Baudolino

A Novel

Umberto Eco

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Year: 2003
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9780547537214
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

A self-confessed liar spins a fascinating tale of his life in this "comic and brilliantly baffling" historical novel by the author of The Name of the Rose ( The Guardian, UK).
 
Constantinople, 1204. The Byzantine capital is under siege by the knights of the Fourth Crusade. Amid the carnage and confusion, one Baudolino saves a historian and high court official from certain death at the hands of the crusading warriors—and proceeds to regale him with the fantastical story of his life.
 
Born a simple peasant in northern Italy, Baudolino has two major gifts: a talent for learning languages and a skill in telling lies. As a boy he meets a foreign commander who adopts Baudolino and sends him to the university in Paris, where he makes a number of adventurous friends. Spurred on by myths and their own reveries, they decide to go in search of the legendary priest-king Prester John who is said to rule over a vast kingdom in the East.
 
The kingdom they seek is a phantasmagorical land of strange creatures with eyes on their shoulders and mouths on their stomachs; of eunuchs, unicorns, and lovely maidens. With dazzling digressions, outrageous tricks, extraordinary feeling, and vicarious reflections on our postmodern age, Baudolino is Eco the storyteller at his brilliant best.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contents
• Copyright
• 1. Baudolino tries his hand at writing
• 2. Baudolino meets Niketas Choniates
• 3. Baudolino explains to Niketas what he wrote as a boy
• 4. Baudolino talks with the emperor and falls in love with the empress
• 5. Baudolino gives Frederick some wise advice
• 6. Baudolino goes to Paris
• 7. Baudolino makes the Poet write love letters and poems to Beatrice
• 8. Baudolino in the Earthly Paradise
• 9. Baudolino upbraids the emperor and seduces the empress
• 10. Baudolino finds the Magi and canonizes Charlemagne
• 11. Baudolino constructs a palace for Prester John
• 12. Baudolino writes the letter of Prester John
• 13. Baudolino sees the birth of a new city
• 14. Baudolino saves Alessandria with his father’s cow
• 15. Baudolino at the battle of Legnano
• 16. Baudolino is deceived by Zosimos
• 17. Baudolino discovers that Prester John wrote to too many people
• 18. Baudolino and Colandrina
• 19. Baudolino changes the name of his city
• 20. Baudolino finds Zosimos again
• 21. Baudolino and the sweets of Byzantium
• 22. Baudolino loses his father and finds the Grasal
• 23. Baudolino on the Third Crusade
• 24. Baudolino in the castle of Ardzrouni
• 25. Baudolino sees Frederick die twice
• 26. Baudolino and the journey of the Magi
• 27. Baudolino in the darkness of Abcasia
• 28. Baudolino crosses the Sambatyon
• 29. Baudolino arrives at Pndapetzim
• 30. Baudolino meets the Deacon Johannes
• 31. Baudolino waits to leave for the kingdom of Prester John
• 32. Baudolino sees a lady with a unicorn
• 33. Baudolino meets Hypatia
• 34. Baudolino discovers true love
• 35. Baudolino against the White Huns
• 36. Baudolino and the rocs
• 37. Baudolino enriches the treasures of Byzantium
• 38. Baudolino settles scores
• 39. Baudolino stylites
• 40. Baudolino is no more
• Translator’s Note
• Reading Group Guide