 Book
Reviews
with Robin Osborne
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
By Umberto Eco
Secker & Warburg $55
 By
anyone's standards, even those of the professor-cum-author Umberto Eco, this is
a remarkable book, initially noteworthy for its presentation. Throughout the text
of the 'illustrated novel' are reproductions of comics and book covers, movie
posters and ads (all meticulously referenced at the end) highlighting the cultural
influences to which the book's narrator was exposed during his youth.
Other eclectic memorabilia include stamps from far corners of the globe and
the dust-jacket image of 1920's American dancer, Josephine Baker, who is not,
despite impressions, the 'Queen Loana' of the title.
Rubbing shoulders with Mickey Mouse and Mandrake the Magician are the dictator
Mussolini, Italian fascist propaganda from WWII and a Nazi death camp scene, the
downside of the times in which the memoir is set.
Both lavish and relevant, this material adds to the pleasures of a book marked
by an intriguing plot and mercurial writing, enhanced by a fine translation.
As the tale opens we meet Giambattista Bodoni - in a typical Eco word game,
he was named after the designer of the Bodoni typeface - who is recovering from
a medical event, stroke perhaps, which has wiped out his personal memory but not
harmed his keen knowledge of classical and popular literature.
The proprietor of an antiquarian bookshop, he is witty, urbane and utterly
confused, unable to recall his nickname, Yambo, or even recognise his wife, Paula.
So begins an extended trip down memory lane as he seeks to recapture his past
with the help of the visual material dotted through the book's 450-plus pages.
The two main settings are his shop, with its printed treasures and enigmatic
assistant, the Polish immigrant, Sibella, whom he fears he may have slept with,
and his boyhood home in the countryside where chests of comics, books and posters
were hoarded by his parents.
Eco's trawl through the artefacts of the mid-20th century are culturally and
politically astute, showing how a young Italian boy viewed American life through
its popular outpourings whilst his own country was slipping into terror.
The 'incredibly dumb story' of Queen Loana, ruler of a savage tribe for 2,000
years and guardian of an 'ultra-mysterious flame', gets a stinging serve, yet
it had its purpose for years later, as Yambo observes, 'my memory in shambles,
I had reactivated the flame's name to signal the reverberation of forgotten delights.
The fog was still, as always, within me, pierced from time to time by the echo
of a title.'
There are many echoes in this Eco, if you'll pardon the pun, and they help
produce a thoughtful and highly entertaining read.
- Books available at Book Warehouse, Keen Street, Lismore
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