Baudolino is a failure. But although the inestimable Eco does not fully achieve his creative vision, he sets his sights so high here that the novel, despite its flaws, remains a masterpiece of scholarly erudition, creative imagination and historical sophistication. In this novel, probably the most personal that Eco has written, the loose-tongued trickster Baudolino gives us a glimpse of the real prankster behind the curtain.

Knowledge of the great dottore's views on literature and the independent life of the text is helpful in making sense of what those unfamiliar with his non-fiction writings will probably consider a confusing, even absurd, plot. It is easy to see how the notion of a man spending his life in the fruitless search for a mythical country which he himself conceived might be wrongly dismissed as nonsensical. But Eco once again makes use of the story being told within the story, and furthermore, by a storyteller who readily admits to a tendency towards untruthfulness, so who can say what is mythical and what is not. Furthermore, as any Eco-freak knows, the text has a way of taking on a life of its own....

Style: Eco's style, even in translation, is magnificent. He manages to echo the wording and structure of medieval writings without losing the modern reader in a slew of unfamiliar words and concepts, and he adroitly drops in the occasional bit of dialect or untranslated foreign language to add flavor without confusion. His vocabulary is astounding, but despite its great breadth, the text never comes off as egregiously flowery, clumsy or overwritten.

Story: One you've surely read many times before. Ligurian peasant boy is adopted by Holy Roman Emperor, falls in love, forges letter which takes entire Christian world by storm, saves Ligurian hometown caught between Pope and Emperor, journeys to mythical country of the Magi and then on to Constantinople just in time to witness its sack at the hands of the blind Doge Dandolo and his Venetian buccaneers. Yawn. Throw in Hashashin, Poets, satyrs, leper kings, Byzantine courtiers, White Huns, nymphets and a country of utter darkness which is remarkably like the level one maze in the original Wizardry, and you have an incredible historical hodgepodge which holds together far better than anyone has any right to expect.

Still, the story, for all its colorful authenticity, is the weakest point of the novel as the journey is the destination. This is legitimate, certainly, but nevertheless leaves one feeling vaguely deprived. Then again, I found that as the environment grew more and more fabulous, the story became less and less interesting, so perhaps Eco does right in denying us satisfaction. Also, I found the surprise revelation with regards to a famous death to be less than fully convincing.

Characters: Baudolino, the title character, is almost a Dickensian character, full of foibles. He is charming, untruthful and ludicrously fortunate with regards to his always impeccable timing. The others, the intense, but indolent Poet, the dreamy Arab Abdul, and the scholarly Jew and the earthy Alessandrians all add to the book in their own, vividly drawn fashions. The renegade monk Zosimos is a particularly remarkable creation. However, the connection between the characters' actions and their personas is not always clear.

Creativity: The use of the famous letter of Prester John as a foundation for this convoluted tale is brilliant. Since the forged letter was real in a historical sense, it is a perfect starting point for the author's mischievous construction of lies, half-truths and outright hallucinations. As with most of his works, his erudition serves as a base for a series of humorous riffs, this time on the early theological debates between various Christian factions on the true nature of the Son and His relationship to the Father. There is no one like Eco, the greatest writer of our time.

Text Sample: "You mean..." Nikatas ventured, "you decided to change your life...."

"No, Master Nikatas. I decided that if this was my fate, it was useless for me to try to become like other men. I was by now consecrated to falsehood. It is hard to explain what was going through my head. I said to myself: All the time that you were inventing, you invented things that were not true, but then became true. You made San Baudolino appear, you created a library at Saint Victoire, you sent the Magi wandering about through the world, you saved your city by fattening a scrawny cow, if there are learned doctors in Bologna it is also your merit, in Rome you caused mirabilia to appear that the Romans themselves had never dreamed of, starting with the gabble of that Hugo of Jabala you created a kingdom of supreme beauty, then you loved a ghost, and you made her write letters she had never written, and those who read them went into ecstasy, including the lady who had never written them, and she was an empress; but the one time you wanted to do something true, with the most sincere of women, you failed: you produced something no one can believe in or desire to exist. So it is best for you to withdraw into the world of your portents, for there at least you can decide yourself how portentous they are."