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The Island Of The Day Before (2006)

The Island of the Day Before (2006)

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Rating
3.4 of 5 Votes: 5
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ISBN
0156030373 (ISBN13: 9780156030373)
Language
English
Publisher
mariner books

About book The Island Of The Day Before (2006)

رواية داخل رواية داخل رواية!مبدأياً الحبكة الرئيسية تدور حول روبارتو، رجل إيطالي غرقت سفينته ليجد نفسه هائماً في البحر على لوح خشبي يقوده إلى السفينة دافني، حيث يبدأ بالكتابة وإستعادة ذكريات حياته وإكتشاف مستقبله على تلك السفينة. السفينة تقع أمام الجزيرة التي تمر من خلالها الهاجرة التي تقسم العالم إلى نصفين، فعلى الجانب الآخر، لم ينته الأمس بعد، فالفارق الزمني أربع وعشرون ساعة. الرواية تطرح وتتطرق لكل موضوع ممكن، الفيزياء، الجغرافيا، الدين، التاريخ، السياسة، الحب، لم يترك إيكو موضوعاً إلا وجعل روبارتو يناقشه أو يشهد جدلاً حوله على الأقل. هذه روايتي الأولى لإيكو وكنت قد نويت قراءة روايته الأشهر "سر الوردة" أولاً ولكنني بالتأكيد لم أندم على قراءة هذه الرواية.تنوعت الشخصيات وتعددت صفاتها، التي كانت تُطرح بالطبع من وجهة نظر روبارتو، فقد كان هنالك أخيه المزعوم فيرانتي، حبيبته ليليا، معلمه الأب كسبار، ومعلمه الآخر سان سافان، وغيرهم ممن لن نعرفهم حقيقة، لأن من الواضح أن روبارتو عاش في عالم روايته الخاصة أكثر من اللازم، لدرجة جعلته يخلط تلك الرواية التي بدأ بكتابتها بواقعه. أكثر ما أعجبني هو إكتشافه للسفينة دافني، ذكرياته الهائلة سواء في باريس أو طريقه صعوده على السفينة أماريلي، حواراته ونقاشاته مع الأب كسبار، ولكن الأهم هو تخيله وكتاباته عن فيرانتي، طيف أخيه المشاغب الذي صاحبه منذ الطفولة، لدرجة جعلتني أتشكك فعلاً في وجوده. هذه الرواية (إن لم تكن قد تحولت لفيلم فعلاً، لم أبحث بعد) تصلح لأن تصبح فيلماً ملحمياً، فالحوارات الجدية فيها بخصوص الخلق والفراغ السرمدي وفكرة العوالم اللامتناهية كفيلة بإبهار العقول. الترجمة جيدة للغاية ولكنني إستغربت الكثير من الجمل الإيطالية التي تُركت على حالها دون ترجمة، وقد أخل بعضها بالمعني ولو قليلاً. كما أن الكثير من المصطلحات الجغرافية بخصوص خطوط الطول و العرض لم تعجبني لتلك الدرجة، أحسست كما لو أني أقرأ كتاباً مدرسياً ولكنها تظهر مجهود إيكو الجبار في البحث عن المعلومات في أياً كان المجال الذي يتناوله في كتاباته. وكنت أشعر بالتوهان بعض الشئ بسبب التنقل المفاجئ بين الأزمنة الكثيرة التي تدور فيها الرواية وخاصة في نصفها الأول. ولكني في المجمل، إستمتعت بها كثيراً، رواية دسمة جداً وممتعة جداً.

I can't count the times I've tried to write a review of an Eco-book, whether physically or in my head, then decided to drop it. Where does one start? How does one review a product of an intellect such as Eco's, a scholar in semiotics, history and god knows what else? Many reviews I've read here on The Island Of The Day Before are just plain moronic - outbursts of frustration because someone expected to grasp the contexts and countless themes it covers as easily as an airport-bestseller. I have a theory that some people that like to think they know a couple of things just don't like to feel stupid, and it's true; most of Eco's books are overwhelming in their breadth and references for a reader, so much so that one ends up feeling quite stupid. But here's my point: Eco is firstly concerned with the polysemic and numerous ways in which meaning is created and interpreted, the history and epystemology of meaning, to be exact. To be able to understand the centennial intertextuality of language, symbols and meaning requires an intellect far greater than Eco or anyone else for that matter. I'm also pretty sure that Eco would facepalm himself if people assumed they could extract every meaning out his books by reading them once. Of all the authors and books out there, his are truly deserving of the cliche that the books need to be read several times to be understood. Eco's confidence and playfulness is what makes this book my absolute favorite. The subject, the mystery of latitude, is such a spot-on subject, and the great tapestry of references from his chosen era, the 17th century, he uses to weave this incredible story - not only in literature, but theology, astronomy, philosophy, history and science - come together in a story that is ultimately about a period of time where the paradigms of the church were cracking up, and the monopoly of truth and meaning was being heavily challenged by science. Eco manages to capture the mind of a young nobleman who is curious about the workings of the world and the universe, and so also the Zeitgeist of 17th century Europe: the volatility, the naivete, the wonder and the absurdity. If there ever was a point in history where the act of interpreting the world was so dynamic, it was here.He also channels a wide range of literary references, from Defoe to (obviously) Borges.In my mind, the trick to understanding how to approach Eco is like how to approach Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino makes meta-movies, i.e. films about cinema, Eco writes books about literature (and so much more!) Eco is an author's author, and with the help of his long-time collaborator and translator, William Weaver, his writing carries literary greatness in them.If you're just after a story, then go for something more formulaic, and steer clear.

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There is too much philosophizing and painstaking narration which can weigh down the interest, though I must say that the prose is often imaginative. There are loads of awesome description and amusing digression (on astronomy, physics, Christianity). Eco’s agility as a storyteller is evident from his skillful juggling of scientific, historical, and philosophical ideas.Eco luxuriates in lyrical language. His sentences are laden with details. The passages can be impressive for the sheer velocity of action, but the narrative somehow lacks a door latch that the reader can hold onto. I feel at first like a blind bat in need of the powers of echolocation. Like the main character Roberto, I feel shipwrecked myself.The book explores some of the foundations of scientific thought, and most of it is presented as a drivel by Father Caspar (in the manner of Master Yoda), who doggedly adheres to the geocentric view that the Earth is the center of the universe. There are already indications of the nascent thinking of Copernicus, Einstein’s relativity postulates especially on the frame of reference, and some hints of present-day debates on intelligent design and creationism.The book in parts is, to mimic its double-edged mannerism, technically exasperating or exasperatingly technical. What is exasperating is that the science is outdated. But that is what is partly admirable with it. I like the way Eco attempts to role-play arguments of mad philosophers and mad scientists (they seem to be interchangeable here).Eco seems to be documenting the naiveté in scientific thinking and approaches in 17th century. Religion is suggested as the culprit in contaminating the progress of astronomy and natural sciences. Indirectly, the absurdity of religion influences scientific methods and approaches. Religion kills the objectivity of science and yet it propels it to invention, experimentation, and discovery.At the literary level, the novel has many to offer. The playfulness of the free indirect style, the use of doppelgänger (in some ways, the questing reader is the double), the (slightly) intrusive narrator who presumably wrote the novel as an ‘interpretation’ of Roberto’s writings, and then there's the open-ended conclusion. It has something to say about time, the nature of time, the direction of time, the arbitrariness of scientific theories, the subjectivity of science. For a book about “emblems and devices” it has masterfully crafted symbols, most notably the Orange Dove and the unattainable Island itself.Overall The Island of the Day Before is impressive not so much for the writing (which is often boring), but for the ambition (which is vaulting). It has moments and passages that come alive like quasars and pulsars. It is, in some ways, a tropical novel of sunlight, as opposed to the dreary old-fashioned novel bathed in Gothic darkness, although it is old-fashioned, perennially old-fashioned.
—Ryan

I really wanted to like this book. While I'm not a big fan of Eco's books, I somehow seem to collect them, nonetheless. The premise wowed me, the cover art is righteous...and yet. And yet. The main character drove me crazy, Hamlet-style. He reminded me of the fear mongers who work 9-5 jobs, but never leave their unhappy jobs and go through life blaming others. It's like driving in the slow lane, even though all the other lanes are empty, and then getting unhappy because the slow lane is bumper-to-bumper. Do something! Eco is a very intelligent writer, perhaps too intelligent for moi. Try I did, but success eluded me. Instead, I felt like Tantalus, with the grapes always eluding my grasp, the water always receding. Sadness envelops me, not worthy of Umberto. Me sorry!Book Season = Summer (island of cerveza)
—GoldGato

Readers expect Umberto Eco to take them on a stimulating journey of discovery as his characters unravel mysteries that take them to the heart of early Western civilisation. In The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum this style worked brilliantly. In the 'The Island of the Day Before' it fails catastrophically.Eco spends hundreds of pages wallowing in his arcane knowledge, resorting to ever more desperate ploys to show off his learning, because this book has no plot to draw out those intellectual diversions naturally. In his previous novels, the basic murder mysteries provided a focus for the reader's journey: there was a mystery to be solved, and Eco's digressions enlightened the journey. Here the trek can be focused on one thing only: the long hoped-for last page, and the reader is only sustained by the morbid fascination of whether anything interesting is really going to happen. It doesn't.Very early on, our hero finds himself stuck on an abandoned ship off an uncharted island. His plight becomes a metaphor for that of the reader, trapped in Eco's ego with no hope of escape. I have a degree in Medieval Literature and History, but I can't find much of interest here. What hope is there for the more general reader? Never have I fallen asleep so often over a book, pummelled into intellectual insensibility.
—Patrick Neylan

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