Onyx reviews: Baudolino by Umberto Eco

By definition, a novel is filled with lies. Readers willingly go along with the fabrication to be entertained. The eponymous character of Baudolino extends the levels of falsehood by making up his story as he tells it. He recounts his legendary and mythical adventures to Niketas Choniates, a man whose life he saves during the sacking of Constantinople using his traditional weapons of bluster and misdirection.

Born to a poor family in northern Italy, Baudolino's saga begins early in the twelfth century when he accidentally encounters Emperor Frederic—known to the Italians as Barbarossa (red beard)—who has become separated from his troops in a fog. Baudolino fascinates the emperor, who adopts him as a surrogate son. Barbarossa finds Baudolino's candor and forthright criticism refreshing. For his own part, Baudolino enjoys the attention and the opportunities his new life provides.

Frederick sends Baudolino to Paris to extend his education, which is probably for the best since the young man has fallen in love with the emperor's lovely young wife. He writes to her daily but doesn't send the letters. Instead, he composes her responses to his letters, inventing a fictional relationship between them. This is Baudolino's first experience with creating something imaginary that takes on a life of its own.

In Paris, he meets several men who will become lifelong friends. They discuss social, philosophical and religious subjects. Their debates often enter the realm of fantasy, but they begin to take their own creations seriously. Eco returns to a subject he first explored in Foucault's Pendulum, where an invented conspiracy becomes real through the act of its invention.

They devise religious artifacts and relics and immediately invest their beliefs in them. Often, Baudolino is motivated by love for his surrogate father, who is struggling to contain his empire. If Baudolino can get holy relics into Barbarossa's hands by seemingly legitimate means, the emperor's status will be elevated.

Among Baudolino's creations are the Holy Grail, the bodies of the Magi and the mythical Prester John, who rules in a fictitious kingdom far to the east, beyond the known earth. He and his friends believe in the wooden cup they choose to represent the cup Christ used at his last supper. "Faith makes things become true," Baudolino says.

They spend months composing and fine-tuning a letter from Prester John to the Emperor, describing his kingdom and the fantastical creatures that dwell there and ultimately they branch out from one of the Crusades on a quest to discover the very realm they invented. Along the way, Baudolino and his co-conspirators distribute numerous fake heads of John the Baptist and he accidentally creates the artifact that will become famous as the shroud of Turin.

The book is saturated in myth and fact. Eco knows his medieval history, using it to good effect to create a foundation of truth for Baudolino's fiction. Many of the events surrounding Baudolino's adventures are factual, though the inventive rogue sometimes puts a twist on them, as in the depiction of Barbarossa's drowning death during the third Crusade.

"You mustn't always believe what they tell you. We live in a world where people invent the most incredible stories," Baudolino says. Eco is warning, perhaps, that not everything happened they way it is written in history books. The message is especially timely given recent revelations about invented stories in our most highly esteemed newspapers.