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Baudolino by Umberto Eco Rating: • (Read only if your interest is strong) |
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Liar’s lair I gave up on reading the first chapter of
Umberto Eco’s Baudolino
three times. Having enjoyed Eco’s The Name of the Rose and Foucault’s
Pendulum, and tolerating The Island of the Day Before, I was
prepared for some effort in reading Eco. But I was not prepared for as much
effort as Baudolino
demanded. Here’s an excerpt of that first chapter
that gave me so much grief: Baudolino tries his
hand at writing Rattisbon Anno Dommini
Domini mense decembri mclv Cronicle of Baudolino of the fammily of Aulario. I Baudolino son of
Galiaudo Gagliaudo of the Aulari with a head that looks like a lion halleluia
gratias to the Allmighty may he forgive me ego habeo facto the
greatest stealing of my life, I mean from the cabbinet of the Bishop Oto I
have stollen many pages that may belong to the Immperial Chancellor and I
have scraped clean almost all of them excepting where the writing would not
come off et now I have much parchmint to write down what I want which is my
own story even if I don't know to write Latin. if they find out the
pages are gone God knows the Hell they will raze et may be theyll think it
was some spy of the Roman bishops who hate the Emperer Fredericus but may be nobody
cares in the chancellery they write and write even when theres no need and
whoever finds them (these pages) can shove them up his...wont do anything about
them ncipit prologus de
duabus civilitatibus historiae AD mcxliii conscript saepe multumque
volvendo mecum de rerum temporalium motu ancipitq these lines were
allready here before and I couldnt scratch them away so I leave them if they find these
pages now Ive writen on them not even a chancelor will understand them
because this lingua here is what they talk at la Frescheta but noboddy knows
to write it down but even if its a
langwadge noboddy understands they can tell right away its me because everyboddy
says we Frescheta people talk a lingua no Kristian ever heard so I have to
hide these pages well Jesù writing is hard
work all my fingers ake allready my father Galiaudo
always use to say I must have a gift of Santa maria of Roboreto because since
I was a little pup if someboddy say just quinkue five V words I could do
their talk right off whether they came from Terdona or from Gavi and even
from Mediolanum where they talk stranger than dogs, anyway even when I met
the first Alamanni in my life who were laying siege seige seege to Terdona,
all Toische and nasty and they say rousz and Myn got, before the day was over
I was saying rousz and Myn got too and they woiud would say to me Kint go
find us a pretty Frouwe and we'll do fiki fiki even if she doesn't wan to
just tell us where she is and we'll grab her fast whats a Frouwe I said
and they said a womman a feemale du verstan and with theiur hands they made
like big tits because in this siege we were kinmd of scarce on women, the
ones in Terdona are in the town and when we enter just leave it to us but the
wommen outside the town don't show their faces and then they set to cursing
with words that gave even me goosebumps lousy shitty Hunns,
you needn't think I'm going to tell you where the Frouws are, I'm no
informer, keep jerking off mamma mia, they like
to killed me kill or necabant, now
I'm writing Latin almost, not that I understand Latin even if I learned to
read from a Latin librum and when they talk Latin to me, I understand but its
the writing I don't know how you write the words Goddamm I never know
if it's equus or equum and I always get it wrong while for us a horse is
always a chivaus and I never get it wrong because nobody writes Horse in fact
they dont write anything because they dont know how to read but that day things
went all right and the germanns didn't harm a hair of my head because just
then some milites arrived yelling come on come on we're attacking again and
then Hell broke loose and I couldnt think with the cavalry going this way and
the foot soldeiers going that way with their banners and trumpets blowing and
wooden towers tall as the trees of Burmia moving like carts with bowmen and
fundibulari on them and others carrying ladders and all these arrows raining
down on them like hail and the others flinging stones with a kind of big
Spoone and they whistled over my head like the iaculi that the Derthonesi
threw from the walls, what an uproar! and I hidd myself for
a good two hours under a bush saying sancta virgine help me then everything
calmed down and some men ran by me speaking like people from Pavia and
yelling they'd killed so many Derthonesi that it looked like a lake of Blood
and they were very happy because now the Derthonesi would find out what it
meant to side with the Mediolanenses since those alamanns
with the Frouwe business were coming back, may be not so many, because the
Derthonesi hadnt exakly been idle I said to myself I better cleer out so I walked and walked
and got home when it was almost day and told the whole story to my father
Galiaudo who said you big booby getting mixed up with seiges and the like one
of these days you'll get a pike up your ass that stuff is all for the lords
and masters so let them stew in their own juice because we have the cows to
worry about and we're serious folk forget about Frederick, first he comes
then he goes then he comes back and it adds up to fuckall anyway Terdona didnt
fall because they never got the fort. And it went on right up to the end of
my story when the Allamanns cut off the water and so instead of drinking
their own piss they told Frederick they were his men, he let them come out
but first he burned the city and then chopped it to pieces like what the men
of Pavia did because they're dead set against the Derthonesi here non est
like the Alamans who all love one another and are as close as my crossed
fingers but here at Gamondio if we see someone from Bergolio it makes our
balls spin but now back to my
storey of when I was in the Frescheta woods there specially when theres real fog
when you cant see the tip of your nose and things appear all of a sudden and
you dont see them coming then I have visions like that time when I saw the
unicorn and the other time when I saw Saint Baudolino who spoke to me and
said sonofawhore youre going to Hell because the unicorn story goes like this
everybody knows that to hunt a unicorn you have to put a girl whose still a
virgin at the foot of a tree and the animal smells the virgin smell and comes
and puts his head in her lap so I took Bergolio's Nena who had come with her
father to buy my fathers cow and I said to her come into the woods with me
and we'll hunt the unicorn then I put her under the Tree because I was sure
she was a virgin and I said to her sit still like this and spread your legs to
make room for the animal's head and she asked spread like this and I said
there right there and I touched her and she began making some noises like a
nanny goat dropping a kid and I lost my head and had something like a
napocalips and afterwards she wasnt pure like a lily any more and she said o
my god now how will we make the unicorn come and just then I heard a voice
from Heaven said that the unicorn qui tollis peccata mundis was me and I
started jumping around the bushes and crying hip heee frr frr because I was
happier than a real unicorn because I had put my horn in the virgin's lap and
this was why Saint Baudolino had called me son et setera but then he forgave
me and I caught site of him other times but only if there is plenty of fog or
if it isnt bright like to scorch everything. but when I told my
father Galiaudo that I saw Saint Baudolino he hit me on the back thirty times
with a stick saying O Lord this had to happen to me, a son who sees things
and cant even milk a cow either I bust his head with my stick or I give him
to one of those men who visit the fairs making an African monky dance and my
sainted mother shouted at me goodfornothing your the worst all what have I
done to make the Lord give me a son who sees saints and my father Galiaudo
said its not true he sees saints hes a wors liar than Judass and he makes
things up to get out of working I am telling this
story because if I dont you wouldnt undertstand what happened that evening
with the fog so thick you could cut it with a knife and it was already april
but in our Parts theres fog even in august and if your not from those Parts
you get lost between Burmia and Frescheta especially if there isnt a saint to
take you by the bridle and there I was heading for home when I saw right in
front of me a baron on a horse all covered with iron it was the baron
covered with iron not the horse and with a sword he looked like the King of
Arragon and I like to died
Mamma mia you want to bet this really is Saint Baudolino whose here to take
me to Hell but he said Kleine kint Bitte and I caught on that he was an
Alaman lord lost in the wood because of the fog and he couldnt find his
friends and it was almost night and he showed me a Coin and I had never seen
Money before and he was happy I could answer in his language and in Diutsch I
said to him if you keep straight youll end in the swamp sure as sunshine may be I shouldnt have
said sunshine with that fog you could cut with a Knife but he understood all
the same and then I said I know
the Germanes come from a country where its always Spring and maybe the
seeders of Lebanon grow there but here in the Palea theres fog and in this
fog there are some bastards roming around who are still the grandsons of the
grandsons of the Ayrabics who fought against Charlemain and theyre a bad
bunch and when they see a stranger they hit him in the face with a club and
they steal even the hair on his head ergo if you come to my fathers hut youll
find a bowl of hot broth and some straw to sleep on in the stable then
tomorrow morning at daybreak Ill show you the road specially if you have that
Coin gratias benedicite we're poor folk but honest so I took him to my
father Galiaudo who started yelling you damn fool whats got into your head
you told my name to a stranger whose with those people theres no telling
maybe hes even a vassal of the marquis of Monferrato and hes going to ask me
for a tithe de fructibus and de hay and leguminibus or a tax on the cattle
now we are ruined and he was about to reach for his stick I told him the Gentleman
was an Alaman et non from Mon Ferrato and he said all the worse but when I
told him about the Coin he calmed down because the Marengo people have heads
hard as a bulls but sly as a horse and he understood that he could make
something out of this and he said to me you speak all laangwidges so say
these things to him Item: we are poor folk
but honest Ive already told him
that all the same its
better to repeat it and item thanks for the Coin. But theres also the matter
of the hay for the horse item besides the hot soup I can add a piece of
cheese and some bread and a jug of the good stuff item he can sleep where you
sleep by the fire and tonight you go to the stable item show me the Coin and
I want a Genovine solido and then fiat like one of the family because for us
Marengo folk the guest is sacred the Gentleman said
haha you are smart you Marincum folk but a negotio est un negotio I will give
you two of these Coins and you wont ask for a Genovine solido because with a
Genovine solido I can kauf your house and all your stock but take this and be
quiet because youre still making a profit my father kept quiet and took the
two Coins that the Gentleman dropped on the table because the Marengo folks
heads are hard but sly and he ate like a wolf (the gentleman) or rather like
two (wolfs) then while my father and my mother went off to sleep after
breaking their backs all day while I was out in the Frescheta the herre said
this wine is good I'll drink a bit more here by the fire so mine kint tell me
how it is that you speak my langwidge so well ad petitionem tuam
frater Ysingrine carissime primos libros chronicae meae missur ne humante pravitate heres another place I
couldnt scrape off now to go back to my
story of that Alaman lord who wanted to know how it was that I spoke his
lingua and I told him that I have the gift of tongues like the Apossles and
the gift of Vision like the Madalenes because I walk in the wood and I see
Saint Baudolino riding a unicorn milk-colored like his twisted Horn just
where horses have what for us would be a Nose but a horse doesn't
have a Nose other wise underneath there would be a beard like that Gentleman
had who had a fine beard the color of a copper pan where as the other Alamans
I had seen had yellow hair even in their ears and he said well well
you see what you would call a unicorn and maybe you mean the Monokeros but
where did you learn that there are unicorns in this world and I told him I
had read it in a book that the Frescheta hermit had and with his eyes so wide
he looked like an owl he said What You know how to read too Lordamercy I said now
Ill tell you the Story so the story went like
this there was a holy hermit near Bosco who every so often the people took
him a fat hen or a hare and he would pray over a written book and when people
go by he hits his chest with a Stone but I say its a clod id est all dirt so
he doesnt hurt himself so much anyway that morning we took him two eggs and
while he was reading I said to myself one for you and one for me like good
Christians if only he doesnt see me but I don't know how he managed but he
caught me by the Neck and I said to him diviserunt vestimenta mea and he
started laughing and said you know something youre a smart puerulus come here
every day and Ill teach you to read so he taught me my
written Letters to the tune of raps on my head. only later when we were
friends he began saying what a handsome sturdy youth you are with a Lions
head but show me how strong your arms are and whats your chest like let me
touch here where the Legs begin to see if your sound then I figured out where
he was heading and I hit him with my knee on the balls I mean the Testicules
and he bent double saying Godamighty Im going to tell the Marengo people your
possessed by the devil so theyll burn you alive and I say all right but first
I will tell how I saw you at night sticking it in the belly of a Whitch. And
then we'll see who they think is possessed and then he said no wait I was
just joking and wanted to see if you had the fear of God lets say no more
about it come tomorrow and I'll start teaching you to write because reading
is one thing that costs nothing you just have to look and move your lips but
if you write in a book you need paper and ink and the inkwell that alba
pratalia arabat et nigrum semen seminabat because he always spoke Latin and I said to him when
you learn to read then you learn everything you didnt know before. But when
you write you write only what you know allready so patientia Im better off
not knowing how to write because the ass is the ass when I told this to
the Alaman gentleman he laughed like a Lunnatic and said Goot Kint those
hermits are allesammt Sodomiten but tell me tell me what else you saw in the
wood but thinking he was one of those that wanted to take Terdona like the
troops of Federicus Imperator I said to myself Id better satisfy him and
maybe hell give me another Coin and I told him that two nights before Saint
Baudolino had appeared to me and said that the Emperor makes a victory at
Terdona because Fridericus was the one and only lord of all Longobardia
including Frescheta then the gentleman
said you Kint have been sent by Heaven would you like to come to the imperial
Camp and say what Saint Baudolino said and I said that if he wanted I would
say also that Saint Baudolino said that Saints Peterandpaul would come to the
siege and lead the imperial troops and he said Ach wie Wunderbar for me just
Peter by himself would be enough Kint come with me and
your fortune is made illico or almost
illico anyway the next morning that gentleman says to my father that hes
going to take me with him to a place where I will learn to read and write and
may be Ill become a Ministerial my father Galiaudo
didnt know what this meant but he understood that he would be getting rid of
one who ate more than he was worth and he wouldnt suffer any more when I went
roming. But he thought that may be this gentleman one of those men who go to
the fairs and the marketplaces with a Monky and may be he would lay his hands
on me and he didnt like that idea but that gentleman said he was a grand
comes palatinus and among the Alamans there werent any Sodomiten what are these
sodomiten my father asked and I explained theyre kypioni shit he said kypioni
are everywhere but when the Gentleman pulled out another five Coins after the
two of the night before then he forgot everything and said son go then and
maybe this is a piece of luck for you and may be for us too since one way or
another these Alamans are always around our partts and this means you can
come and see us now and then and I said I swear I will and I was ready to
leave but I still felt a lump in my throat because I saw my mother crying
like I was going off to die et so we left and the
Gentleman told me to take him to where the Castrum of the imperials was and I
said thats easy you just follow the sun that is go where it comes from and as we were going
and could already see the tents a company of horsemen arrived all decked out
and when they see us they fall on their knees and lower their pikes and their
banners and raise their swords why what can this be I asked myself and they
started yelling Chaiser Kaisar here and Keiser there and Sanctissimus Rex and
they kissed that gentlemans hand and my jaw almost fell off because my mouth
was open so wide like an oven because it was only then I understood the
gentleman with the red beard was the emperor Fridericus in flesh and blood
and I had been telling him madeup stories all night like he was any old
asshole now he'll have them
cut off my head I say to myself but still I cost him VII coins and if hed
wanted to cut my head off he would of done it last night gratis et amoredei et he said dont be
afraid of anything its all right Im bearing news of a great Vision little
puer tell us all the vision you had in the wood and I drop down like I had
the falling sickness and my eyes open wide and theres foam on my mouth and I
yell I saw I saw and I tell the whole storey of Saint Baudolino who made the
prophecy to me and they all praise Dominnus Domine Deus and say Miraculo miraculo
gottstehmirbei and with them there
were also the messengers of Terdona who hadnt yet decided whether to
surrender but when they heard me they lay flat on the ground and said if even
the saints were against them then they better surrender because it couldnt go
on anyway et then I saw the
Derthonesi who were all coming out of the City men women and children et
vetuli too and they were crying while the alamans carried them away like they
were beeccie that is berbices and sheep everywhere and the people of Pavia
who cheered and entered Turtona like lunnatics with faggots and hammers and
clubs and picks because tearing a city down to the ground was enough to make
them come et towards evening I
saw on the hill a great smoke and Terdona or Derthona was just about gone and
this is how war is as my father Galiaudo says its an ugly animal war is but better them than
us et in the evening the
Emperor comes back all happy to the Tabernacula and gives me a slap on the
cheek like my father never did and then he calls a gentleman who turned out
to be the good canon Rahewinus and tells him he wants me to learn to write
and the abacus and even gramar which then I didnt know what it was but now
slowly I learn and my father Galiaudo never immagined such a thing what a great thing to
be a man of learning and who would ever have thought it gratis agimus domini
dominus I mean thanks to the Lord all the same writing a story makes you sweat even in winter also Im afraid because the lamp has gone out and as the man said my thumb akes. If you’re up for hundreds more pages like
this, then Baudolino
is the book for you. It’s extremely hard to figure when the liar is lying,
and when he’s telling the truth. And, the language, as you can see, is a
struggle to get through. In my case, I gave up reading. Instead of placing Baudolino
on the “Shelf of Reproach, ” I rented the Recorded Books version, and
thanks to the skill of reader George Guidell, I listened from beginning to
end during some strange trips in the car. If you find you really need to
embrace Baudolino,
I can recommend following the audio path. Steve Hopkins, March 25, 2003 |
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ã 2003 Hopkins and Company, LLC The
recommendation rating for this book appeared in the April 2003
issue of Executive
Times URL
for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Baudolino.htm For
Reprint Permission, Contact: Hopkins
& Company, LLC • 723 North Kenilworth Avenue • Oak Park, IL 60302 E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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