Rating: 
Summary: Prose Perfected
Review: Although Umberto Eco began wonderfully with "The Name of the Rose," "The Island of the Day Before" is truly his crowning achievement. There are few books where the prose so perfectly transcends the plot that the end result is the purified, refined pleasure of reading beautifully crafted writing. I found my self reading and rereading passages of no importance simply because the play of language was so immaculate. If you are looking for the mystery and excitement of "The Name of the Rose" and "Foucault's Pendulum," look elsewhere, but if you want to read an example of the finest fiction this century has to offer, this book is as good as it gets.
Rating:
Summary: The last of the Baroques
Review: Many reviewers of The Island of the Day Before seem to fault the volume for many features which, were they familiar with the literature from which it is derived, they would find to be its greatest assets. Just one example is Eco's wonderful description of the Deluge which cannot be appreciated without having read Ovid. As with all of Eco's works a healthy interest in philosophy and semiotics is really required to follow the entire work. (DeGriva's mandering about the ship for instance can be viewed as a metaphor for the abductive line of reasoning, something Eco deals with extensively in his scholarly works.) This volume is demanding, as others have noted, and we seem to live in a world where we don't expect books to make demands of us, so for many readers this book may be too complex. However, if one is truly interested in learning the topics which interest the polymath Eco this volume is a treasure trove for what you learn along the way. If one wants only familiar words and a simple plot, do not read Eco--you will probably miss the point.
Rating: 
Summary: Not up to Eco's par...
Review: I found the premise of this book to be very intriguing! It made me very interested in the philosophical idea of the antipodes and the search for understanding longitude. In fact, if you have read Dava Sovel's "Longitude," many of the absurd methods Eco discusses in this book for possibilities to find longitude were actually mentioned in Sovel's book as being real. The race for longitude could be comparable to the race to harness nuclear energy.Roberto's vivid imagination and his ability to make imagination reality is machinery that is used again in Baldolino, with better success. Like I said the premise of the book was great, and could have lead to a great book, but the ending was certainly lacking. By the end it did not have the momentum to go anywhere and therefore fizzled out into monotony. It is missing the great mystery that fueled The Name of the Rose through its last pages. This book took me at least two years of periodic reading and it was by pure will to complete the book that I did finish it. And when I did, I felt that I had wasted my time. Stick to The Name of the Rose and Bauldolino instead.
Rating: 
Summary: Castway meets Latin and Psychology 101
Review: Umberto Eco's a fantastic writer but for some reason he decided to write a book that takes place entirely just off the shore of a deserted island, with a castaway who's physical isolation is a metaphor for his relational detachment. I'll start by describing the problems with this novel and then conclude with the gems. The worst part is having the main character stranded and unmotivated just off the shore of this fabulous island. As a reader, I'm dying to get off the boat and onto the island! But the main character is happy to sit on the boat and just fantasize--it's more than a little frustrating. Another troublesome part is the very creative Latin-based words that the author--or perhaps the translator--uses. I'm an active reader and, as such, keep a list of any new words that I find in a novel. I actually reference the list, look them up, and then read again in context. During my reading of Island, I often found twenty such words per chapter. Some of these are archaic words from the middle ages (e.g. 'arquebuses' meaning heavy matchlock guns) while others seem to be creative constructions from Latin that do not appear in my collegiate dictionary. People with an unabridged dictionary (if these words are even in the unabridged dictionary) may not mind, but for me it was annoying to find many words, and thus important phrases, left undecyphered. Okay, now we're getting to the better parts of this novel. First, the characters are multi-dimensional, complex, funny and often somewhat contradictory: i.e., they seem real. You are drawn into a colorul, chaotic medieval world of intrigue, philosophy, romance and power politics. The characters are unforgettable, as are the crazy theories espoused in that time period...which get considerable play in the novel. Finally, the best part is the mental creation, on the part of the main character, of an identical twin brother who becomes resonsible for every misadventure and misfortune of the main character. He becomes so convinced of the other's existence that it starts to affect his destiny. This ongoing theme is likened to the new, at the time, Paris-spawned talk of 'unconscious concepts' that steer a man and thwart his otherwise conscious life. For the main character, this imaginary brother symbolizes the unconscious concepts and shows--even today--how often we have only ourselves to blame for our most tenacious problems. Overall, the writing makes reading the book a delight. Still, I give it only three stars because: a) Eco should know better than to write a novel where so much time is spent stranded alone on a boat with a more-than-a-little depressed main character, b) certain vocabulary choices--esp. the invented, dictionary-thwarting, Latin-based words--detract from the author's effort to reach even the seasoned reader, c) the ending leaves me feeling that Eco just stopped writing, rather than neatly ending this multi-threaded novel by tying a suitable bow. If you can stomach these aspects, perhaps by reading quickly, you'll yet enjoy the colorful characters and artful writing.
Rating:
Summary: A convoluted, at times confusing, wonderful book.
Review: As always, Eco does a great job of walking the reader down the rosy path of dead-ends, near-misses, and finally, enlightenment. Things are never as they seem. At first I thought that some of the tales (for example, wounding animals to tell time!) were far-fetched. However, as usual, Eco tells these tales with a purpose, and indeed, ladens them with truth.
The story weaves in and out of thoughts, times and events, in such a way to make one understand the Baroque period, as well as the human mind. This is not just a tale about how to find longitude, or how to put together poetry, or how to love, or of the Baroque period, but all of these things woven into a fine tapestry of tale.
For all who have appreciated Eco in _The Name of the Rose_ or _Foucault's Pendulum_, you will find this tale equally intriguing and fulfilling.
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Summary: Not the usual fictional Eco
Review: It seems to me Eco's "The island of the day before" is a classic example of love it or hate it. Those who love it do so because of the beautiful prose, the interesting philosophical implications and discussions, and the unusual frame of mind of the characters. Those who hate it do so because of the difference between "The island of the day before" and Eco's other fiction books, "The name of the rose", "Foucault's pendulum" and "Baudolino". "The island..." seems more like an essay. The book begins telling how Roberto della Grive became stranded in a deserted ship on the other side of the world, and what his mission there was. Two thirds of the story are a description of Roberto's early life, a war, his passage through Paris, a platonic love affair and a conversation with Cardinal Mazarino. The final third tells how Roberto, alone in the ship with the unreachable island across the 180ยบ meridian in front of him, slowly looses his mental faculties, creating a new, imaginary life for himself and disussing with no one about the size of the universe and thinking if the moon is inhabited or not. This book is a combination of historical fiction with philosophy class. But I think Eco would not be my favourite teacher. Sometimes he simply tires the reader with endless discussions about uninteresting topics. However, there's no denying "The island of the day before" is, for the most part, a good book, extremely well written and very beautiful. But it was not entirely for my taste, and I think Eco's other fictional books are better than this one. Grade 8.1/10
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Summary: A curl-up-with-your-dictionary, scientific jewel of a poem.
Review: _________
Fluff or not? NOT.
_________ Robert de la Griva, our protagonist is first shipwrecked then washed up on a deserted ship anchored off a mysterious Island. Our story follows the rantings of this slightly unhinged and lonely, lovesick, sailor. With equal energy he pines over his immaginary love and yearns for the safety of the island within tantalizing proximity to his lonely outpost. Langauge in all its complexity and glory, history with its heroes and discoveries, love, poetry, death, and disappointment - they're all here. Just beware, when you set out to enjoy this book, be ready to keep a good dictionary handy. +: immaginative, unconventional, thought provoking, beautiful, fun, poetic, lots of new words to learn
-: not a light read, numerous unfamiliar words really required me to stop often and use my trusty Webster's
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Summary: Read a philosophy book
Review: If you are interested in Philosophy, History or Linguistics, buy a textbook, read an original or enroll in a course. If you want to read an engaging novel, stay away from this book. Sure it is well written and scholarly, but the one reason I could see for someone enjoying it is vanity. One must feel scholarly himself reading a thick novel from Eco. The truth is that the scattered gems throughout the book do not provide enough substance to make it stand as a treatise of medieval philosophy, linguistics or history. I have recently bought Baudolino, and I am still gathering the courage to give Mr. Eco another shot.
Rating:
Summary: Not up to standard
Review: I loved "Name of the Rose" and "Foucault's Pendulum," but this one left me cold. It just didn't seem to hold all the twists and depth of the others.
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Summary: Put it off til tomorrow; and STILL do it today!!!
Review: The meaning behind the name of this book struck me about a quarter of the way through. Sometimes I forget titles while I read and just enjoy the contents. But this had so much significance to what the book was actually about, it stayed with me. Imagine; even if only 'imagined', the ability to swim to an island within your sight, and arrive in the prior day. Not too shabby, compared with most titles I see, and the meanings behind them.
But a clever title is not all to be found with this Umberto Eco novel. Theology; existentialism; lost language; and even one of my favorite words (discovered first while performing in 'The Pirates of Penzance); escutcheon. Others criticize Eco on his meandering thoughts and ideas; on his half-truths/half-fictions; his playful use of alternate reality; and his obvious disregard for probability. I say 'what the heck are you reading Eco for, then?' It took me four years of owning this book to read it. Prior to this, I could not do it. But now, with Name of the Rose and Baudolino under my belt, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, devouring it from cover to cover, and opening my mind to all that Eco has to offer... Roberto, the 'hero' of the story, finds himself stranded on board the Daphne, a boat anchored just offshore an unreachable island. Without wind, without crew, and without a know-how of swimming, Roberto explores his new 'prison', having survived a shipwreck of the vessel Amaryllis. Finding that he is indeed NOT alone on the boat, Roberto prepares to flush out the intruder and face him down. But what Roberto discovers is not quite what he set out to find.
The novel flows back and forth in time, as well as in and out of 'reality' as Roberto weaves a tale of his childhood and the invention of his dark twin Ferrante, who dogs him throughout his life, to the discovery of his lady-love, Lilia; to his induction as a spy for Cardinal Richelieu; to his arrival on the Daphne, and the education he receives there in mapping the latitudes and longitudes of the planet. Like the other 2 Eco novels I have read, there is so much to be gleaned from the pages of this book...whether you enjoy the mingling of fact and fiction or not, for an avid reader like myself, willing to open my mind to flights of fancy...the challenge to your thought processes cannot be beat. A wonderful read....and worth the wait to be able to accomplish it.
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