BAUDOLINO

Part Puck, part Gulliver, and kissing kin to Kissinger, Baudolino is a singular creation, both pre- and postmodern in his casual conflation of fabula and historia. Holy Roman emperor Frederick I plucks him from the peasantry for an adopted son, and almost immediately he insinuates himself into medieval history on the theory that ”God would not have contradicted me.” The Creator’s unwillingness to weigh in turns out to be Baudolino’s damnation, as well as his deliverance. It’s also what transforms Eco’s (The Name of the Rose) novel into a deed of heroic chutzpah. The quest itself (a search for enlightenment, in the form of a receding Eastern kingdom) is less compelling than its garrulous pilgrims, but isn’t that true of all road trips, Grail-driven or not?