How to Travel with a
Salmon (1992) is a wonderful book, although many people
may be surprised to hear it unless they know the author - Umberto Eco. Books
subtitled ‘and Other Essays’ such as this one have a more challenging task of
attracting readers than, say, a novel. This is because the word ‘essay’ sends
shivers down spines and sends grown adults into Vietnam-style flashbacks about
their school days.
And that’s a shame,
because frankly there’s a much wider and more exciting world hidden behind that
word. Beyond the banality of the mandatory 1000-word essay on the causes of
World War I, there is a universe of stirring ideas and vibrant personality. As
Aldous Huxley once wrote in the preface to his own Collected Essays (1958),
“The essay is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost
anything.” The late Umberto Eco was one of those people who clearly took
this notion to heart. Where some would leave nothing but dry dullness, he was
clearly capable of creating - dare I say - profoundly moist interest. The
author of The
Name of the Rose (1980) and Foucault’s
Pendulum (1988) loved to source the inspiration of his novels
from an extremely eclectic and high-brow range of sources, yet always managed
to instil a sense of liveliness in his work. His essays are no different.
Nowhere is that more
apparent than in the titles of these five-page wonders. In addition to the
titular essay on travelling with a salmon (rather than, say, commuting with a
cod), other gems include How to Not Know the Time, How to Use the Coffee Pot
from Hell and How to Become a Knight of Malta.
The book itself is a
collection of writings from Eco’s magazine column ‘Diario Minimo’,
written between the late '80s and early '90s. A column which meanders at the
author’s whims through such subject matters as: “militarism,
computer jargon, Westerns, art criticism, librarians, bureaucrats, meals on
airplanes, Amtrak trains, bad coffee, maniacal taxi drivers, express mail,
33-function watches, fax machines and cellular phones, pornography, soccer fans
and academia”- as the blurb on the inside of the dust jacket says. Most
of these essays have a clear autobiographical bent, if only to introduce the
main subject matter. This, in addition to the pure character and wit of this
collection makes you feel like Eco is in the room, having an amicable chat with
you. One where you would shake his hand and thank him for being here, until he
starts talking about How to React to Familiar Faces, and
reminds you that it’s too early to be so enthusiastically friendly with someone
you’ve just met.
That said, that is
generally the experience one has when reading this book; a meandering and
delightful chat with one of the modern literary greats. Eco takes the stance
that whilst it is absolutely fine to throw in heaps of sophisticated cultural
jokes, they shouldn’t get in the way of what he’s trying to say. These jokes
(excluding one about the philosophical underpinnings of a coffee pot which
still keeps me up at night in confusion) work as an enhancement to his quirky
anecdotes, not the other way around. You don’t get the feeling that he’s ever
talking down to you, but rather that he’s firing out quips scattershot as you
would with a friend.
Finally, some praise
should be given to the translator, whose work is phenomenal. Eco originally
wrote his essays in Italian, and like all foreign language books translated
into English, there is a terrible risk that the meaning of the work will be
mulched. However, the acclaimed William Weaver really did a stellar job in
maintaining Eco’s sense of clarity and preserving his comedy. Of course, you
would hope that would be the case, given that he had been the novelist’s go-to
guy since The Name of the Rose.
If you are looking for
something different to the endless parade of door-stopper trilogies and
celebrity biographies - something that combines brevity with wit, anecdotes
with intelligence, and salmon with suitcases - you could not pick a better book
than this one.
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