The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco

First published in Italy in 2010; published in English by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on November 8, 2011

The story that underlies The Prague Cemetery is told, for the most part, by Simone Simonini, a forger who thrives on hatred -- of Jews and Germans, Jesuits and Masons, the French and Italians (although he is half French and half Italian), artists and women, his parents and God -- a man whose motto is “I hate therefore I am.”  In an introductory note, Umberto Eco tells us he tried to create “the most cynical and disagreeable” character in the history of literature.  He may not have succeeded, but he put forth a worthy effort.  Recognizing that it is possible to laugh at (rather than with) hateful people frees the reader to enjoy (or at least tolerate) the absurdly bigoted ramblings of Eco’s scornful rogue.

As the novel opens, Simonini is having an identity crisis -- or an identities crisis, given his suspicion that he is not only Simonini but Abbé Dalla Piccola, about whom he knows nothing.  We soon learn that Dalla Piccola is having the same crisis, wondering whether he is, in fact, Simonini -- except that Piccola seems to know more about Simonini than he knows about himself.  Simonini and Piccola begin leaving messages for each other.  This clever device allows Eco to explore Simonini’s (mostly repulsive) moral character from both an objective and a subjective perspective.  The mystery of the apparent dual identity binds the unfolding story.

Although set in the late nineteenth century, Simonini’s reconstructed memories of his own past begin in mid-century Piedmont and offer an opinionated view of European history in the century’s last half.  Simonini is often employed as a spy for the police and various governmental entities in Italy, France, Russia, and Prussia.  When the truth (in which nobody is particularly interested) is either difficult to find or inconveniently innocent, Simonini concocts stories and documents to satisfy his clients.  At one point, Simonini borrows and embellishes the story of a conspiratorial gathering in an abandoned Jewish cemetery in Prague, a meeting allegedly designed to further a long-standing, sinister plan to control the world.  Standing always in the middle, with loyalty to none and hatred of all, Simonini pits nation against nation, Freemason against Jesuit, and everyone against the Jews, all the while revising his story of the Prague cemetery as new potential buyers for his conspiracy theory come along.

Eco provides a bit of everything to entertain his reader in this grand novel:  drama, intrigue, humor, action, philosophy, brilliant prose, strong characters, and a lengthy history lesson that culminates with the Dreyfus affair.  Eco advises that all but a few minor characters (other than Simonini) really existed, and that the major historical events described in the text actually happened.  Knowing that, I read the novel with Google close at hand.  Learning more about the historical references probably doubled my reading time but the added context made the story more comprehensible.  Serious fiction often demands something from the reader; in this case, the serious reader’s effort will be repaid.

Many of the themes in The Prague Cemetery resonate in modern times, including the attempts governments make to instill fear of the “other” in their citizenry as a means of gaining power and control, an exercise that supposedly justifies “harsh measures” to control alleged criminals.  There is little difference between the detentions without trial in nineteenth century French prisons that Eco describes and those that occurred at Guantanamo in our recent past.  The recycling of lies and the ease with which people are fooled when told what they want to hear -- a recurring theme in Eco’s novel -- is also a truth that readers might recognize in the modern world.  As Simonini frequently observes, a jaded writer can dredge up a twenty year old discredited story and pass it off as new, confident that most readers (who are likely reading what they want to believe) won’t know the difference, or won’t care.

Some readers might be offended by a rather graphic scene involving a devotee of Lucifer named Diana and the erotic role she plays in a Black Mass.  The scene is far from gratuitous -- it is, in fact, critical to the story, and beautifully written -- so I mention it only as a warning to those who might be put off by content of that nature.

Lush prose, confident storytelling, a Byzantine plot of dizzying breadth, even a series of sketches illustrating scenes in the novel -- all these elements combine to form a novel that is both serious and extraordinarily fun.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Debris by Jo Anderton

Published by Angry Robot on September 27, 2011

Tanyana Vladha is an exceptionally skilled pion-binder. Pions are friendly, sparkly, playful subatomic particles -- except for the red ones, which are angry and nasty. Pions can be manipulated for all sorts of constructive purpose, and their manipulation is the task of a pion-binder. Tanyana is using pions to build a massive statute when she's attacked by red pions. The attack destroys her ability to manipulate (or even to see) pions, but gives her the ability to see the debris that pions leave in their wake -- an ability that the governing authority (veche) uses to define her new (and low status) role in life: debris collector. She must win the trust of her collection team and adjust to her new life -- and new powers -- while trying to find the persons responsible for her downfall.

The plot is an intriguing mix of mystery and action; I was never certain quite where the story would take me. It's also strange. To an extent, the strangeness is compelling, yet by the end the story's oddity borders on fantasy. The world Anderton describes is so unfamiliar that I found it difficult to relate to (or care about) the threat that Tanyana battles. I was more interested in the relationships between the characters, the evolving loyalties and inevitable betrayals. The characters are interesting, particularly a debris collector named Lad, who seems to be a bit simple-minded but turns out to be gifted in ways that most people can't recognize.

Debris is, in a sense, a novel about class conflict. The veche and their moneyed friends oppress those who don't have the gift of pion-binding. Some descriptions of disparity between the decrepit poor and the snobbish rich echo Dickens.

There are times when the pace drags, as if Anderton felt the need to prolong the suspense (and given that this is the first novel of a trilogy, perhaps she did). For the most part, however, the story zips along to a satisfying conclusion -- although not a conclusion that resolves all the unanswered questions. I'm not sure I'll seek the answers to those questions in the next installment of the trilogy, but I have no regrets about reading this one.

RECOMMENDED

The Corn Maiden by Joyce Carol Oates

Published by Mysterious Press on November 1, 2011

Joyce Carol Oates' latest collection of stories isn't for the faint-heated. The title story -- about a girl who doesn't come home from school -- focuses less on the horror that the girl will experience than on the guilt her working class mother feels at leaving her eleven-year-old daughter home alone until she returns from the late shift she's forced to work. Guilt gives way to fear: What kind of problems will she cause for herself if she calls 911? What judgments will she face? What will the police think about the beer she's drinking to calm her nerves as she considers where her daughter might have gone? Oates uses the chilling circumstances to explore diverse sources of terror: the twisted child responsible for the missing girl's fate; the police officers who accuse and intimidate the innocent; journalists who are willing to report innuendo in their lust for a sensational story; therapists who insist that it is healthy to dredge up memories best left dormant. This is a powerful, sometimes touching, incredibly intense piece of writing. It is the longest and best of the seven stories in the collection.

My second favorite story, "Helping Hands," tells of a new widow who, in desperate loneliness, takes up with a wounded veteran. Envisioning herself as his savior and him as her protective companion, she invests him with qualities of sensitivity and intelligence that he clearly lacks, while remaining willfully blind to the man's dangerous instability.

The other "nightmares" in the collection are: "Beersheba," about a man who is forced to confront his long-forgotten failings as a stepfather; "Nobody Knows My Name," in which a young girl's natural jealousy of her newborn sister may or may not be responsible for a tragic ending; "Fossil-Figures," about a demon brother's dominance, from their days in the womb to the end of their lives, over his frail twin; "Death-Cup," another story of mismatched brothers, one of whom contemplates poisoning the other with deadly mushrooms; and "A Hole in the Head," in which a doctor revives the practice of trepanation -- drilling holes in the skull to release evil spirits.

Oates tells her stories in lush, rhythmic sentences. She sketches characters with deft precision. She fills their mouths with strong dialog, spoken in unique and realistic speech patterns. Each story builds a sense of dread, bit by bit, often indirectly -- when a mean gray cat starts stalking through the story, you know something awful is going to happen. Yet these aren't simple, predictable stories of horror or suspense. In the two stories about brothers, the characters behave surprisingly; they reveal an unexpected capacity for late-life change. Most of the stories reveal their own little surprises; all of them deliver electric jolts of anxiety before they end.

RECOMMENDED

Bearded Women Stories by Teresa Milbrodt

Published by ChiZine Publications on November 8, 2011

You might call the characters in Bearded Women Stories freaks, although it probably wouldn't be politically correct to do so. The narrator of my favorite story in the collection, "Bianca's Body," has the lower half of a second body (she's named it Bianca) growing out of her own torso. Although the narrator's husband can have sex with either body (it takes some creative maneuvering), conceiving a child would probably require Bianca's removal -- a possibility that leads to considerable marital strife (in part because Bianca is the better lover). The narrators of several other stories are equally suited for carnival sideshows: a woman has snakes dangling like dreadlocks from her scalp; another is more than eight feet tall; one has an extra set of ears; another has holes in her hands so she can work as "the human fountain."

Some of Teresa Milbrodt's best stories are about women coping with adversity. One of my favorites involves a woman with a debilitating disease who, contemplating suicide, plans to be buried in a scallop-shaped coffin.  Deciding to sleep in it until she dies, the woman finds herself confronting the coffin maker who wants to keep it.

Freakish in mind or body they may be, but Milbrodt's characters have the same problems as everyone else. They're working in low paying jobs, struggling to pay their bills, trying to find ways to better their lives. They wish they could find love, or at least get a date with someone who isn't a jerk. They may have been teased more than other kids, and in adulthood they must endure those who view them as signs of the impending apocalypse, but as a result of being mocked they've learned to have compassion for other people who might be regarded as abnormal.

A unifying theme of Bearded Women Stories is, I think, the commonality of existence. As Milbrodt observes, the tattooed lady may have unusual skin illustrations but everyone develops markings on their skin -- nature's skin art -- as they get older. We are defined not just by the characteristics that make us unique, but also by those that make us just like everyone else: emotions, needs, desires. Most of Milbrodt's characters are visibly or behaviorally odd, but the stories send the message that nearly everyone is odd in his or her own way, even if their strangeness doesn't become evident until you come to know them well.

However unusual we may be in appearance or personality, learning to be comfortable with ourselves is the key to contentment -- that, at least, is overall message I took from Milbrodt's stories. The cyclops woman, for instance, knows that -- unlike herself -- "those who decree themselves unlovely" would never be noticed in a crowd. At least for now, she -- unlike her glaucoma-suffering father who insists that she hide her eye behind a shade -- has the ability to see clearly. That theme resonates through other stories. Which character has the greater problem: the "Butterfly Woman" who has skin flaps like a flying squirrel or her diabetic mother? The woman in "Markers" with the tattooed body or her stroke-impaired sister? And which character is the true freak: the titular bearded lady in "Mr. Chicken" (for whom deciding not to shave becomes a liberating experience) or the obese man who eats one hundred chicken nuggets every day at the restaurant she manages while fixing frightening stares on the other customers?

Not every story works; the only one not narrated by a woman is the least interesting of the "freak" entries, while the final story is too ordinary to fit in with the rest of the collection. Still, every story is well written, filled with the sort of detail that breathes life into characters.  The characters are worth knowing, and the insight they provide into unusual lives is worth pondering.

RECOMMENDED

The Flies of Memory by Ian Watson

Published in the UK in 1990; published by Carroll & Graf in December 1991

Although it's been about eight years since he last released a novel, Ian Watson has long been one of the most creative voices in science fiction. The work of a more recent author, the justly celebrated China Miéville, reminds me of Watson's. Both writers stretch the boundaries of the genre; both tend to address philosophical and conceptual issues rather than hard science. As a prose stylist, however, Watson is by far the better of the two.

The Flies of Memory was first published in 1990. Watson envisions memory as a force, like gravity. Memory is "the foundation of reality ... the source of all identity, the only link in a flux of perceptions and events -- not only for living beings but for the physical universe, as well." The counterforce of memory is imagination, the power to break the chain of events that constitutes memory.

Aliens known as the Flies come to Earth to perceive and remember, like tourists with cameras. The Flies, however, have no need for cameras; they absorb memories and then download them into memory tanks. They have come to Earth because their own world is full; there is no room to make new memories.

The Flies catalog memories of reality, but a lost memory can make reality disappear. The accidental death of a fly tasked with remembering St. Peter's Basilica thus causes the building's cupola to vanish. A good chunk of Munich later disappears when humans, bent on securing access to alien technology, cause Flies to die. But does Munich actually cease to exist? According to Watson, it is possible for people (and places) to travel on memory fields; remember a place you have seen and you can transport yourself to that place (at least if you have access to the fluid with which the Flies fill their memory tanks). And so Munich has disappeared from Germany but it turns up ... elsewhere.

The ability to travel on memory fields creates a crisis of faith for Kathinka, a Dutch nun. "If I can fly outside of space and time with the power of an angel -- then why believe in angels?" she asks. Kathinka is one of several characters who tell Watson's odd story from their individual points of view. Martine Leveret can see other people's memories, an ability that makes her a human lie detector. Body language expert Charles Spark is Martine's ex-husband; he's convinced she's crazy. Erika, a teenage girl who contends with the unwelcome advances of the self-proclaimed ruler of Munich after the city relocates, begins to perceive the ghost-like inhabitants of Munich since medieval times -- including a rather memorable face from the 1930s. KGB psychologist Valeri Osipyan has little use for New Age mysticism, but begins to question his sanity, his devotion to rationality, in light of the "web of irrational forces, waiting to erupt" that define his new understanding of the universe. Memory is important to Osipyan; as a matter of honor, he remembers everyone he condemned, because "people should not be erased, as Stalin had erased people."

Some of this richly imagined novel is tough sledding. The final pages, in particular, are almost surrealistic. I read some of The Flies of Memory twice and I'm still not sure I entirely grasp it. Yet the effort the novel demands from the reader is repaid with subtle and enriching ideas. In any event, strong characters and striking prose more than compensate for the occasionally obscure story.

RECOMMENDED