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Title: self-indulgent navel-gazing
Review: Cut about 150 pages and this would be an interesting read.Eco uses a book collector's failed memory as an opportunity to explore what it was like to live as a young boy in WWII Italy. Of itself, that sounded like an interesting topic.What it turns into, however, is mind-numbing cataloguing of song lyrics, books, comic books, newspapers, etc. Where one or two examples might have been interesting, Eco gives us dozens. Yawn.I'm a huge Eco fan, but don't waste your time here: Foucault's Pendulum , and The Name of the Rose are masterful. Even The Island of the Day Before, not his best work, is more worth the effort.
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