The Prague Cemetery by Umberto EcoMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Umberto Eco is back with a typically convoluted novel that showed his zest for minutely detailing odd corners of history.
Set in late 19th century Paris and Italy, it follows the exploits of a fictional counterfeiter of legal documents as he meets with the real (and really strange) figures of his era.
Simone Simonini is entirely without scruple and apolitical except for a deep undercurrent of antisemitism. He will forge documents for anyone but prefers to create conspiracy theories about the Jews. As you might suspect, he contributes to that notorious fake, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, one of Hitler's favorite reads and still a bestseller in many Muslim countries.
Eco is at his best when describing the bizarre beliefs of bygone ages, something he returns to again and again in his fiction. He's in top form here, with lots of information about the Freemasons, political radicals, and religious hucksters of the era. At times, however, it gets a bit long winded and reads as if it was lifted verbatim from century-old sources.
Another problem is the narrative conceit. Simonini has lost his memory, and carries on a correspondence with a clergyman who may or may not be his alter ego and who seems to know everything he doesn't. I saw no reason for this structure and it quickly becomes tiresome, as do the broad winks to the reader. His first two books, The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum, were much better.
Still, it's a fun read and gives a detailed skewering of the Protocols and how they were cobbled together from earlier antisemitic screeds and novels. It gives this frivolous romp through history a relevant tone.
I give this book three and a half stars.
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