The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco

I had a really hard time with this novel, and was on the point of giving it up at least three times, but persevered, and I'm not sure I'm too happy I did. It's really hard for me to get into the right frame of mind for an Umberto Eco book, because they're not like any other books I read. Usually, when I start a novel, I pay attention to descriptions, to characters, to the atmosphere, but in this novel that's basically impossible. The main character/part-time narrator, Simonini is one of the most repulsive characters ever, so that I was constantly violently pulled away from my tendency to identify with the narrative voice. This is much more of a puzzle than a novel, and usually when I read a novel, I'm not really in the mood for getting a puzzle instead. I had a hard time keeping track of all the narrative strands and characters who keep appearing, disappearing, and occasionally ending up dead in the sewer. There were a few funny moments (such as when Simonini is outraged that someone who might be another side of his personality keeps dumping bodies in his sewer, where he dumps his bodies) and the cruelty and treachery of Simonini is utterly breathtaking at times, but all of it made me mentally exhausted and a little ill. Because I've been rereading Milton for class, I kept thinking of how Milton's Satan is a paragon of goodness and virtue beside Simonini. However, I thought him a very boring evil character, he doesn't even seem to get any satisfaction out of all the awful things he does, he just does them, doesn't feel any remorse or triumph, and moves on to more good food and the next victim. I wouldn't say that any of the characters are well-executed, but maybe that's not really a criterion that should be applied to the novel, since I think Eco wasn't really after creating convincing characters, but rather exploring different strands of history and weaving them together cleverly, which he does very well. He takes disparate movements and rebellions throughout late 19th century Europe, and builds up a kind of network of similarities across them. Unfortunately, I was (and to a large extent still am) very ignorant about the historical events he talks about, and so I couldn't properly appreciate what he was doing.