Reviews

The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco

Only show reviews with written explanations

snarkoman's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

halfpennyp's review against another edition

Go to review page

I dig don't like it

angus_mckeogh's review against another edition

Go to review page

2.0

I love the historical nature of Eco's books and their veiled mysticism; however, any book that has an explanatory note at the end discussing why the reader might find the book confusing and not entirely enjoyable is probably a little confusing and not entirely enjoyable. It started with some fabulous passages and sections about religion and then diverged into an average and jumbled read. Ultimately just an average book.

murinius's review against another edition

Go to review page

2.0

Not sure whether I want to finish The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco. Bought blind, saw it at the store and went, "Oh, It's Umberto Eco! :)" Loved The Name of the Rose and heard good things about his other books so I thought I couldn't lose with it. Well... 1) The antisemitism is a bit too much, even if you know that as an author he condemns it and tries to make his protagonist look ridiculous and pathetic 2) This book might have been interesting at the time that he wrote it because the ideas he referenced would have been relatively obscure, but now every normie fascist has the same views as the protagonist that he specifically designed to be horrible horrible. If in The Name of the Rose I was learning new things, or at least writing down new things to look up, with The Prague Cemetery it's more like, "Yeah, yeah, I've heard of that conspiracy theory." "The guy becomes a misogynist and an even worse antisemite because a Jewish girl told him she didn't need him to carry her bag and called him 'boy' instead of 'man', inadvertently 'unmanning' him? That's just every other incel, though the ethnic group he hates varies." This novel is set in what is now Italy and he famously wrote against fascism, so I know where he's coming from though I disagree with the execution, but the repetition is tiring, and frankly kind of boring, which is the last thing I'd expected from Eco, if only because you can just log on and see some online guy tweeting a paraphrase of its most hateful elements. 150 pages in and from what other people have written about it, it doesn't look like it gets any better. :/

breadandmushrooms's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

lbarsk's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.0

Let's get one thing clear: Umberto Eco is a brilliant writer and a master storyteller. I wish that I had read this book in its original Italian, because that would probably have been just an awesome experience from a literary perspective.

What made this book only three stars for me was a combination of its denseness and the extreme amounts of anti-Semitism. I KNOW that it's a book about how the Protocols of the Elders of Zion were written, and I understand that Eco is trying to shine a light on that period of time in order to comment upon it--which I think is effective, and exposing that madness is important--but still. For someone whose religious and cultural heritage is as important as it is to me, this book is a bit hard to stomach. Reading that much "Jews are gross and terrible in literally every way" sentiment is just a lot. I know that Simonini, the main character, is not supposed to be a sympathetic protagonist, and reading his exploits were interesting, but it was hard for me to even appreciate or follow his character because of the vitriol that he spews from page one.

The other issue was, as I said above, the denseness; the book starts off a little slow and Eco's paragraphs are, sometimes, very long and detail-oriented. Again, I think this is where reading it in the original Italian (which is syntactically different enough from English for their sentence structure to make a real difference) would have been easier. I think perhaps it would've been better if I had read another book by Eco first, then tackled The Prague Cemetery.

Overall, not a bad read at all, and a story that you want to see through to its conclusion. It's just hard to get through at times, and that took away from the good parts of the book and the writing.