Book Tamers| book reviews

Umberto Eco is the author’s whose novels have always fascinated me ever since I encountered him for the first time in Foucault’s Pendulum. I didn’t manage to read it then and the same happened later with other three novels. But I felt that there was something there, something that I will understand after sometime, when I will have gathered the necessary life experience. He is an extremely complex author who crowds the description with multiple cultural, religious, historical and technical references and I have the impression that each one is put there with a specific purpose.

What I have read, understood and liked a lot are his articles, which appeared in semiotic magazines and a few collections. How to Travel with a Salmon is itself a collection of articles written between 1959 and 1961 in an Italian magazine. Under the shape of editorials, Eco manages to give his own definition of irony.

The title of the book is given by the last article, an atypical one, in which the author foreshadows something of the world of How to Travel with a Salmon, the novel which appeared 40 years later. St Baudolino is a protector of Alessanjdria, the province where the writer was born, a symbol of the place he talks about so dearly.

All of the other articles are “How to” guides: how to play an Indian in an American movie, how to organize a public library, to spend intelligent holydays, follow instructions, buy gadgets. Two pages each about a particular subject which reveals much of the human nature.

Consequently, if we want to play an Indian we are given adivece to: ”leave obvious signs of your passing-by: horse footprints, put out campfires, feathers and amulets which make the identification of the tribe easier.” or ”never use all of your men in an ambush, replace them as they are being hit.” Adapted, these could be trademarks of any American movie where the Right and Wrong are absolute and therefore absurd.

The same in the case of the public library which is usually very hostile concerning the personnel and the structure; or the holidays for which the press recommends books that are actually compulsory; or the instructions which are very elaborate and hard to understand or the gadgets which become more useless everyday. Eco manages to see a detail which many miss and he analyzes it with impeccable logic and irresistible humor.

Some say that irony is an insult said with a smile upon the face, others that it is the expression of a contradictory truth told in a funny way. Eco manages to meet both points of view, wrapping them up with a charm that would make the articles pleasant even to the one who is being hint at. Paying attention to the details of the society in which he lives, extremely present and adapted to his time, he observes the imperfections and the decays around him, making meaningful fun of them.

Being a collection of articles, How to Travel with a Salmon is a book to take along on a trip and be read in the car, in a waiting room or any other public place, that is if you don’t feel embarrassed to be seen laughing all by yourself, without apparent reason. One doesn’t need much time, as one or two articles at a time are enough. Each of them fills the reader with meanings and makes one wonder. At least that is what happened to me.

Written by Gia