The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
What a title for a book of fiction, written by a master craftsman. Who could resist? Particularly after having read several others of Umberto Eco's works of impeccably-written historical fiction.
I found his The Island of the Day Before a compelling work of art, his masterful handling of that time in human history, the setting of the tableau unfolding around the mysterious drama of the thesis unfolding, marvellously well constructed. When I stayed over a week-end at a Zen Buddhist temple in a small town in Japan, the physical characteristics of the temple brought to mind The Name of the Rose.
So how could I go wrong in selecting another book by this scholar of semiotics who has the capacity to write so brilliantly? Ah, all is often not as it seems, and life is full of disappointments. This is a sumptuously unfulfilled book of fiction, a miserable failure by a master storyteller. Life occasionally offers such let-downs.
And so it has been with The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. It is comprised of a potpourri of clever reminiscences, by a writer who has no trouble finding descriptives through considered use of his arcane vocabulary, and whose story-telling prowess enables him to dredge up intriguing tidbits of historical data to fit into his narrative.
A more utterly boring read is hard to imagine. I happen to be a reader who dislikes sundering my attention from any book I have begun, determined to see the reading through, to read and digest and extract from the words on the pages some meaning to illuminate and instruct.
I have struggled with this book through to page 291, out of a total pagination of 449. Regretfully, but with rare determination - having already set it aside once, when only 50 pages into its reading, to give my attention to another book well worth the effort - I shall read no further. Having reached the opinion that there is nothing to be gained, nothing to be derived from its contents.
My precious reading time squandered in a vain search for meaning and enlightenment, entertainment and possibly a furthering of my admiration for this writer regardless, I have reached the conclusion that it is pointless to continue. This is a tedious tome, a manuscript published that should never have been, an ode to the writer's egoistic muse gone on vacation, perhaps permanently.
The text of this work of the literary art, replete with accounts of a child's pop-art heroes and anti-heroes during WWII as though assuming the measure of a message of great social purport, a social escapism from grim reality, fails to resonate.
Words are important. They have the ability to transfix us, beguile and transport us, but they must also form between themselves a meaningful alliance of thought transference to inform; not merely tickle our senses and sensibilities. A hugely talented and respected writer has succumbed to the word-mystique of his adoration of self. Inflicting on a trusting readership a parody of self-discovery in the guise of a clever novel.
Alas, not clever, nor ingenious in its execution, nor quite talented enough; merely self-indulgent. Too self-indulgent, too absorbed in the brilliance of his own verbiage-dexterity and absorbed range and breadth of historical and dramatic tales of humanity's own lack of humility. He succumbs without grace of admonishing second thought, to his own self-enabled betrayal as a writer of literary value.
"An insidiously witty and provocative story" - Los Angeles Times. Witty? Repulsively juvenile, jejune and brittle. The intrepid literary reviewer in rigorously attempting not to present himself as a literary philistine, has vigorously revealed himself to be a literary ignoramus.
But if you take stock in the opinion of those who critique because they cannot themselves perform, you may wish to form your own opinion. Everyone should.
I found his The Island of the Day Before a compelling work of art, his masterful handling of that time in human history, the setting of the tableau unfolding around the mysterious drama of the thesis unfolding, marvellously well constructed. When I stayed over a week-end at a Zen Buddhist temple in a small town in Japan, the physical characteristics of the temple brought to mind The Name of the Rose.
So how could I go wrong in selecting another book by this scholar of semiotics who has the capacity to write so brilliantly? Ah, all is often not as it seems, and life is full of disappointments. This is a sumptuously unfulfilled book of fiction, a miserable failure by a master storyteller. Life occasionally offers such let-downs.
And so it has been with The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. It is comprised of a potpourri of clever reminiscences, by a writer who has no trouble finding descriptives through considered use of his arcane vocabulary, and whose story-telling prowess enables him to dredge up intriguing tidbits of historical data to fit into his narrative.
A more utterly boring read is hard to imagine. I happen to be a reader who dislikes sundering my attention from any book I have begun, determined to see the reading through, to read and digest and extract from the words on the pages some meaning to illuminate and instruct.
I have struggled with this book through to page 291, out of a total pagination of 449. Regretfully, but with rare determination - having already set it aside once, when only 50 pages into its reading, to give my attention to another book well worth the effort - I shall read no further. Having reached the opinion that there is nothing to be gained, nothing to be derived from its contents.
My precious reading time squandered in a vain search for meaning and enlightenment, entertainment and possibly a furthering of my admiration for this writer regardless, I have reached the conclusion that it is pointless to continue. This is a tedious tome, a manuscript published that should never have been, an ode to the writer's egoistic muse gone on vacation, perhaps permanently.
The text of this work of the literary art, replete with accounts of a child's pop-art heroes and anti-heroes during WWII as though assuming the measure of a message of great social purport, a social escapism from grim reality, fails to resonate.
Words are important. They have the ability to transfix us, beguile and transport us, but they must also form between themselves a meaningful alliance of thought transference to inform; not merely tickle our senses and sensibilities. A hugely talented and respected writer has succumbed to the word-mystique of his adoration of self. Inflicting on a trusting readership a parody of self-discovery in the guise of a clever novel.
Alas, not clever, nor ingenious in its execution, nor quite talented enough; merely self-indulgent. Too self-indulgent, too absorbed in the brilliance of his own verbiage-dexterity and absorbed range and breadth of historical and dramatic tales of humanity's own lack of humility. He succumbs without grace of admonishing second thought, to his own self-enabled betrayal as a writer of literary value.
"An insidiously witty and provocative story" - Los Angeles Times. Witty? Repulsively juvenile, jejune and brittle. The intrepid literary reviewer in rigorously attempting not to present himself as a literary philistine, has vigorously revealed himself to be a literary ignoramus.
But if you take stock in the opinion of those who critique because they cannot themselves perform, you may wish to form your own opinion. Everyone should.
Labels: Particularities, Whoops
posted by Pieface @ 5:56 PM
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