The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana

Umberto Eco

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006 - Fiction - 480 pages

International bestselling and award-winning author Umberto Eco's illustrated novel The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana is "an insidiously witty and provocative story" (Los Angeles Times).

Yambo, a sixtyish rare-book dealer who lives in Milan, has suffered a loss of memory -- he can remember the plot of every book he has ever read, every line of poetry, but he no longer knows his own name, doesn't recognize his wife or his daughters, and remembers nothing about his parents or his childhood. In an effort to retrieve his past, he withdraws to the family home somewhere in the hills between Milan and Turin.

There, in the sprawling attic, he searches through boxes of old newspapers, comics, records, photo albums, and adolescent diaries. And so Yambo relives the story of his generation: Mussolini, Catholic education and guilt, Josephine Baker, Flash Gordon, Fred Astaire. His memories run wild, and the life racing before his eyes takes the form of a graphic novel. Yambo struggles through the frames to capture one simple, innocent image: that of his first love.

A fascinating, abundant novel -- wide-ranging, nostalgic, funny, full of heart -- from the incomparable Eco.

Contents

• The Cruelest Month: 3
• The Murmur of Mulberry Leaves: 28
• Someone May Pluck Your Flower: 45
• Alone through City Streets I Go: 64
• PAPER MEMORY: 79
• Clarabelles Treasure: 81
• Nuovissimo Melzi: 90
• Eight Days in an Attic: 117
• When the Radio: 159
• But Pippo Doesnt Know: 178
• The Alchemists Tower: 212
• Up There at Capocabana: 227
• Blue Skies Are on the Way: 257
• The Pallid Little Maiden: 272
• The Hotel of the Three Roses: 295
• ΟΙ ΝΟΣΤΟΙ 15 Youre Back at Last Friend Mist: 301
• The Wind Is Whistling: 325
• The Provident Young Man: 379
• Lovely Thou Art as the Sun: 406
• SOURCES OF CITATIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS: 451

About the author

Umberto Eco was born in Alessandria, Italy on January 5, 1932. He received a doctorate of philosophy from the University of Turin in 1954. His first book, Il Problema Estetico in San Tommaso, was an extension of his doctoral thesis on St. Thomas Aquinas and was published in 1956. His first novel, The Name of the Rose, was published in 1980 and won the Premio Strega and the Premio Anghiar awards in 1981. In 1986, it was adapted into a movie starring Sean Connery. His other works include Foucault's Pendulum, The Island of the Day Before, Baudolino, The Prague Cemetery, and Numero Zero. He also wrote children's books and more than 20 nonfiction books including Serendipities: Language and Lunacy. He taught philosophy and then semiotics at the University of Bologna. He also wrote weekly columns on popular culture and politics for L'Espresso. He died from cancer on February 19, 2016 at the age of 84.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
• Author: Umberto Eco
• Translated by: Geoffrey Brock
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006
• ISBN: 0156030438, 9780156030434
• Length: 480 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / General; Fiction / Literary; Fiction / Psychological; Fiction / Visionary & Metaphysical