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A review by melissa_who_reads
Numero zero by Umberto Eco
2.0
Did not read on Kindle: listened to the audio book in the car ...
This was a clever mess. There's one line I found memorable; I will go back to a print edition to find it and write it down. Mostly this is a discursive novel, with much happening in the conversations of the protagonist (Colonna) and others.
Colonna, a hack writer and translator, gets hired to write the history of a newspaper that is starting up. "Domani" doesn't exist yet: it's in its planning stages, with the journalists who have been hired training to write the kind of "news" the "readers" want - this is planned to be a "lowest common denominator" paper. Set in 1992, the backer of the paper wants to use the existence of the paper to blackmail his way into power; the reporters are busy mocking up demonstration newspapers, which may never get published.
There is a LOT of talking in this book. Colonna talks with the editor, they have editorial meetings with the staff, Colonna talks with another reporter who is filled with conspiracy theories (including the big one: Mussolini did not die at the end of WW2, but was spirited away), Colonna talks (and flirts) with the one woman who has been hired by the paper (and who is set to do the horoscopes).
Mostly it is a deconstruction of media and newspapers, with a background of conspiracy theories and dark plots behind the scenes. Action happens in the last fifth of the book, and feels disjointed from the rest of the book. In the end, the plot fizzles out in talking.
Some of the observations on how media/newspapers work felt relevant to today, but they were hammered in over and over. It was a lesson in how to read newspapers and discern manipulation, rather than a discussion which moved the plot further along.
I might have enjoyed this book more if I had been more immersed in 20th century Italian politics; but as it is, it was hard for me to follow all the conspiracies and keep the characters in the theories straight.
This was a clever mess. There's one line I found memorable; I will go back to a print edition to find it and write it down. Mostly this is a discursive novel, with much happening in the conversations of the protagonist (Colonna) and others.
Colonna, a hack writer and translator, gets hired to write the history of a newspaper that is starting up. "Domani" doesn't exist yet: it's in its planning stages, with the journalists who have been hired training to write the kind of "news" the "readers" want - this is planned to be a "lowest common denominator" paper. Set in 1992, the backer of the paper wants to use the existence of the paper to blackmail his way into power; the reporters are busy mocking up demonstration newspapers, which may never get published.
There is a LOT of talking in this book. Colonna talks with the editor, they have editorial meetings with the staff, Colonna talks with another reporter who is filled with conspiracy theories (including the big one: Mussolini did not die at the end of WW2, but was spirited away), Colonna talks (and flirts) with the one woman who has been hired by the paper (and who is set to do the horoscopes).
Mostly it is a deconstruction of media and newspapers, with a background of conspiracy theories and dark plots behind the scenes. Action happens in the last fifth of the book, and feels disjointed from the rest of the book. In the end, the plot fizzles out in talking.
Some of the observations on how media/newspapers work felt relevant to today, but they were hammered in over and over. It was a lesson in how to read newspapers and discern manipulation, rather than a discussion which moved the plot further along.
I might have enjoyed this book more if I had been more immersed in 20th century Italian politics; but as it is, it was hard for me to follow all the conspiracies and keep the characters in the theories straight.