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The Prague Cemetery (2010)

by Umberto Eco

Other authors: See the other authors section.

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4,6961662,556 (3.33)172
"19th-century Europe--from Turin to Prague to Paris--abounds with the ghastly and the mysterious. Jesuits plot against Freemasons. In Italy, republicans strangle priests with their own intestines. In France, during the Paris Commune, people eat mice, plan bombings and rebellions in the streets, and celebrate Black Masses. Every nation has its own secret service, perpetrating conspiracies and even massacres. There are false beards, false lawyers, false wills, even false deaths. From the Dreyfus Affair to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Jews are blamed for everything. One man connects each of these threads into a massive crazy-quilt conspiracy within conspiracies. Here, he confesses all, thanks to Umberto Eco's ingenious imagination--a thrill-ride through the underbelly of actual, world-shattering events. "--… (more)
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» See also 172 mentions

English (115)  Spanish (16)  Italian (10)  Dutch (8)  French (6)  German (4)  Catalan (3)  Swedish (2)  Danish (1)  Norwegian (1)  All languages (166)
Showing 1-5 of 115 (next | show all)
Couldn't relate to the protagonist and not knowledgeable enough about the history of Italy to follow the twists and turns of the plot
  ritaer | Nov 26, 2023 |
This is a kind of book I can't afford to read over a period of time (for I might lose track of myraid charchters) and on other hand, it is hard to keep up with furious and almost byzantine twists without a breather. Umberto Eco in his signature style describes the 19th century anti-semitic moment and how the hoax of the "Protocols of the Elders of the Zion" is perpetuated. For history/historical fiction lovers, this book is a real feast. ( )
  harishwriter | Oct 12, 2023 |
El cementerio de Praga
Umberto Eco
Publicado: 2010 | 366 páginas
Novela Aventuras Histórico Intriga

«Me da vergüenza ponerme a escribir, como si desnudara mi alma.» Así empieza el relato vital del capitán Simonini, un piamontés afincado en París que desde joven se dedica al noble oficio de crear documentos falsos. Estamos en marzo de 1897 pero las memorias de este curioso individuo abarcarán todo el siglo XIX. Es un homenaje a la novela propia de la época, el folletín, son las novelas de Dumas y Sue las que inspiran al falsario en la creación de sus documentos, de lo cual se deduce que es la realidad la que copia a la literatura y no viceversa. En El cementerio de Praga, nada es lo que parece y nadie es quien realmente dice ser: todo es según convenga, pues, bien mirado, la diferencia entre un hada y una bruja es solo una cuestión de edad y encanto…
  libreriarofer | Jul 20, 2023 |
Realmente me aburrió al punto q no lo terminé. Quizás es debido a mi ignorancia de política e iglesia en Italia y Francia en el siglo XIX, pero en cualquier caso nunca me "enganchó". ( )
  Villameca | Sep 2, 2022 |
3.5 - I'm not sure, stars.

Anyone who tells you Umberto Eco is an easy read is a) delusional or b) screwing with you. He can weave a story that goes up down and around and ends up where it started with a million revelations in between, and that is what he has done with The Prague Cemetery.

Based on historical figures, with an entirely fictional main character, this is the story of how one man influenced the European progression of anti-Semitism that ended in Germany with the final solution. From a well-spring of hatred, implanted in him as a boy, Simonini sets out to discredit Jews and earn money (earn being a very loose term here), and carries out his plan over decades, from Italy to France to Russia, becoming involved in even some telling events, such as the Dreyfus Affair. That he has no problem finding others who are willing to both accept his false conclusions and bolster them is hardly surprising.

Parts of this novel are intriguing, parts are humorous, parts are mysterious...the solving of the mystery is often what keeps you engaged, and parts are revolting in their vitriol toward the Jewish people, sickening even though it is obviously the mindset of the character involved and not the author.

While written in 2000, and addressing political problems of the 1890s, it often made me think how little has changed over time.

This led me to think, even then, that if I wanted to sell the story of a conspiracy, I didn’t have to offer the buyer anything original, but simply something he already knew or could have found out more easily in other ways. People believe only what they already know, and this is the beauty of the Universal Form of Conspiracy.

The secret service in each country believes only what it has already heard elsewhere and would discount as unreliable any information that is entirely new.

What makes a police informer truly believable? Discovering a conspiracy. He therefore had to organize a conspiracy so he could then uncover it.

If you break a sensational story all at once, after the first impact people forget it. Instead, you have to parcel it out, and each new piece of news brings the whole story back to mind.


Just a few quotations that made me think we are all too ready to believe what we want to believe and seldom willing to do the hard work of approaching things with an open mind. Thus are we easily duped by the controllers, who are always out there, and permeate every aspect of society.

The end result for many:
A time comes when something breaks inside, and there is no more energy or will. They say you must live, but life becomes a burden that inevitably ends in suicide.

I never know what to really think of Eco. His books often seem to mean nothing, or everything; they are complex, but toward what end? It is as if I have a split personality, one of which admires his writing and is a bit in awe of him, and another who thinks I might just as well have wasted two days pounding my silly head against a wall. I did love [b:The Name of the Rose|119073|The Name of the Rose|Umberto Eco|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1415375471l/119073._SY75_.jpg|3138328]. I still don’t know what I thought of [b:Foucault's Pendulum|17841|Foucault's Pendulum|Umberto Eco|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1396645125l/17841._SY75_.jpg|11221066]. Now I will have this one to chew on a while, because there is no way to just forget his books and the attempt to truly understand them might be a lifetime endeavor.
( )
  mattorsara | Aug 11, 2022 |
Showing 1-5 of 115 (next | show all)
Eco's mastery of the milieu is evident on every page of "The Prague Cemetery."
 
If the creation of Simone Simonini is meant to suggest that behind the credibility-straining history lurks a sick spirit compounded of equal parts self-serving cynicism and irrational malice, who can argue? And even if the best parts of “The Prague Cemetery” are those he did not invent, Eco is to be applauded for bringing this stranger-than-fiction truth vividly to life.
 
The real story, then, is one that “The Prague Cemetery” hints at but does not for all its polymath erudition manage to capture: our impotence in the face of an obvious forgery, an absurd pastiche against which the ramparts of reason afford astonishingly feeble protection.
added by rab1953 | editHa'Aretz, Benjamin Balint (Nov 17, 2011)
 
Eco’s 19th century shocker has an Italian, Captain Simonini, as the man responsible, the only fictional character in the book. The story involves Freemasons against Catholics, Garibaldi against the Bourbons, Russian spies, German double agents, murky murders, plotting prelates, black masses and orgies. If all this sounds like a richly sensational read, you couldn’t be more wrong.
added by Shortride | editDaily Mail, John Harding (Nov 17, 2011)
 
Simonini’s as disgraceful as they come, and those who feel the need to bond with a narrator will be instantly put off by this novel. But “The Prague Cemetery” isn’t trying to make us feel better about ourselves. It’s meant to remind us of the dangers of complacency and credulousness. It’s meant to be unsettling. And by that measure, it’s a huge success.
 

» Add other authors (15 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Eco, Umbertoprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Arenas Noguera, CarmeTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Boeke, YondTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Dixon, RichardTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Juul Madsen, LorensTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Kangas, HelinäTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Kroeber, BurkhartTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Krone, PattyTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Lozano Miralles, HelenaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Madsen, Lorens JuulTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Nordang, AstridTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
Since these episodes are necessary, indeed form a central part of any historical account, we have included the execution of one hundred citizens hanged in the public square, two friars burned alive, and the appearance of a comet—all descriptions that are worth a hundred tournaments and have the merit of diverting the reader's mind as much as possible from the principal action.

—Carlo Tenca, La ca' dei cani, 1840
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A passerby on that gray morning in March 1897, crossing, at his own risk and peril, place Maubert, or the Maub, as it was known in criminal circles (formerly a center of university life in the Middle Ages, when students flocked there from the Faculty of Arts in Vicus Stramineus, or rue du Fouarre, and later a place of execution for apostles of free thought such as Étienne Dolet), would have found himself in one of the few spots in Paris spared from Baron Haussmann's devastations, amid a tangle of malodorous alleys, sliced in two by the course of the Bièvre, which still emerged here, flowing out from the bowels of the metropolis, where it had long been confined, before emptying feverish, gasping and verminous into the nearby Seine.
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Gli uomini non fanno mai il male così completamente ed entusiasticamente come quando lo fanno per convinzione religiosa.
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La gente crede solo a quello che sa già, e questa era la bellezza della Formula Universale del Complotto.
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People are never so completely and enthusiastically evil as when they act out of religious conviction
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Listening doesn't mean trying to understand. Anything, however trifling, may be of use one day. What matters is to know something that others don't know you know.
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Wikipedia in English (1)

"19th-century Europe--from Turin to Prague to Paris--abounds with the ghastly and the mysterious. Jesuits plot against Freemasons. In Italy, republicans strangle priests with their own intestines. In France, during the Paris Commune, people eat mice, plan bombings and rebellions in the streets, and celebrate Black Masses. Every nation has its own secret service, perpetrating conspiracies and even massacres. There are false beards, false lawyers, false wills, even false deaths. From the Dreyfus Affair to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Jews are blamed for everything. One man connects each of these threads into a massive crazy-quilt conspiracy within conspiracies. Here, he confesses all, thanks to Umberto Eco's ingenious imagination--a thrill-ride through the underbelly of actual, world-shattering events. "--

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Book description
Op grootse wijze neemt Umberto Eco in zijn nieuwe, grote roman De begraafplaats van Praag de misschien wel meest megalomane eeuw aller tijden onder handen: de negentiende eeuw. Plaatsen van handeling: Turijn, Palermo en Parijs.De geschriftvervalser Simone Simonini is een nauwkeurig observator van zijn eigen tijd. En hij ziet veel: een hysterische sataniste, een abt die twee keer sterft, lijken in een Parijs riool, jezuïeten die samenspannen tegen vrijmetselaars, vrijmetselaars en Mazzinianen die priesters wurgen met hun eigen darmen, de krombenige, aan artrose lijdende Italiaanse held Garibaldi, de bloedbaden tijdens de Parijse Commune van 1871 waar zelfs pasgeboren ratjes worden gegeten, onwelriekende kotten waar tussen de absintdampen bomexplosies en volksopstanden worden voorbereid, nepbaarden, zogenaamde notarissen, valse testamenten, diabolische broederschappen en zwarte missen. Simonini ziet veel, maar hij maakt nog veel meer mee, en bijna als vanzelf wordt hij steeds dieper betrokken in het complot dat zal leiden tot de lasterlijke Protocollen van de Wijzen van Zion, die de gehele twintigste eeuw het antisemitisme zullen aanwakkeren.Maar de vraag is of Simonini er alleen maar zijdelings bij betrokken is. Is zijn invloed niet veel groter? De Protocollen zijn een vervalsing, maar van wie precies?

De begraafplaats van Praag is een aangrijpende en belangrijke roman, die een verontrustend licht werpt op het historische en politieke Europa van de negentiende eeuw, met zijn complotten, aanslagen en samenzweringen.

Umberto Eco (Alessandria, 5 januari 1932) is een van de bekendste en succesvolste schrijvers van Europa. Dertig jaar geleden werd hij wereldberoemd met zijn historische roman De naam van de roos, die miljoenen lezers zou betoveren, en die werd verfilmd met Sean Connery in de hoofdrol. Van De begraafplaats van Praag werden in Italie binnen enkele weken al meer dan een half miljoen exemplaren verkocht, en het boek zal verschijnen in 35 landen.
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