Illustrated Memories

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana 

by Umberto Eco

“Memory is a stopgap for humans, for whom time flies and what is passed is passed.”
― Umberto Eco, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana

Giambattista "Yambo" Bodoni, a 60-year-old rare book dealer from Milan, has "paper memory" after suffering a stroke. He has no autobiographical memory—he cannot identify his wife, daughters, or his own past—but he can remember every book, poem, and song he has ever come across. Yambo withdraws to his Solara childhood home at his wife Paola's suggestion. He searches his grandfather's large attic, which is stocked with diaries, comic books, old newspapers, and records.
Yambo recreates his generation's experiences with Catholic guilt, wartime propaganda, and American pop culture icons like Flash Gordon and Fred Astaire by using these artifacts to recreate the world of his childhood in Mussolini's fascist Italy. After a second "incident," Yambo experiences a coma during which his real memories resurface.

The book is renowned for its nearly 200 illustrations, which show how culture shapes individual identity and include comic strips, posters, and ads from Eco's own collection. Yambo is used by Eco as a metaphor for a "truly postmodern figure"—someone whose identity is derived more from literature and media than from personal experience.
The title "Mysterious Flame" alludes to a particular Tim Tyler's Luck comic.

View all my reviews