Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #867257 in Books
• Published on: 1995-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 513 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In this tale of an Italian nobleman shipwrecked in the South Pacific in 1643, Eco's storytelling abilities and his love for esoteric historical detail, so beautifully balanced in The Name of the Rose, are sadly out of kilter, with the arcana overwhelming the plot. As part of a cabal instigated by French Cardinal Mazarin and his protege Colbert, Robert della Griva has been traveling in disguise on an English ship whose mission is to discover the Punto Fijo, the means by which navigators can plumb "the mystery of longitude." Cast adrift during a storm, Roberto fetches up against another ship, the Daphne, whose crew has mysteriously vanished. Although the vessel is moored only a mile from an enchanting island (the two may be on opposite sides of the date line, giving the book its title), Roberto, a nonswimmer, is as marooned as though in mid-ocean. The text consists of a third-person narrator's retelling of Roberto's manuscript recounting his adventures on the ship and such previous experiences as his participation in the siege of Casale and life among the erudite of Paris. There are some magical descriptions of Roberto's moonlit solitude aboard the Daphne, but the introduction of a third story line involving his imaginary evil twin hopelessly tangles a narrative already overloaded with lengthy exegeses on such obscure 17th-century devices as the Powder of Sympathy and the Specula Melitensis. Eco's postmodernist games?he directly addresses the reader, explaining how little the narrator knows?wear thin, and some delightfully secondary characters who appear too briefly only remind us how unfocused the novel is. Perhaps Eco himself was aware of the novel's faults when writing it?for his narrator criticizes Roberto's tale as "narrating so many stories at once that at a certain point it becomes difficult to pick up the thread." Author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Eco, an Italian philosopher and best-selling novelist, is a great polymathic fabulist in the tradition of Swift, Voltaire, Joyce, and Borges. The Name of the Rose, which sold 50 million copies worldwide, is an experimental medieval whodunit set in a monastic library. In 1327, Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate heresy among the monks in an Italian abbey; a series of bizarre murders overshadows the mission. Within the mystery is a tale of books, librarians, patrons, censorship, and the search for truth in a period of tension between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire. The book became a hit despite some obscure passages and allusions. This deftly abridged version, ably performed by Theodore Bikel, retains the genius of the original but is far more accessible. Foucault's Pendulum, Eco's second novel, is a bit irritating. The plot consists of three Milan editors who concoct a series on the occult for an unscrupulous publishing house that Eco ridicules mercilessly. The work details medieval phenomena including the Knights Templar, an ancient order with a scheme to dominate the world. Unfortunately, few listeners will make sense of this failed thriller. The Island of the Day Before is an ingenious tale that begins with a shipwreck in 1643. Roberta della Griva survives and boards another ship only to find himself trapped. Flashbacks give us Renaissance battles, the French court, spies, intriguing love affairs, and the attempt to solve the problem of longitude. It's a world of metaphors and paradoxes created by an entertaining scholar. Tim Curry, who also narrates Foucault's Pendulum, provides a spirited narration. Ultimately, libraries should avoid Foucault's Pendulum, but educated patrons will form an eager audience for both The Name of the Rose and The Island of the Day Before.?James Dudley, Copiague, N.Y.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
How baffling and dangerous sea travel was before the invention of longitude. How precious this discovery would have been to rival nations with global ambitions, such as Holland, France, Spain, and England. Why, it was the arms race of the Renaissance! And, Eco suggests, the holy grail for spies, including the dreamy young hero of this imaginative novel, Roberto della Griva. We first meet Roberto in what we learn is a typically ludicrous situation. Shipwrecked in the South Pacific, he finds refuge not on land, but on an oddly outfitted and mysteriously abandoned ship. Roberto quickly settles into an indulgent routine of writing highly romanticized love letters and imbibing large quantities of aqua vitae, but he regains clarity of mind just often enough to realize that he isn't alone after all. His elusive shipmate turns out to be Father Caspar, a brilliant man who has unlocked the very secrets of time and distance that Roberto was supposed to secure. As Roberto and Caspar conduct experiments and attempt to reach a nearby island, we learn the story of Roberto's life, a captivating tale that features delightfully blasphemous intellectuals and amusing speculation on the absurdity of the Thirty Years' War and the consequences of the rise of scientific thought in a world dominated by politicized religion. After the somewhat heavy-handed Foucault's Pendulum (1989), Eco has returned to the sort of erudite humor, suspense, stimulating philosophy, and cunning wordplay that made The Name of the Rose (1983) so popular. And, once again, translator William Weaver has done a superb job. Donna Seaman

Customer Reviews

The worst novel of one of my favorite authors
I have simply loved every other novel by Umberto Eco I've read. I started with Foucault's Pendulum which I read in college and is still one of my all-time favorite books. Of course, I then went on to read The Name of the Rose which was also great.

More recently I've read Baudolino which I thoroughly enjoyed as well - and which is a much easier read than most of Eco's stuff.

I own The Island of the Day Before in a hard-copy that I bought at Half Price Books, and I'm sorry to say I still haven't finished it.

I've forced myself to finish even some really horrendous novels, but for some reason I can't get through this. I'm such a big fan it bothers me and I can't help but wonder if it's Eco's fault or his English translator.

My advice is to read anything else by Umberto Eco, but not this one.

Not a very good read at all
This is a tough book to criticize. I really wanted to like this book. I really wanted to understand the point of the book and the first, second, and third order themes in it. I wanted to put together the puzzle that was in front of me and decipher the hidden symbolism to find the "real" story hidden within. Bah, I couldn't find any of that. It was very difficult to pull the information out of this story and very difficult to get through.

As for getting through it, after a few hundred pages I was used to his writing style and was able to skim over the half-page paragraphs that consist of nothing but adjectives about a trivial portion of the story. As another reviewer put it: "He spends too much time discussing something too small". I raced to get through it, not because it kept me on the edge of my seat, but because I wanted it over and done with. Much like the main character, I wanted my exile in that story to end! Unfortunately even the ending was very unsatisfying. If I didn't know any better I would say that Eco got bored with the story and his character and gave up as well. As it wrapped up, the story did seem to mount a comeback with a twist on the horizon but then even that fell flat. The fictitious story within a fictitious story was too much and seemed contrived. It seemed like Eco tossed his protagonist into a state where he, Eco, could pontificate on anything he desired and, on that day of writing, just went ape-nuts on his keyboard.

Anyway, it was a tough read and I think that most people who gave this four or more stars enjoy having an "Eco" book on their book shelf so they look like they know something. I bet most of them don't understand the book any more than I do. I notice that most positive reviews are beefed up with some useless book-jacket summary and follows that up with a serious author-love fest and do NOT go into any of the meanings of the story that they so liberally claim to understand.

So, I'm giving this story two stars. It would've gotten one star but the concept was good, the execution was bad.



Here's what I would've changed:
1. If Ferrante is in fact real, he should've been confronted with him at the end.
2. If Ferrante is in fact an alter ego of Roberto, it should've been proven to him at the end that his internally constructed character did in fact exist and caused this misery. Something like seeing the body of Lilia wash ashore.
3. I understand that the author wants us to understand things in a relative sense to what Roberto knew, however, there should've been some twist to the fact the he believes it to be the island of the day before. He teases us with him getting off the boat and possibly rescuing Lilia. That type of ending may have redeemed the languishing pages that came before it.
4. Actually pony up and write an ending. Roberto basically floats out to sea to die. Boo! Any interesting character would've made an attempt at getting to the island. Screw the coral and the rock fish (which he aggravated in the first place) and get land.
5. The concept was interesting, and enough happens that leads us to believe that Roberto believes the island to exist in the day before, but the character does nothing to reinforce or take advantage of that nor does he disprove it. To Roberto it becomes a fact that is never exploited so it's validity is irrelevant.
6. Another irrelevant point is that he's on a ship. This is arguably the biggest advertisement of the book. He's the first man to be marooned on a deserted ship. Ok, cool concept, but irrelevant because he cannot operate the ship, the ship doesn't move, the ship doesn't become disabled and require his care, etc. The ship is equivalent to a strip of land set a hew hundred yards out to sea with a bunch of stuff on it that can sustain him.
7. If this story is about someone slowly going crazy through loneliness and self recrimination the history of Roberto is irrelevant. Anyone stuck on a boat like that, given enough time, has a pretty good chance of punching out like he did. The path he chose to get there was unique but uninteresting.
8. Roberto doesn't grow at all while he's on the boat. He was a naïve bumpkin when he arrived at Casale and he was a naïve bumpkin when he was on the boat listening to the arrogant priest. He never figured anything out on his own and believed everything all the other noobs told him.
9. Ok, so the priest dies. Cool. I didn't like him anyway. But there should've been some closure. When Roberto when down under the water he should've found the body. Pulling up the coral skull, if it was some metaphor, didn't have the impact.

Anyway, this story had potential but he got lost in his "I'm smarter than you" ramblings about nonsense. The character development was thrown at the reader through the story within a story which, at least to me, is a lazy device. Basically the author gives away the responsibility of explaining the characters actions and motivations and lets the character themselves explain it which allows all sorts of nonsense to be justifiable. I never really understood the point of the story or what was solved at the end. The character just meanders along and then dies while along the way he gets caught up in some peripheral activities that really don't concern him and he does nothing to try to control any of it.


Well, those are my thoughts on the book. If anyone of the "5 star" reviewers cares to comment, please do. However, dispel the haze that surrounds this book. Add in some useful criticism or commentary that explains the book. Don't give me fan-boy comments on how I need to get a dictionary. Explain the symbolism and the subtle parts of the plot that I seem to have missed. Put your money where your mouth is;)

Eco's Philosophical Bantering
This book is by far the most terrible of all of Eco's productions yet. The book is flooded, no grotesquely bursting with tangents and the usual philosophical rubbish. The reminisces of Roberto's childhood are entertaining and even the time on the ship, but few, if any readers I venture, will have patience for his constant philosophical bickering over first the Meridian and then irrelevantly the meridian line. Roberto's twin Ferrante as an alternate fantasy might be amusing except that it overall detracts from a part of the book that should be reaching its climax. I do not deny that even after 400 pages of this anthole after one chapter I could want to put it down and pick up something more interesting and more thought provoking!