
Umberto's Echoes - samclemens
http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1640053.ece
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powera
First off, a reminder that Umberto Eco is an Italian author. (as I'm sure most
of the commenters here are familiar with The Name of the Rose or Foucault's
Pendulum in English)

Based on this (and a few other) reviews, I'm not entirely sure how this book
is supposed to be different from Foucault's Pendulum.

~~~
camillomiller
It is completely different. Think of Focault's pendulum as an intellectual and
noble ancestor of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, better written, better researched
and much more intellectually rewarding. The story is beautifully twined in
extremely fascinating scenarios and the general topic was much more relevant
when the book came out.

Numero zero, on the other hand, reads like some long form notes hastily out
together to resemble a short novel. The book is fast, lacks action (as noted
by the review) and in the end really seems unfinished or unproperly edited. It
certainly wasn't something you'd expect from someone like Professor Eco. Plus,
the plot and the setting are completely out off time and focus on a period -
the 90's, or the late Wild West of media control by Berlusconi and his
accolades - that's obsessing Eco for some time, along with the fact that he's
more comfortable writing about the mechanics of old media that he, on some
level, misses dearly.

~~~
Pamar
I upvoted you because you definitely made a better job than me in trying to
explain things :)

