'The Prague Cemetery' is a picaresque historical novel with a notably postmodern structural conceit. The Narrator (note the capital 'N') begins the tale by observing a seedy area of Paris surrounding Place Maubert, in which an elderly gentlemen is sitting down to write. At this point, this observed man, the main character of the novel, Captain Simone Simonini, takes over, writing about a crisis of identity in a diary on the advice of an "Austrian Jew" (who turns out to be the one and only Sigmund Freud, at that time working on his theories in Paris). This crisis was precipitated by the discovery of a cassock and wig in his apartment, a fact that confused and disturbed him. It transpires that Simonini has an alter ego, the Abbé Dalla Piccola, who alternates writing in the diary whenever Simonini has recounted an event incorrectly or whenever he has recounted some crime the priest wishes to chide him about. The narrative is thus split between the Narrator, who "interprets" the writings of Simonini and Dalla Piccola whenever they become too feverish or convoluted, Simonini, whose recollections of his life in espionage, forgery and villiany drive the plot forward for the majority of the book, and Dalla Piccola, whose horrified and moralistic didactism seasons the narrative at key points, until the two alter egos are ultimately reconciled at the end (the implication being that Freud's suggested therapy has worked).
Simonini's story begins with his obessessive hatred of the Jews, created by both the stories of his grandfather, an eminent man of Piedmont, the foremost kingdom in Northern Italy in the mid Nineteenth Century and also by the Jesuits who were his tutors. So vivid are these warnings about the Jews that Simonini "dreamt about [them] for years" and believes them to be "vain as a Spaniard, ignorant as a Croat, greedy as a Levantine, ungrateful as a Maltese, insolent as a Gypsy, dirty as an Englishman, unctuous as a Kalmuck, imperious as a Prussian, slanderous as anyone from Asti" as well as "adulterous through uncontrollable lust" which apparently, for Simonini, accounts for the large population of European Jews at the time the novel is set. This section is incredibly well written by Eco, bringing across as it does the fanaticism of the zealot and the irresistably comic voice of Simonini which carries the reader through a whole swathe of European events. After a meeting with Freud and some other Pyschiatrists at a restuarant, Simonini begins the tale of his life in a fashion almost reminiscent of the Bildungsroman, with a series of events in his early adult life leads to his recruitment into the Piedmontese intelligence service. And it is at this point that things get really interesting.
The diary, shared by the two alter egos, takes the reader through many of the momentous events of the Nineteenth Century (Garibaldi's conquest of the Two Sicilies, the reign of Napoleon III, the Franco-Prussian War, the Paris Commune, the Dreyfus Affair) while Simonini, egged on by most of Europe's Intelligence Organisations, begins to write, commision and edit a number of texts which describe a secret meeting between rabbis in a cemetery in the Prague ghetto in which they hatch a conspiracy, apparently involving masons, Jesuits and Satanic ritual, which will topple the Christian nations. The idea is that one man, Simonini, is actually responsible for the infamous 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion', published in 1905, the book that a young Adolf Hitler read and described as his warrant to wipe out the European Jewry. This is much more than dry historical fiction, however. There is a kind of bathetic, ludicrous humour that leaps from the page, with all of the real life historical figures being somehow absurd. The system of espionage and counter espionage among major European powers is endlessly satirised by the way Simonini is often hired to do the same job by multiple agencies. The loose ends are tied up in a satisfying ending, but the ending is completely left open. This is a true "novel of ideas" and its ambition and scope is quite staggering really. 'The Prague Cemetery' shows how easily and alarmingly ideas about race can lead to terrifying, chilling consequences, with Eco even noting in an endpiece that all of the figures in the novel bar Simonini and his priestly alter ago were real, and even Simonini is a collage of several real people who helped to spread the Anti-Semitic message around Europe. As a character, Simonini is a true work of art: a bravura anti-hero, a malcontent, a glutton obsessed with fine food, a murderer, a forger, a spy, a liar, a disguise artist and a master storyteller.
This book is a demanding but utterly rewarding experience, the kind of book that makes you wish that more authors put in this kind of effort and scholarship. It gives a reader everything they could want: scope, drama, humour, acutely observed characters, beautiful prose, grand locations, a page turning plot full of conspiracy and mystery, and of course, beautifully striking orange and black cover art....I'm such a sucker for a good cover.
Umberto Eco, my cap is officially doffed to you. Everybody should read your book. Immediately.
