Books - The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana

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	Books - The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana

La Misteriosa Fiamma della Regina Loana ("The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana") is an novel by Italian writer Umberto Eco. It was first published in Italian in 2004, and an English language translation was published in spring 2005. The title is a reference to a character from the American comic strip Tim Tyler's Luck.

The plot of the book concerns Yambo (full name: Giambattista Bodoni), a 59-year-old Milanese antiquarian book dealer who loses his episodic memory due to a stroke. At the beginning of the novel he can remember every thing he has ever read, but does not remember his family, his past, or even his own name. Yambo decides to go to Solara, his childhood home, to see if he can rediscover his lost past. After days of searching through his old papers and comic books, he is unsuccessful in regaining memories, though he relives the story of his generation. Ready to abandon his quest, he discovers a copy of the original First Folio of 1623 among his grandfather's books, the shock of which causes another incident during which he relives his lost memories. (Continue synopsis)

Umberto Eco included myriad references to both high and low culture in the book, and he has drawn heavily on his own experiences growing up in Mussolini's Fascist Italy. Like other Eco novels, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana has abundant intertextuality. Unlike other fiction of the author, however, the setting is modern (1991). Eco has stated The Mysterious Flame will be his last novel.

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