Island Of The Day Before
3 journalers for this copy...
From amazon.co.uk:
The year is 1643. Roberto, a young nobleman, survives war, the Bastille, exile and shipwreck as he voyages to a Pacific island straddling the date meridian. There he waits now, alone on the mysteriously deserted Daphne, separated by treacherous reefs from the island beyond: the island of the day before. If he could reach it, time - and his misfortunes - might be reversed. But first he must learn to swim...
The year is 1643. Roberto, a young nobleman, survives war, the Bastille, exile and shipwreck as he voyages to a Pacific island straddling the date meridian. There he waits now, alone on the mysteriously deserted Daphne, separated by treacherous reefs from the island beyond: the island of the day before. If he could reach it, time - and his misfortunes - might be reversed. But first he must learn to swim...
Journal Entry 2 by klaradyn at A Touch of Madness, Nuttall Rd in Cape Town, Western Cape South Africa on Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Released 12 yrs ago (9/13/2011 UTC) at A Touch of Madness, Nuttall Rd in Cape Town, Western Cape South Africa
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
This evening at the OBCZ.
Picked up at A Touch of Madness OBCZ. Thanks, klaradyn, it has been on my wishlist.
I am sure Umberto Eco had a lot of fun writing this book. The result is a vivid and colourful spaghetti of story lines, philosophy and symbolism. At times serious, mostly tongue-in-cheek, the journey is never boring.
It is not a quick read, though. Often one has to reread a passage a few times to get a handle on it -- an exercise that proves just as often to be worth the effort.
An excerpt:
He set to thinking about his birth, of which he knew far less than of his death. He told himself that thinking of origins is proper to the philosopher. It is easy for the philosopher to justify death: that we must plunge into obscurity is one of the clearest things in the world. What obsesses the philosopher is not the naturalness of the end, it is the mystery of the beginning. We can lack interest in the eternity that will follow us, but we cannot elude the anguished question of which eternity preceded us: the eternity of matter or the eternity of God?
This was why he had been cast up on the Daphne, Roberto concluded. Because only in that restful hermitage would he have had the leisure to reflect on the one question that frees us from every apprehension about not being and consigns us to the wonder of being.
It is not a quick read, though. Often one has to reread a passage a few times to get a handle on it -- an exercise that proves just as often to be worth the effort.
An excerpt:
He set to thinking about his birth, of which he knew far less than of his death. He told himself that thinking of origins is proper to the philosopher. It is easy for the philosopher to justify death: that we must plunge into obscurity is one of the clearest things in the world. What obsesses the philosopher is not the naturalness of the end, it is the mystery of the beginning. We can lack interest in the eternity that will follow us, but we cannot elude the anguished question of which eternity preceded us: the eternity of matter or the eternity of God?
This was why he had been cast up on the Daphne, Roberto concluded. Because only in that restful hermitage would he have had the leisure to reflect on the one question that frees us from every apprehension about not being and consigns us to the wonder of being.
Released 12 yrs ago (2/18/2012 UTC) at Cape Town, Western Cape South Africa
CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:
To be given to subok. Welcome to BookCrossing!
Just got this from Stoepbrak...
