I am currently having Umberto Eco`s most recent novel, Baudolino, as company on my bus trips to work… I really loved The Name of the Rose

and The Island from the Day Before, and feel I am getting much the same fare now , and I am not complaining. Baudolino`s exploits as the adopted son of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa have fascinated me and held me in thrall for almost a week now. I read the book when I have my hands free and can spare some time, I am sure I would have read it from start to finish in one go if my life had been as vacant as it was when I discovered Eco through his brilliant novel The Name of the Rose. Being fascinated with the myths,folklore,poetry,legends,religious mysticism,occult and metaphysical speculations,art and architecture of the middle ages..and reading a lot of more or less entertaining scholarly works on the history and nature of that time period – I feel that with Baudolino that world, which has been, and which, phantastically still is – comes even more alive. The style of Baudolino is that of long narrations interjected with banter between the storyteller, Baudolino himself and his Byzantine scribe, Nicetas Choniates..Constantinople is burning, the latin crusaders have entered the holy imperial city with orders to humiliate and devastate the Byzantine empire as much as possible. With this as backdrop, Baudolino begins telling his story, which spans from his childhood in the “hicks” to his assassination of whom he claims is the murderer of emperor Frederick, his fosterfather.

As far as I have come into the book now, about 1/3 – I warmly recommend it.