About this title: A veteran of the Thirty Years War, Roberto della Griva is shipwrecked in the South Seas on a secret mission to the Antipodes. Roberto is saved by the appearance of an abandoned ship, the Daphne, which has enough stores to sustain him. The time aboard the Daphne affords Roberto opportunity to reflect. As he looks back on his loves and education, he ...
read more
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: PAPERBACK
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9780749396664ISBN:0749396660
Description: Fair. Paperback, larger format, a good reading copy. Cover image is a stock image and may vary. Your book will be securely packed and promptly dispatched from our UK warehouse. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9780749396664ISBN:0749396660
Description: Good. PAPERBACK BOOK-GOOD OVERALL CONDITION-TRUSTED DEVON (UK) BASED SELLER-IN STOCK-SENT WITHIN 1 WORKING DAY-AVAILABLE BY EMAIL FOR QUERIES-NO QUIBBLE REFUND IF NOT COMPLETELY SATISFIED- read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9780749396664ISBN:0749396660
Description: Very Good. PAPERBACK BOOK-VERY GOOD OVERALL CONDITION-TRUSTED DEVON (UK) BASED SELLER-IN STOCK-SENT WITHIN 1 WORKING DAY-AVAILABLE BY EMAIL FOR QUERIES-NO QUIBBLE REFUND IF NOT COMPLETELY SATISFIED- read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9780749396664ISBN:0749396660
Description: Good. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9780749396664ISBN:0749396660
Description: Good. This book is in GOOD overall condition. It shows signs of having been read and has general light wear to the cover, spine and pages. read more
Description: Acceptable. Ships from the UK. Former Library book. Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. Your purchase also supports literacy charities. read more
Description: Good. Ships from the UK. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Your purchase also supports literacy charities. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9780749396664ISBN:0749396660
Description: Very Good. Rapid dispatch with careful packaging. We're a friendly and helpful family company, please get in touch if you need any help. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Secker & Warburg
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780436202704ISBN:0436202700
Description: Good. All orders are dispatched from our UK warehouse within one working day. Established in 2004. No quibble refund if not completely satisfied. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9780749396664ISBN:0749396660
Description: Very Good. All orders are dispatched from our UK warehouse within one working day. No quibble refund if not completely satisfied. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: QPD, softcover
Date Published: 1995
Description: Set in the 17th century, this is a marvellous seafaring adventure combining philosophy, natural history, courtly love, theology, political intrigue and cosmology. Large paperback. 513pp. Very good. read more
Description: Reader copy. Some cover edge wear. Tanning and marks to page edges. Staining to some page borders does not affect the text. A very readable copy. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780436202704ISBN:0436202700
Description: Very Good in Fair dust jacket. 0436202700. Very good hardback copy with dustjacket intact, which has light shelfwear. Dispatch from York UK within 48 hours.; 1019K280819AZ11. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Secker & Warburg
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780436202704ISBN:0436202700
Description: Good. EX-LIBRARY WITH USUAL LIBRARY MARKINGS. USUAL SIGNS OF A WELL READ BOOK BUT GOOD OVERALL CONDITION SECURE DAILY POSTING FROM UK. 30 DAY GUARANTEE. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9780749396664ISBN:0749396660
Description: Very Good. * BOOKS DISPATCHED WITHIN 24 HOURS * SATISFACTION GUARANTEED * ALL QUESTIONS ANSWERED PROMPTLY * SHIPPED FROM UK * USA DELIVERY IN 3-5 DAYS * SHIPPED FROM UK: USA & EUROPE SPECIALISTS DELIVERY IN 3-5 DAYS. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9780749396664ISBN:0749396660
Description: Acceptable. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9780749396664ISBN:0749396660
Description: Good. EXCELLENT value for money and ready for dispatch. Delivery usually within 3/5 days. Our reputation is built on our Speedy Delivery Service and our Customer Service Team. read more
"I can't count the times I've tried to write a review of an Eco-book, whether physically or in my head, then decided to drop it.
Where does one start? How does one review a product of an intellect such as Eco's, a scholar in semiotics, history and god knows what else? Many reviews I've read here on The Island Of The Day Before are just plain moronic - outbursts of frustration because someone expected to grasp the contexts and countless themes it covers as easily as an airport-bestseller. I have a theory that some people that like to think they know a couple of things just don't like to feel stupid, and it's true; most of Eco's books are overwhelming in their breadth and references for a reader, so much so that one ends up feeling quite stupid.
But here's my point: Eco is firstly concerned with the polysemic and numerous ways in which meaning is created and interpreted, the history and epystemology of meaning, to be exact. To be able to understand the centennial intertextuality of language, symbols and meaning requires an intellect far greater than Eco or anyone else for that matter. I'm also pretty sure that Eco would facepalm himself if people assumed they could extract every meaning out his books by reading them once. Of all the authors and books out there, his are truly deserving of the cliche that the books need to be read several times to be understood.
Eco's confidence and playfulness is what makes this book my absolute favorite. The subject, the mystery of latitude, is such a spot-on subject, and the great tapestry of references from his chosen era, the 17th century, he uses to weave this incredible story - not only in literature, but theology, astronomy, philosophy, history and science - come together in a story that is ultimately about a period of time where the paradigms of the church were cracking up, and the monopoly of truth and meaning was being heavily challenged by science.
Eco manages to capture the mind of a young nobleman who is curious about the workings of the world and the universe, and so also the Zeitgeist of 17th century Europe: the volatility, the naivete, the wonder and the absurdity. If there ever was a point in history where the act of interpreting the world was so dynamic, it was here.
He also channels a wide range of literary references, from Defoe to (obviously) Borges.
In my mind, the trick to understanding how to approach Eco is like how to approach Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino makes meta-movies, i.e. films about cinema, Eco writes books about literature (and so much more!) Eco is an author's author, and with the help of his long-time collaborator and translator, William Weaver, his writing carries literary greatness in them.
If you're just after a story, then go for something more formulaic, and steer clear."
"In keeping with his modus operandi, Eco picks an era and goes about constructing a story that is, at its root, about people finding meaning and making meaning of their world in that time. The vehicle is a young man looking for a different kind of life and full of romantic ideas. The era is the "Exploration Age" of the 17th century. Big transitions in thinking and social structure and understanding how the world works and is conceived of. The story itself is a little lacking for me, but as with other Eco books, tracing how people construct meaning, pursue knowledge, and often meet dead ends (to our contemporary eyes) is worthwhile."
500 pages of blathering and blathering, and most of it what we would consider "junk science." And yet, this is still a curiously well-made novel.
This novel is the surface of the water-- you stare into it, and see things clearly, at such and such a depth and in such and such a relation to each other. There is a fish, swimming past a rock or over some bit of coral. You reach out your hand to touch it, to grab it, and find that the depth that you saw was an illusion: the fish easily slips out of your grasp, because your hand was nowhere near it. Not really. Your hand instead slams into the coral, which you didn't think would be so close. You try again, but then you realize that the water is affecting the way that you see things, and you can't really justify what you see through it with what your brain tells you is the case.
And so it is with the story of Roberto della Griva. You think that you are reading Eco's take on Robinson Crusoe, but there you are wrong-- Roberto builds nothing, invents nothing. He orders nothing. It is all there for him to use, and he does use it. He never escapes. Or perhaps it is "William Wilson." But Roberto's double doesn't exist, becomes more fictional by the page, and the expected duel never materializes. What? No duel? Nor is it precisely the kind of "science" fiction made popular by Crichton and his like: all the "facts" here are implicitly sneered at already by Eco, by the way that he treats them-- Eco is bright enough to realize that today's science is tomorrow's farce. This is science as a farce-- as an adventure, sure, but also, and more importantly, as a farce.
There are many moments when Eco seems to forget that he even has characters (or, really, A character, Roberto) to play with, and instead gives us endless natural science, defunct philosophy and bizarre histories of ideas. But The Island of the Day Before is Eco playing with a set of ideas (maybe not quite to the depth that he could, which is why this gets only 4 stars-- it could have been shorter and more compressed, things could have been slightly more meaning-filled, while still retaining the novel's exhaustive and exhausting feel) and getting them to yield not just one over-arching story but many, all seen imperfectly and incompletely, while maintaining the fiction that we are seeing them clearly.
There is a point, maybe midway through the book, when it strikes you that, because of Eco's narrator-protagonist relationship, we could easily be reading the story of a man trapped on the moon and writing as if he were trapped on a ship, or a man imprisoned without hope of release, or a man lying dead in a tomb, or of many many men, caught up in their isolation. Because Eco successfully convinces us that everything is metaphor, and everything is then related to everything else, it only remains to be seen how. So when this book doesn't really come to a conclusion so much as fizzle out a bit with Roberto's exit, we realize that we are not asked to wrap things up as though they were loose ends of a rope, but to assemble them as though they were some kind of Lego set, missing its "instructions," which were never meant to be followed anyway.
All of the pieces fit together, they all have interlocking parts, and the possibilities for the final assemblage are only limited by the total number of pieces and the shape of each individual piece. Eco has done the shaping and created the molds, decided how many pieces he will make from each mold, and then put it all into the box. Maybe he has even included instructions, but you will only have fun if you refuse to use them. Eco doesn't really want you to anyway."
"Well, I finally made my way to the end of this book but it was quite a struggle at times. If ever there was a book of two halves this was it. Some bits I really enjoyed and others I thought were complete waffle but, then, I'm not a philosopher. I can understand why people give up early on in the book because I thought the bits about the siege of Casale were very confusing. I was never sure who was besieging who and who was inside the fortress and who was outside. The best bits of the book took place on the ship and I particularly liked the descriptions of Roberto learning to swim. I also liked the device of Roberto concocting a story concerning his fictitious, evil, older brother. I read 'The Name of the Rose' several years ago and, although, not an easy read I think it was more accessible than this book. It may be some time before I feel up to tackling Foucaults Pendulum."
We guarantee every item's condition, as described on Alibris. If you are not satisfied that an item is as described, return your purchase for a refund.
rating
