The Prague Cemetery

Reviews

A novel that takes the power of fakery in history to new heights...This work of teasing historical pseudo-reconstruction combines an intriguing philosophy of history with an elaborate set of reflections on narrative and the nature of fiction. Erudite and pop, sinister and passionate...A work destined to become a classic. This feels like Eco's most accessible novel since The Name of the Rose, a temptingly complex tale of 19th-century plots and conspiracies, and of an evil genius who may be behind them all Has latterly been dubbed the thinking person's Da Vinci Code. But Eco is at home in history in a way that Dan Brown is not...Eco has a sure grasp not only of historical fact but of a period's literature. He's a dab hand at intertextuality...His intent in exposing the moment that lies at the origin of modern anti-Semitism seems to be to show how fictions can have factual consequences. Contemporary spin-doctors take note. Lies, particularly if they follow the pattern of paranoid conspiracies and create an enemy, can have dire effects...Eco is a comic master and, in his 80th year, his irreverent intelligence, if not always his plotting or scabrous taste, remains bracing A heady fictional mixture of absorbing ideas and historical detail Expand reviews