The author came to fame with his first novel, The Name of the Rose, about a series of murders in a late-medieval monastery, now said to have sold 50 million copies throughout the world.
In the new book, Eco invents a thoroughly nasty fictional character, Captain Simone Simononi, uncertain whether or not he has a split personality shared with a mysterious Jesuit priest who seems to hide in his house. Simononi falls asleep (or drunk) sometimes while recording escapades in a journal. He is a master forger, hired spy, and murderer. In Paris in 1897 this weird secret agent is called upon to investigate assassination and political intrigue which affects Europe's future.
Eco states in his afterword titled "Useless Learned Explanations", that the delusional, unscrupulous and disgraceful maniac is the only fictional character in the story. He later retracts, saying that he is really a "collage" character to whom events have been attributed that were really done by others. The real characters are numerous, including Garibaldi, Napoleon III, a pope, Freud and Mesmer, Dreyfus, Hitler, etc.
It is an amazing story, tedious to read at times yet brilliantly written.
It is full of history, but history blended with mystery and conspiracy theories par excellence.
Simononi has a key role in all of them. Major themes within the conspiracies are freemasonry, secret police of various countries, devil worship, and anti-Semitism.
The title of the book comes from a meeting of the elders of Zion that takes place in the Jewish cemetery in Prague, detailing their nefarious plan to rule the world. They plan to take over banks, governments, the media and just about every aspect of contemporary life. The text will soon become better known as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the infamous phony text that would later dupe Adolf Hitler.
Simononi himself is no hero but a villain, misogynist and glutton. This evil genius loathes the French, Germans and Italians and has a special distaste for Jews. He is used to highlight a rampant anti-Semitism of Europe in the 18th century, forerunner to Hitler's "Final Solution". Readers can reserve no sympathy for this person whose sole driving force appears to be avarice.
Some will just enjoy the long read as a sort of madcap Dan Brown tale of globe-trotting adventure. More discerning people may chuckle at the author's clever twists and titillation of real historical events in the mess of Europe in the late 19th century.
It is a multilayered novel, embellished with delightful illustrations, most of them from the author's drawings or etchings. The writing is masterful, but there are monstrous and disturbing distortions through the plot. Can the prose be trusted either as fact or fantasy, when presented as the recorded adventures, dreams and ravings of a man who has to be a fraud or lunatic?
Best to regard it as artful and exciting comedy, I believe.
- Geoff Adams is a former editor of the ODT.
