his method for crafting a novel. Key to the process, he declared, was building a complete world in which the novel will reside – to build the "scaffolding" that the novel will be raised within. At which point, the story writes itself more or less. Unfortunately, he did not follow this methodology for TMFOQL. He leans too much on the cultural artifacts of his youth during the aforemetioned middle part of the novel. The book shines when its characters exist completely within their own world: when Yambo resuscitates to his initial amnesiatic ‘fog’ to wonder about his personality and relationships; when he recalls a harrowing event from his childhood; and finally when he travels through his reawakened memories. Sadly, these parts come off as a flimsy facade tacked on to a house of cards. More often than not, while reading the book I felt I was riding through a contrived ride at Disney World, where animatronic characters appear & hide at the programmed time – neither scaring nor endearing - unable to approach their creator’s imagination despite competent and sometimes noteworthy construction.
I’ve enjoyed my previous readings of Eco, so I won’t let this disappointment preclude me from continued readings. My suggestion to you – save this book for when you’ve read sufficient Eco prior and feel the need to be a completist. For now, enjoy the novel’s excerpt "The Gorge" which ran in the New Yorker – because the novel will not improve upon it.
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