Publisher Description

'Every age gets the classics it deserves. I hope we deserve The Island of the Day Before' - New York Times Book ReviewThe year is 1643. Roberto, a young nobleman, survives war, the Bastille, exile and shipwreck as he voyages to a Pacific island straddling the date meridian. There he waits now, alone on the mysteriously deserted Daphne, separated by treacherous reefs from the island beyond- the island of the day before. If he could reach it, time - and his misfortunes - might be reversed. But first he must learn to swim...

Notes

It is the middle of the seventeenth century and Roberto, a young nobleman, becomes shipwrecked as he nears a Pacific island which crosses the date meridian. He is stranded on a deserted ship, the Daphne, and in order to reach the island, he must first learn to swim. "Vintage Eco... full of verbal conjuring: both an enjoyable fable and a skilful parade of recent literary theory and history of science" The Times. New literary feast from the author of The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum.

Author Biography

Umberto Eco (1932-2016) wrote fiction, literary criticism and philosophy. His first novel, The Name of the Rose, was a major international bestseller. His other works include Foucault's Pendulum, The Island of the Day Before, Baudolino, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, The Prague Cemetery and Numero Zero along with many brilliant collections of essays.

Review

No comparable book has ever existed... The exuberance of the narrative and sheer sumptuousness of the language possess a precision for which everything in Eco's earlier writing had prepared us, but equally a panache for which nothing had * Sunday Times *
Vintage Eco...full of verbal conjuring: both an enjoyable fable and a skillful parade of recent literary theory and history of science * The Times *
A great feast of words * Times Literary Supplement *
Every age gets the classics it deserves. I hope we deserve The Island of the Day Before...This novel belings in the great tradition of Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Johnson's Rasselas and Voltaire's Candide. We are left energized, exhilarated by the sheer sensory excitement of the music's telling. * New York Times Book Review *

Promotional

'Every age gets the classics it deserves. I hope we deserve The Island of the Day Before' - New York Times Book Review

Kirkus UK Review

Eco's third novel is similar to both The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum in its expansive range of subject matter and its consummate erudition. Roberto, a young Italian nobleman, is shipwrecked while spying on a 17th-century mission to discover the elusive scerets of longitude. He drifts to an abandoned ship, the Daphne, which is anchored on the date meridian in the Pacific, just off the coast of 'The Island of the Day Before'. Here he recounts the formative experiences of his life, from the siege of Casale to his fateful meeting with Mazarin and Colbert in Paris. An amazing historical tale which also considers philosophy, horology, cosmology, theology and identity along the way. (Kirkus UK)

Kirkus US Review

An imaginative romance of shipwreck, survival, and philosophical adventuring by the formidably learned author of The Name of the Rose (1983), Foucault's Pendulum (1989), and, most recently, How to Travel with a Salmon and Other Essays (1994). In 1643, highborn Roberto della Griva, a soldier who has fought in the Thirty Years' War and subsequently been sent on a secret mission to the Antipodes, is shipwrecked in the South Pacific somewhere near the Fiji and Solomon Islands. He saves himself by clambering aboard another ship - the abandoned Daphne. Finding in its hold sufficient provisions and supplies, and gradually recovering his strength and his wits, Roberto records the events of his past life - his sheltered boyhood in Italy, confused exposure to the temporal claims of political allegiance, love of learning for its own sake, and sobering experience as devoted postulant to his scarcely approachable love objects. The tale of Roberto then is juxtaposed against his cautious exploration of the Daphne now, climaxing in the surprising fulfillment of his fears that the "intruder" whose companion presence he suspects may be the "evil twin brother" he has always had fantasies of. Simultaneously, a nameless omniscient narrator summarizes the record Roberto has left behind, ruefully assessing the latter's amazed discovery that the complexity of creation proves all things possible - including the contrary lives led by our alternative selves. Eco tests his readers severely, especially in detailed considerations of the mechanics of navigation and "the mystery of longitude." Yet even this novel's denser arcana are embodied in vivid characters speaking lively and funny dialogue. Prominent among Roberto's reality instructors are his genially blasphemous and metaphysically-minded father, inventor of an Aristotelian Memory Machine; his aphorism-spouting comrade-in-arms Saint-Savin; and the alarmingly polymathic scientist-priest, Father Caspar Wanderdrossel. Though weighted here and there by the longueurs of whimsy, this is on balance an intriguing and entertaining theoretical romp - a kind of Borgesian Robinson Crusoe. (Kirkus Reviews)

Review Text

No comparable book has ever existed... The exuberance of the narrative and sheer sumptuousness of the language possess a precision for which everything in Eco's earlier writing had prepared us, but equally a panache for which nothing had

Review Quote

No comparable book has ever existed... The exuberance of the narrative and sheer sumptuousness of the language possess a precision for which everything in Eco's earlier writing had prepared us, but equally a panache for which nothing had

Promotional "Headline"

'Every age gets the classics it deserves. I hope we deserve The Island of the Day Before ' - New York Times Book Review

Details