The Day Before
I finished Umberto Eco's latest, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, on the train in this morning. I've been a fan since discovering The Name of the Rose, even through The Island of the Day Before, and in another way especially his essays, so when I saw the reviews of this one, I did my usual: I didn't read any more of them than enough to know that this was an "illustrated novel", experimental in applying images as part of the text. Although I did also get the impression that it wasn't particularly a success, I was very pleased just the same to get it for my birthday (thank you, M.), and by-and-large I can say I enjoyed reading it. It isn't, however, a success.

Queen Loana starts out well, as the story of a man who has lost his memory following an unspecified illness, except for everything he's ever read. This leads him, and the novel, into a search for his past through the textual evidence he's left behind growing up, at which point the novel spirals into a maniacal list-making exercise in nostalgia, unrelieved for the next two thirds of the book, at which point, having suffered a relapse, we spend the remainder reliving his childhood from the point we departed consciousness through to late adolescence, a significant portion of which was recently published as a short story in the New Yorker, where it was a lot better for the redactions.

The writing is still good, for all that, and there are moments throughout that lead to - unfortunately unfulfilled - expectations almost sufficiently thrilling in themselves, leaving me disappointed that nothing promised was ever really met. Even for fans I'd say, go ahead, buy it, if you must, but wait for the paperback. Meanwhile, I'll be more cautious next time I'm buying Eco's fiction.