Umberto Eco’s new novel “zero point”: farewell to a favorite enemy – Kieler Nachrichten

Leipzig . They do not hope, “says Shimei, he is a kind of editor in chief,” I would have fetched, to let you write articles about the global economy and international politics. “No,” answered Maia, “it was already clear to me. But I had hoped to be wrong. ” In reality, however, everything is much worse: Maia had expected, with the change of its tabloid to “Domani” it would journalistically up go for it. But first, it is entrusted with the newspaper with the beautiful name “morning” with the invention of horoscopes, and secondly, should this never experience a tomorrow “Tomorrow”.

The Italian star writer Umberto Eco has proved in novels of “The Name of the Rose” to “Foucault pendulum” as a great storyteller, as a brilliant designer in “The Island of the Day Before” and “The Cemetery of Prague”, as terrific storyteller in ” Baudolino “and” The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. ” In his seventh novel called “zero point”, he chooses a sneaky design: “Domani” is a Potemkin village

Berlusconi as a model

The very rich Commendatore Vimercate, in the shopping television, success in hotel and real estate business wants to show with twelve zero numbers the rich and powerful, he could have it printed everything, he really would publish a newspaper. But it suspects Maia nothing. The only know Shimei and his managing editor Colonna, a failed academic with extensive education and spilled ideals: “The pleasure of learning is the losers reserved.” Simei has brought him on board to serve as his ghostwriter to write a novel about this afterwards clouds editors. Logically Colonna is the narrator of this “zero point”.

modeled Vimercate is easily recognizable by Ecos favorite enemy Silvio Berlusconi. In spring 1992, the action takes place, after the assassination of Mafia judge Giovanni Falcone. Since Berlusconi was on the verge of power. Two years later he was to become prime minister for the first time, and that it is already not consistently received above board, the suspect not only in Italy now almost everyone. Thus, the zero point should not be less than a settlement with a society in which the eloquent Education United Citizens Eco no longer feels lifted.

A thriller without real desire

“The world is a nightmare,” he can say about Colonna Maia, with which he has become intimate. And about Italy he judges: “Corruption is authorized, the Mafia officially sit in parliament, the tax evaders in the government, and in prison, only the Albanian chicken thieves … And if someone has been killed by important state funeral.”

Bitter sounds, without illusions. And it could be the background for a great political thriller. But now the 83-year-old Eco jumps as Tiger – and ends up with a wool mouse. Because the “zero point” has become a book that reads as if the bulk of letters from Milan have discarded without real desire a chore – and he has ended up on his favorite field:. The conspiracy theory

The protagonists remain pale

This must be a mistake, in” Foucault’s Pendulum “by 1988, its certainly best novel, it seemed to him once succeeded in reinterpreting the time concerning as a result of massive Templar conspiracy. . A monumental book, of quivering tension and intelligent wit of the first to the last page

In the “zero point”, however, found nothing of the kind – because Eco wasted no effort on to pump his protagonist blood in the veins and to bring an action in motion, but the events developed in loquacious dialogues:. The great Italian conspiracy believes Braggadocia on track to be, he also in the editorial office of “Domani” Stranded

A crazed paranoid who believes Mussolini whose doppelganger was shot, have lived for decades after the war in Argentina, and the attempt to bring him back to power, have Italy until very recently dominated: The terrorism of the left as from the right, the Red Brigades and the secret lodge P2, Gladio and the assassination of Bologna, the early death of Pope John Paul I and the assassination of his successor, the affair Aldo Moro, all the bombs and the dead stood in a great world-historical context. Braggadocia, English is the word for a bouncer, Colonna has taken into confidence, in a dark alley, he is stabbed – and now Colonna fears as accomplices for his life …

settlement with the media

Seitenweise can pontificate Eco. About the Italian post-war history and the merits and demerits of middle class models of the houses Lancia, Mercedes, Rover. A ans “pendulum” reminiscent short treatise on the history of the Order of Malta get the reader also. In between, he expects a large area and on long distances fairly accurately from and with colleagues such as Gabriele D’Annunzio, or Dan Brown with the cynicism of the media. It seems that even Ecos core translators Burkhart Kroeber found no access to this ribbon.

As it almost already plays no role that in Italy in the social networks in detail discussed what Eco has written down where. Because all this does not match the great storytellers Eco, scents Roberto Casalini, editor in chief of “Wired Italia”, even a conspiracy: “‘zero point’ was written by a doppelganger Umberto Eco, during the real Professor hiding in Argentina, as Jorge Burgos conducts research and on a sequel of ‘The Name of the Rose’ is working. ” Yes, so it could be.

Peter Korfmacher

Umberto Eco: zero number. From the Italian by Burkhart Kroeber; Carl Hanser Verlag, 230 pages, 21.90 euros.

Umberto Eco: A friend of the Middle Ages The rebel of the family: Born on January 5, 1932 Piedmont Alessandria and grew up as the son of an accountant under the regime of Italian fascism, Umberto Eco starts to study against the wishes of his father, philosophy and literature at the University of Turin 1948th His dissertation he wrote in 1954 about the aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas. Scholasticism and medieval times no longer let him go. Nevertheless, he goes first to television to build a cultural program at the RAI. 1959 Eco nonfiction editor is in Milan’s publisher Bompiani, he remains loyal to the 1975th As early as 1963 but he has also begun an academic career as a lecturer in aesthetics and visual communication at the Universities of Milan and Florence. In 1971 he is ordinary professor of semiotics at Bologna. His “Introduction to Semiotics” (1968) is still regarded internationally as a standard work. In 1980, he published his first novel, “The Name of the Rose” , which makes him overnight as a writer for the Star. The book has since sold over 25 million times. 2007 Eco draws largely from the academic life back and only teaches for postgraduates, because “there can afford the professor to be wrong and to provoke, it triggers always lively debates”. Since 1962, Umberto Eco is married to the German Renate Ramge, they have two adult children.