Journey into PR ‘spin’ medieval-style

History matters to Christians. Unique among major religions, we believe that the central facts of our faith – such as Jesus’ death and resurrection – are historically verifiable. So a novel which challenges traditional notions of historio-graphy should be of special interest to Christians.

In modern terms, Baudolino is ‘spin-doctor’ for the 12th century Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa. His most outrageous PR fraud involves the penning of a letter (which was actually written) from Prester John, mythical ruler of a great Christian kingdom in India, to various European leaders with the aim of winning political points for Frederick. Yet, Baudolino becomes obsessed with his own imaginings and sets off on a quest to find Prester John’s kingdom. Along the way he finds love, discovers a fantastical land beset by theological disputes about the Trinity, and solves a murder.

This journey allows Eco to test the limits of arguing that our desire for God is a proof of his existence (the ‘god-shaped’ hole thesis). Lies, forged holy relics and drug-induced delusions appear to generate the convictions of Baudolino and his companions.

The novel opens as the crusaders are sacking Constantinople. Fleeing the carnage, the self-confessed liar retells his life’s story to the (real-life) Byzantine historian Niketas Choniates.

Essentially a fraud within a fable within a fiction, to describe this novel as an ‘unreliable narrative’ would be an absurd understatement! Each ‘retelling’ of the tale adds layers of fantasy, error and distortion.

Eco has intentionally set out to explore questions of truth and belief. In his earlier work Foucault’s Pendulum, which unravels as a conspiracy theory, Eco pushed the limits of relativism and found that some beliefs are false and dangerous. In Baudolino, Eco explores the flip-side of the post-modern equation and asks whether myth-making is necessary and helpful.

Eco is arguing that history is essentially untrustworthy – a tangle of facts, propaganda and wishful-thinking.

A central premise is that “lying about the future produces history.” Shocking as it may sound, this actually carries some wisdom. Mythical stories of wealthy exotic lands such as Prester John’s kingdom were important motivators for the Europeans who set sail to discover North America and Australia.

Eco’s layering of authentic history with literary trickery begins at Baudolino’s birth. Eco conjures up a Piedmontese peasant very much in his own image. Baudolino is the imagined son of a historic figure well-known in Italy for ending Babarossa’s siege of Alessandria (Eco’s birthplace) with a trick involving a cow stuffed with straw. In the novel this, and a number of bizarre but actual 12th century events, (including the creation of an Anti-Pope), are attributed to Baudolino’s genius for ‘the art of saying well that which may or may not be true’. A skill which, of course, is shared by Eco the fiction writer.

A number of critics have panned Baudolino for not being as tight and integrated as Eco’s bestseller The Name of the Rose. For them, the ‘who-done-it’ investigation of Barbarossa’s murder is ‘tacked-on’.

But such criticism misses the real enjoyment of this novel. The Name of the Rose was a parody of the Sherlock Holmes detective genre, and centred around a Franciscan sleuth named William of Baskerville (wink, wink, nudge, nudge!). As a result the novel was much more accessible to modern readers who understood the conventions of the genre.

In contrast Baudolino mimics the rambling picaresque style of medieval literature. In particular it derives from Boccaccio’s 14th century classic The Decameron. (English readers may be more familiar with Boccaccio’s contemporary Geoffrey Chaucer whose Canterbury Tales has a similar episodic style ranging from the sacred to the profane.)

A detective novel is one sort of literary game. Baudolino is based on another, only this time the rules are different but just as fun. Laced with Latin puns and medieval in-jokes, Eco has more tricks up his sleeve than can be noticed by the average reader (including this reviewer!). But like Lewis Carroll’s musings on mathematics in Alice in Wonderland, the book frolics in the absurdities of slapstick and burlesque, utterly accessible to those of us who are semiotically challenged.

Like the medieval writers he is mimicking, Eco loves to laugh along with peasants who fool their social betters. Eco may be cynical about the business of writing history, but the dark clouds of nihilism are banished to some far horizon. The playfulness of Baudolino revels, literally, in humanity caught with its pants down. And here is a virtue of post-modern culture often missed by Christians: humour is used to celebrate humility.

Nevertheless, if you enjoyed The Name of the Rose for the murder mystery then sit tight for a possible Hollywood adaptation. Baudolino’s red herrings, twists and turns and dramatic final revelations will flow faster on the big screen without being muddied by philosophical digressions.