Baudolino, Umberto Eco

I recently found The Name of the Rose and Baudolino in a preloved book collection. Didn't know anything about Umberto Eco or his work, but the synopsis of both the books were interesting enough. I just finished Baudolino, and was disappointed to find that there wasn't much discussion on the book anywhere really. Now, I am not the smartest guy in any room I enter, so I am quite sure I have missed much of the details he has put into this one, but god is this book dense.

As I went on, I thought much of it was fiction considering the titular character is a self-proclaimed liar, but was surprised to find that a lot of the events I found too incredulous were actually real. Loved what he did with relics and symbols. Also the fact that the story goes through so many genres; at one point it's a fantasy adventure and towards the end it becomes a murder mystery and through it all he has sprinkled so much real history.

Baudolino being a pathological liar works so well. A few google searches will tell you that a lot of what he tells you did happen, but then again he tells them from the first point view with him being the one that usually drives those things to happen AND you know he is lying out of his ass. Then, he literally starts adding pygmies, ponces, skiapods and whatever else to his story.

Maybe all of it was a lie, maybe he didn't have anything he wanted to figure out by telling the story, maybe some of it was true. At the end, I thought that most of what he said did happen, but in a very different and grounded way maybe.

All in all, it was very a very fun experience tho some parts were a bit slow but it has got me very excited for The Name of The Rose. If you have read this before and know some things that I might have missed, let me know.