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"Numero Uno" -- A coda for Eco lovers
I find it impossible to review this book without referring to other books by Umberto Eco. Specifically, their is a vibe here that's somewhat reminiscent of "The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana" (in that there are countless cultural references that may not escape the shores of a long-gone Italy) and the much more developed "Foucault's Pendulum" (which for my money is the film version Hollywood should have made and dropped Tom Hanks into instead of "The DaVinci Code.") "Numero Zero" is by rights a novella, clocking in at a slim 191 pages (including a number of white pages separating chapters). The plot is interesting enough, but only gets cooking in the final quarter of the book. That's when the murders begin and the heroes come under a shadowy threat (as in Foucault's). Here, though, the threat is so slight and dissipates so quickly, that it's merely a minor plot point. Beyond that, the reader is invited to chew over much-deserved insults flung at the media, a phone book of international intriguers, and revisit Italian corruption circa 1992. The big reveal -- if that's what it is -- also dissipates quickly, offering sort of a coda to a dark chapter in history. Don't get me wrong. Eco at 84 out-writes authors of 750-page tomes who are a third his age. Having said that, this book, I feel, is best approached as if it were a quick introduction to Eco, whetting the appetite for a number of his better works, including "Name of the Rose," "Foucault's Pendulum," "Baudolino," and "The Island of the Day Before." Again, I stress that even a lesser Eco book beats most other books any day.
Top reviews from the United States
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Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2016
Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2016
I find it impossible to review this book without referring to other books by Umberto Eco. Specifically, their is a vibe here that's somewhat reminiscent of "The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana" (in that there are countless cultural references that may not escape the shores of a long-gone Italy) and the much more developed "Foucault's Pendulum" (which for my money is the film version Hollywood should have made and dropped Tom Hanks into instead of "The DaVinci Code.")
"Numero Zero" is by rights a novella, clocking in at a slim 191 pages (including a number of white pages separating chapters). The plot is interesting enough, but only gets cooking in the final quarter of the book. That's when the murders begin and the heroes come under a shadowy threat (as in Foucault's). Here, though, the threat is so slight and dissipates so quickly, that it's merely a minor plot point. Beyond that, the reader is invited to chew over much-deserved insults flung at the media, a phone book of international intriguers, and revisit Italian corruption circa 1992. The big reveal -- if that's what it is -- also dissipates quickly, offering sort of a coda to a dark chapter in history.
Don't get me wrong. Eco at 84 out-writes authors of 750-page tomes who are a third his age. Having said that, this book, I feel, is best approached as if it were a quick introduction to Eco, whetting the appetite for a number of his better works, including "Name of the Rose," "Foucault's Pendulum," "Baudolino," and "The Island of the Day Before." Again, I stress that even a lesser Eco book beats most other books any day.
"Numero Zero" is by rights a novella, clocking in at a slim 191 pages (including a number of white pages separating chapters). The plot is interesting enough, but only gets cooking in the final quarter of the book. That's when the murders begin and the heroes come under a shadowy threat (as in Foucault's). Here, though, the threat is so slight and dissipates so quickly, that it's merely a minor plot point. Beyond that, the reader is invited to chew over much-deserved insults flung at the media, a phone book of international intriguers, and revisit Italian corruption circa 1992. The big reveal -- if that's what it is -- also dissipates quickly, offering sort of a coda to a dark chapter in history.
Don't get me wrong. Eco at 84 out-writes authors of 750-page tomes who are a third his age. Having said that, this book, I feel, is best approached as if it were a quick introduction to Eco, whetting the appetite for a number of his better works, including "Name of the Rose," "Foucault's Pendulum," "Baudolino," and "The Island of the Day Before." Again, I stress that even a lesser Eco book beats most other books any day.
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Reviewed in the United States on November 13, 2015
Top reviews from other countries
CASSINI24
Conspiracy theories abound in post-war Italy
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 10, 2023Kindle Customer
Very readable and thoroughly enjoyed it
Reviewed in India on December 10, 2016Vytas Narusevicius
Unbelievably boring! Not up to Eco's past glories
Reviewed in Canada on March 30, 2016Cliente Amazon
journalism in post modern societies
Reviewed in Italy on April 28, 2016