Umberto Eco
Rating
3 stars
Date Read
19/3/16 - 2/4/16Age Group
15+
General Thoughts
A Mussolini/Vatican/Gladio/Stay-Behind conspiracy. A (false?) Mussolini corpse in decomposition. A group of journalists that care little for ethics and even less for reliable information.
In The Name Of The Rose (of which I only managed to read the first few chapters), Eco is showing off, writing for the pleasure of it, tackling art, science, history, philosophy, architecture, ancient languages, mystery and murder. The result, of course, is a masterpiece that became a classic and now adorns, in snippets, all self-respecting pphilosophy school books.
In Numero Zero, Eco is a lot more laid back, writing about a middle aged man in the 21st century instead of a young capuccine in the middle Ages. As a result, the book a lot less impressive and a lot easier to read for sixteen year olds who can't yet appreciate masterpieces.
Place: Milan
Time: 1992
Α dormant ghostwriter (our protagonsist) is hired by an editor, Simei, to write a book on the events that are to follow:
In order to get accepeted into the inner politicoeconomic circles, a rich man, the commentatore, plans to bluff, hiring Simei to start a newspaper that is supposedly going to tell the truth, therefore exploiting big names in those very same inner circles he wishes to get accepted by. The Newspaper is going to be called, very creatively, "Tomorrow" and it will not just outline the events that have already been broadcasted by last night's News Programmes. Instead, it will make guesses as to what will follow, how those events will affect others in the future.
In order to prove that such a newspaper is indead possible, the editor and his crew, the dormant ghostwriter included, are going to spend a year typewriting a series of "issues zero", talking about events that have already happened and showing its readers how such a newspaper would be if it were to start writing about the present.
And so these issues of the Newspaper are called "Tommorow: Yesterday", meaning: how the issues would have looked if the newspaper Tomorrow had been published Yesterday.
And with it the commentatore plans to blackmail himself into the inner circles.
And so the Dormant Ghostwriter writes about their experience of making this newspaper a reality, and befriends a paranoic journalist sees terrifying conspiracies in every dark corner and a vulnerable girl that used to write about pink gossip but now tries to take part in something bigger, only torealise that the newspaper that hired her has little more interest in uncovering the truth than the magazines she used to work for...
The Plot
In little over 200 pages, this is, in fact, more of novella, than a full sized book.Place: Milan
Time: 1992
Α dormant ghostwriter (our protagonsist) is hired by an editor, Simei, to write a book on the events that are to follow:
In order to get accepeted into the inner politicoeconomic circles, a rich man, the commentatore, plans to bluff, hiring Simei to start a newspaper that is supposedly going to tell the truth, therefore exploiting big names in those very same inner circles he wishes to get accepted by. The Newspaper is going to be called, very creatively, "Tomorrow" and it will not just outline the events that have already been broadcasted by last night's News Programmes. Instead, it will make guesses as to what will follow, how those events will affect others in the future.
In order to prove that such a newspaper is indead possible, the editor and his crew, the dormant ghostwriter included, are going to spend a year typewriting a series of "issues zero", talking about events that have already happened and showing its readers how such a newspaper would be if it were to start writing about the present.
And so these issues of the Newspaper are called "Tommorow: Yesterday", meaning: how the issues would have looked if the newspaper Tomorrow had been published Yesterday.
And with it the commentatore plans to blackmail himself into the inner circles.
And so the Dormant Ghostwriter writes about their experience of making this newspaper a reality, and befriends a paranoic journalist sees terrifying conspiracies in every dark corner and a vulnerable girl that used to write about pink gossip but now tries to take part in something bigger, only torealise that the newspaper that hired her has little more interest in uncovering the truth than the magazines she used to work for...
All in All
Definetely not his best book, but it was a delight to read.
...And wonderful book to improve my writing for school, since I read it in Greek; it even touches themes like mass media, media culture which are exam material this year.
XOXO
Aggie Pearson
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