How to Travel with a Salmon & Other Essays (Harvest Book): Amazon.de: Umberto Eco, William Weaver: Englische Bücher

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Produktinformation

Taschenbuch: 256 Seiten
Verlag: Harvest Books; Auflage: Harvest. (September 1995)
Sprache: Englisch
ISBN-10: 015600125X
ISBN-13: 978-0156001250
Gr��e und/oder Gewicht: 20,2 x 13,8 x 1,6 cm

Durchschnittliche Kundenbewertung: 5.0 von 5 Sternen Alle Rezensionen anzeigen (6 Kundenrezensionen)

Amazon Bestseller-Rang: Nr. 377.188 in Englische Bücher (Siehe Top 100 in Englische Bücher)

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Produktbeschreibungen

From Kirkus Reviews

Popular novelist (The Name of the Rose, 1983, Foucault's Pendulum, 1989) and notorious semiologist (at the Univ. of Bologna) Eco shows himself to be a journalist as well with this generally diverting volume of short pieces. Eco calls these short essays diario minimo--minimal diaries- -after the magazine column where he first published a series of such efforts (previously collected in Misreadings, not reviewed). The work presented here, much of which dates from the late '80s and early '90s, celebrates, or more often condemns, postmodern life in a style familiar to American readers. Occasional parodic fantasies in the mode of Borges or Calvino find Eco exploring the intriguing, if absurd, notion of a map in 1:1 scale, chronicling race relations in a future universe populated by humorously bizarre alien life- forms, or describing watches whose features cause one to lose track of the time. But Eco focuses on articulating his amusing complaints, analyzing our quotidian myths with light touches and lamentations that will recall Andy Rooney and Erma Bombeck--at best, an academic Mike Royko--sooner than Roland Barthes. Pieces on once-current events have been carefully excluded, but most of these essays remain essentially journalistic in their devotion to exploring contemporary life. The title piece pits Eco against an English hotel bureaucracy intent on making it difficult for him to refrigerate an expensive salmon that he has brought from Copenhagen; others mock ``how-to'' essays--on fax machines and cellular telephones, for example; there are cautionary tales of encounters with Amtrak trains and Roman cabs. All have as their subtext the chaos brought in the wake of unbridled technological innovation and intercontinental travel. While he wastes some time exposing clich‚s--Indians in westerns, unworthy sequels--that are clich‚s to expose, Eco entertains with his clever reflections and with his unique persona, the featured player in his stories. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verf�gbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

From Library Journal

Written mostly between 1975 and 1991, these how-to miniessays (how to eat in flight, how to go through customs, how to deal with the taxi driver) are in the same vein as Misreadings (LJ 5/1/93). Generally, they are shorter, like monologs by a somewhat amusing and not too garrulous conversationalist. The persona presumes to be self-deprecating but is actually fatuous, pleased to be recognized on the street by television viewers and happily aware that readers will not have had all his opportunities for travel, fame, and affluence. On the whole, this persona is rather snide vis-a-vis officialdom, the service occupations, and the masses. The closest counterpart in U.S. journalism is Calvin Trilling, but this is a Trilling without any good nature or affection. As translator, Weaver has made some inspired word choices. For literary collections.
Marilyn Gaddis Rose, SUNY-Binghamton
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verf�gbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

Kundenrezensionen

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Für Reisende und auch nicht! 23. September 2000

Von Ein Kunde

Format:Taschenbuch

Ein herrlicher Blick, humourvoll und brilliant, in die Schwierigkeiten des modernen Lebens aus Sicht des Herrn Eco! Ein sehr ungewöhntes Stil für UE, aber dafür ein Buch, das zu jeder Sammlung gehört. Die Probleme eines versteckten Lachses, die diffizile Aufgabe einen verlorenen Führerschein zu ersetzen, und wie Zeitplanung im Griff zu bekommen ist! Do not miss this brilliant work from a genial author!

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A loud book! 21. Juni 2000

Von James E McGregor

Format:Taschenbuch

A loud book - at least while you're reading it! Even this normally quiet reader could not help laughing out loud at every one of Eco's essays. While all of his books are excellent, this is one of the funniest books that I've ever had the pleasure to read.

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Or..."How to Use Suspension Points"... 8. Juni 2000

Von yygsgsdrassil

Format:Taschenbuch

...or the logical illogic behind everyday life. ..Umberto Eco is one of my favorite writers/thinkers and I was well pleased when he allowed some of his followers like me off the hook with a down to earth, easy to follow book. Sharp witted and clearly with tongue placed firmly in cheek, Eco skewers human habits and modern day customs with a faux/not faux rationalism...sometimes with the same stance you'd imagine he'd lecture a graduate course in the theories of semiotics.

But, fear not, dear reader, Dr. Eco is just having a little fun. An essay entitled "How to Be a Television Host", turns out to be a parody on how the powers-that-be who produce entertainment/shows/movies must think the audiences are really dumb. Even though he kinda went overboard with applause and the fictional Bonga nation (somewhere "between Terra Incognita and the Isle of the Blest"), it is truth. He even parodies himself and academicians like himself in the piece 'Three Owls in a Chest Drawer' (in which two more of my favorites--Erica Jong and Camille Paglia--get a nod) which ends with a wry punchline "This, and only this, is what Poetry demands of us."

Eco says one should never fear exaggeration in writing parody. Well...truly, he is fearless in these essays.

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