Baudolino

Just like in "The Name of the Rose," the Middle Ages and modern times resonate and reflect each other here. Like "The Name of the Rose," "Baudolino" is a historical novel with elements of detective fiction. The plot here is reminiscent of Conan Doyle's "The Six Napoleons," with added mythical stories of the Magi Kings, the Turin Shroud, the search for the Grail; the heroes wander through fictional kingdoms and battle armies of fantastical creatures, culminating in a thrilling double resolution. Journalists wrote immediately: Baudolino is a self-portrait of Eco. An indefatigable storyteller, bibliophile, celebrity, and citizen of the world, and at the same time a connoisseur, at times a participant in the simple, carnivorous, semi-peasant life of the Italian province, Eco and his hero are flesh of the flesh of their hometown of Alexandria in Piedmont. It is this Alexandria, a city emerging before the reader's eyes, depicted in Eco's novel, with all its raw simplicity, as an almost sacred place, a valley of earthly paradise, a haven of the Grail.