I bought The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco at a used book store years ago solely based on the author. I loved Foucault’s Pendulum and The Name of the Rose when I read them in college and the title sounded fun. Reader, it was not fun. (I also purchased another of his novels at the same time, The Prague Cemetery, and started it just before this book. I read one chapter, was horrified and switched to this book. One of five books I’ve ever not forced myself to finish, and I probably should have realized at this point that I needed to start reading synopses.)
The book begins – as I expected – with a mystery. An Italian bookseller named Yambo awakens in the hospital having lost most of his memory. He remembers everything he’s ever read but not a thing about himself, and the book follows him as he tries to rediscover who he is. Yambo returns to his childhood home and attempts to discover himself through the books he read as a child, and the book includes some truly beautiful and fun cover art and comics from the era. Yambo bounces between reading current events to the children’s books and school essays he wrote during those years, and it’s fascinating to follow World War II via newspaper updates, music, art, and children’s comic books.
The main issue I had with this book (besides completely misunderstanding what it would be about) was personal. It was difficult reading the story of a man reliving the trauma of growing up in fascist Italy at the exact time I am consumed with fear that I might be raising my own child in fascist America. However, it was helpful in ways – there are wonderful visuals that I can’t recommend enough – and I appreciated the reminders that childhood is often shaped by the small things rather than global events. And even in dark times, adults can subvert popular messaging and raise children conscious of propaganda who will come out on the other side ok.
After this book, despite not enjoying it, I did go read Eco’s “14 General Properties of Fascism” (terrifying), and I purchased “They Thought They Were Free” by Milton Mayer to hopefully give myself a clearer perspective about what is happening in the world around us. Had I known what The Mysterious Flame was actually about, I never would have read it at this time, but I do appreciate it in hindsight and think about it often.
