A Review
The Prague Cemetery
By
Umberto Eco
Review by
R.E. Prindle
Eco, Umberto: The Prague Cemetery, 2010, Houghton, Mifflin
Part IV
Prior to Prague the only thing of Eco’s I’d ever read was Foucault’s Pendulum which while interesting was not a great novel. Since reading Prague I have read the Mysterious Flame Of Queen Loana and Baudolino. These are fairly interesting novels while giving some idea of Eco’s themes and variations. Thus one sees that religious frauds, hoaxes or forgeries depending on how you view them, are a fixation of Eco’s. He likes the rustle of paper. In the above two novels he treats of their manufacture with some sophistication that he seems to have lost in his treatment of the Protocols which novel is neither full nor penetrating. Therefore I can only conjecture that despite Jewish hysterics and condemnations Eco was pleased to reinforce the Jewish versions of the situations he treats as we are being led to believe by current news reports that anti-Semitism is on the rise worldwide. I don’t see it that way but then I don’t fear it. Then again as Eco is a philo-Semite the novel may be a bit of a fraud itself. Why shouldn’t Umberto join in?
What I do see is the continuing Jewish attempt to subvert Western Science accelerating. For instance the Paideia organization of Sweden’s move to fill Europe with what its founder, Barbara Spectre calls ‘Jewish knowledge.’ She neglected to tell us just what the Jewish knowledge as opposed to ‘European knowledge’, Science in another word, might be.
Before getting into Eco’s vision of the late nineteenth century which centers around Semitic superstition and Aryan Science it might pay to review the emergence of Science from the Enlightenment to the Protocols concentrating on the nineteenth century.
The nineteenth century witnessed the unfolding of the Aryan mind, certainly the most astonishing event in the intellectual history of mankind. First it may be instructive to differentiate between technology and Science. I haven’t always been clear on the difference and I know most of the people I know aren’t. Confusion of the two is common.
The Africans, of course, have always lacked even the most rudimentary technology. They couldn’t even pile one stone atop another. The Chinese are often mentioned as being scientifically advanced two thousand years ago but sterile since. As evidence of ‘science’ the discovery of gunpowder and paper are triumphantly paraded before our eyes. Those are two technological advantages that were probably obtained by happenstance and not by scientific investigation. In the first place gunpowder is easy to discover and so limited in application that the stuff is meaningless and virtually useless without further technological advances requiring some thought. Even then, a cannon is a sort of scattergun lacking the advance of a rifled bore which is where science comes in.
In the Bible it mentions that at Hebrew sacrifices in order to prove the presence of the god the priest waved his hands over the burning sacrifice and mouthed some magical incantations making the flames flare signaling the god’s acceptance of the sacrifice. Obviously the priest had thrown a handful of gunpowder or something just like it into the flames. Of course, the Chinese wrapped the paper they discovered around the gunpowder and made firecrackers. Whoopee! I’m sure that gunpowder was discovered many times and in many places soon being forgotten as an amusing useless toy.
As for paper the Egyptians had papyrus which depends on having the papyrus reed but they found its perfect technological application. As I understand it Chinese paper was made from the long bamboo fibers which being processed for whatever purpose the wet fibers were piled up and perhaps being idly pounded with a rock it was realized that the flat sheet of fibers could be used to wrap gunpowder. That’s sarcastic, son. I’m sure the felt making process was discovered the same way. But there is no science there, merely a technological application of refuse.
Not having bamboo or cotton, the paper making process awaited the proper materials. There is no cause for revering Chinese intelligence because of their use of paper and gunpowder. Their technology was sufficiently advanced.
However the Chinese never were able to discover that water is a chemical compound being two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. The Chinese didn’t even know about hydrogen and oxygen. That is Science not technology. African or Chinese mental potential has been unfolded or realized for some time. The same holds true for the Semitic mind- Jewish and Arab. The Aryan mind was the last to begin to realize its potential which, like it or not, is of a higher order.
This realization began in earnest in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Prior to that all the human species were more or less at the same intellectual level of advancement. Thus moving from its earlier attained base, in the nineteenth century the Aryan mind just blossomed far surpassing previous levels in intellectual evolution. All the physical and psychological sciences advanced at a very rapid pace until today in the twenty-first century Nature has been revealed in its entirety or near entirety. Once that is achieved I don’t know how learning can go beyond Nature. We would truly have to make a leap into the supernatural.
Thus the capacity for Science is part and parcel of the Aryan mind not shared by other human species. If others have since made contributions the contribution was made to Aryan Science once the other had come into contact with it. The above is an inescapable fact.
My problem with The Prague Cemetery is that Eco doesn’t actually acknowledge the different levels at which the Semitic mind of the Jews and the Aryan mind are functioning. He doesn’t seem to understand or at least express the fact that the two minds are differently constituted. Even Barbara Spectre of Padeia understands that the two different types of knowledge exist- Jewish magical knowledge and Aryan Scientific knowledge. She knows the difference and she wants by legal fiat to make the two equal.
OK. So when did this difference become apparent. Freud notes three signal discoveries which he says shook man’s confidence. Most likely he means Jewish self-confidence as the discoveries invalidated magical thinking of any kind. The first was Kepler’s proclamation that the earth was not the center of the universe which was realized in the sixteenth century, the second was Darwin’s mid-nineteenth proclamation of Evolution which demonstrated that mankind was not unique and the third was Mesmer’s revelation of the unconscious. In truth, science sent religion sent reeling.
The incompatibility of Jewish knowledge only became apparent with the end of the Middle Ages beginning with the Enlightenment. Prior to that all religious thinking was on one level. Jews and Catholics may have disputed religious issues but they were both using the same knowledge and approach.
But then the Aryan scientific knowledge not only shot ahead of Jewish and Christian religious knowledge but invalidated everything they believed. This was a very serious dislocation of the intellect. Further, the Semitic mind found it impossible to compete on the scientific level while it took them until about the year nineteen hundred to even get the drift. Thus with Jewish Emancipation c. 1789 into the Aryan scientific reality anti-Semitism was born although it wouldn’t be known as that until after 1875 when the German Wilhelm Marr coined the term.
As scientific knowledge developed in Western Europe the Jews of the West- England, France and Germany- acclimated themselves to the scientific learning while imitating Westerners in clothes and manners.
In the compacted Pale of Settlement in which the bulk of Jewry was located the traditional Jewish culture resisted scientific ideas that were slow to penetrate while being stoutly resisted by the Rabbis who realized that Science was antithetical to ‘Jewish knowledge’, that is to say, the Talmud.
Beginning in 1871 and the coming of the steamship mass migration from the Pale to the United States was organized. Emigration was developed then organized to the point where the complete transfer of the Jewish population from the Pale to the US (New Orleans and Galveston as ports of entry) was to begin in 1914. Obviously the plan was aborted by the Great War and was unable to be resumed post-war due to American resistance.
Now, the complexion of the Jewish intellect was changed beginning in 1896 when Theodor Herzl created the concept of Zionism. While the Jews of the Pale were slow to accept Science they were quick to embrace Zionism, thus from 1900 to 1914 the concept of Zionism was introduced to the United States, or as the Jews called it, The New Promised Land.
The conflict between post scientific Aryans and Jews thus began in earnest in the eighteen-sixties when Adolphe Cremieux took a hand in founding the Alliance Israelite Universelle while increasing in virulence into the seventies, eighties and nineties and the decade and a half before the Great War. Emigration from Europe to the US lessened the pressure within Europe but increased it from the outside- the US.
Even though resisted in the US by ‘nativists’ the Jewish cause was forwarded by Liberals. This was a curious situation which has baffled my understanding for some time but I may now have a probable explanation. There are past analogies with these events and attitudes. In speaking of the intellect of Spain during its long history Henry Thomas Buckle, the English historian, betrays the Liberal dichotomy in assessing national character. He displays the need of the Liberal character to exalt the other while condemning it’s own.
He describes the invasion of Spain and its near conquest by the Moors from the eighth to fifteenth centuries without negative comment. He then describes the near millennial warfare to reclaim Spain by the Spaniards. There is a hint of distaste as Buckle describes the reconquest. Then in 1492 after nearly a thousand years of incessant warfare the Spaniards reconquered the last Moslem stronghold.
Having conquered, the Spaniards had to control the conquered peoples that included both Moslems and Jews. Now, when the Moslems invaded the country, the Jews, as per their custom had opened the gates of the cities for the Moslems. Not only does this not offend Buckle but he doesn’t mention it. You may compare that with the current situation in which the Jews have prepared the triumph of China over the West. They are currently attempting to establish a foothold for themselves in China which will probably involve a transfer of population.
Now, because you have defeated an enemy’s army in the field doesn’t mean you have defeated the enemy. Over a millennium one assumes that the populations of Jews and Moslems had increased immensely. There might have been many millions of each. While the Jews characterize the Moslem Era in Spain as a golden age of The Land Of The Three Religions, the poetry may be misleading. There must have been a very uneasy relationship between the three as the Christians within Moslem lines must have worked against Moslem interests to further the steadily increasing Reconquista while Jews tried to play both sides. Therefore the Spaniards would have been fools to trust the good intentions of the defeated Moslems and Jews. One only has to consider the conquered Poles reaction to the Russian occupation to understand the threat.
The Spaniards therefore offered the two religions the choice between becoming Christians, that is say, loyal Spaniards, or expulsion. The numbers here get a little hazy but Buckle says that only 150,000 Moslems elected to leave while anywhere between 60K and 600K Jews chose to emigrate. That means there must have been millions who chose to change their collars. Of course these were put under close surveillance and Spain entered the hell of the Inquisition and undying infamy.
Having finally won back their kingdom, if you choose to see it that way or, having conquered their enemies in the historical free play of might, Buckle chooses to portray the expulsion and forced conversion as a huge injustice on the part of the Aryans thus acknowledging this curious sentimental division of his own people into two groups; on the one hand the Pure Liberals, and on the other the Impure Beasts. This is a very curious belief in the virtue of the other- Jews and Moslems in this case- and the vice of his own people which he and Liberals place below the other embracing the latter and condemning the former. As I say this is a curious state of mind coloring all subsequent Euroamerican history from the Liberal sanctification of the African in Africa and their counterparts in the US. This attitude is so extreme that having condemned the Aryans of the Rhodesias and South Africa to abandon control they now sit placidly, one might say cheering, as the Aryans are massacred by the Africans.
Now, while Buckle and the Liberals essentially reject the Reconquest by the Spaniards as either worthy or necessary, in the exact same situation of what the Mexicans call a reconquista of Aztlan modern Liberals support the Mexican Reconquest which has puzzled most of us. In that sense Newt Gingrich who passes as an Aryan Conservative is actually an anti-Aryan Liberal and cannot be thought of otherwise.
While the Mexicans have a historical ‘right’ to invade whomever they please, they wish to base their invasion, Reconquest as they call it, on a moral or legal right as did the Spaniards in their reconquest.
In fact they have no legal or moral right. As with the Moslems invading and conquering Spain, the Spaniards invaded and conquered the Aztec nation which was very small occupying but a small portion of Southern Mexico. The Spaniards then occupied what became Northern Mexico, Texas, the Southwest and California and that but very sparsely. Texas and the Southwest plus Northern Mexico were more or less parts of Comancheria and Apacheria. So the Spaniards of Mexico were essentially occupying lands under the control of the Comanche and Apache peoples as well as lesser tribes.
Having established a very sparse presence in the territories, other settlers from the East and North drifted into these territories. As they became more numerous they became dissatisfied with Mexican authorities just as the Mexican had become dissatisfied with that of the Spaniards. As the Mexicans had a natural or historical right to revolt against the Spaniards so the dissidents of the territories had a right to revolt against the Mexicans which they in their turn did. Thus the revolutionaries of Texas threw off the Mexican yoke proclaiming themselves the sovereign and independent country of Texas but at no time were they associated with the United States although at a later date they did choose to associate themselves with the US as was their sovereign right.
As you can see one revolution is as valid as another. It only requires the will to separate.
In California also the Bear flag was raised in which Californian rebels threw off he Mexican yoke with much less difficulty than the Texans as the Mexican presence was very thin and a military presence nearly non-existent. That was the Bear Flag Revolution. If the Mexican Revolution from Spain was valid then so were the Texan and Californian Revolutions from Mexico. The Mexicans have no legal or moral claim to the four Southwest States although if they wish to exercise their historical ‘right’- i.e. the Hunnish invasion of Europe- it is up to the US which has legally acquired title to the States from their lawful citizens, to stop them.
However the Liberals of the exact same mindset of Buckle take the side of the Mexicans against both themselves and the hated internal enemy, the Conservatives or Aryan other. The latter is now labeled a terrorist group by the Liberal government.
A very curious situation in which any legal or moral arguments are disregarded in favor of inner wishful thinking.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and trace the American Liberal mental state back to the Norman Conquest of England. After the conquest the Normans disenfranchised the Anglo-Saxons and made slaves of them. The more remote eastern counties of Angles resented this the most and never forgave the Normans which resulted in the Anglian revolt against Charles I as a Norman representative.
The New England colonists among whom this Liberal feeling arose came from East Anglia and thus rather than the Northeast American States being termed New England they should be titled New Anglia.
Their hatred of the Norman settlers of the South then led to the Civil War. After that war the Liberals sought to humiliate their old enemies qua Normans by subjecting them to the semi-savage authority of the Negroes.
Thus, while Liberals care nothing for Negroes they embrace them on the principle of the enemy of my enemy is my friend, the same as Buckle and the Moors, Jews or anyone else who hates Aryans. The Liberals turn over the ‘Normans’ or Aryans to these ‘minorities’ to use as they wish, even passing hate laws to disenfranchise the Aryans and empower the ‘minorities.’ That’s called the transformation of society. That’s as close as I can come to this curious Liberal attitude at the moment. If not the truth it must be very close to it. Buckle himself must have been of Anglo-Saxon descent.
To return to Eco: While it is true that Herman Goedsche wrote his Jewish graveyard scene set in Prague during the sixties this would have been a very peripheral event making little or no impression at the time. The fictional story became prominent only in retrospect after 1905. Thus, while I don’t wish to criticize Eco I think he should have maintained perspective making Goedsche ancillary to the Franco-Prussian war which certainly dwarfed any scene in anyone’s novel let alone a fictional meeting of Jewish conspirators in an ancient cemetery with far less cachet than the Pere Lachaise.
It might have been better to concentrate on Drumont and the French reaction to the Jewish cultural conflict that led to the Dreyfus Affair to demonstrate how and why the Aryans became alarmed by the Jewish culture war against them. It is no coincidence that the German concept of Kultur become prominent at that time. Eco could have presented a much more balanced version of the Dreyfus Affair rather than merely echoing the hysterical Jewish version. Also, of course, there was no need to mention Freud except as a future development of Anglo-European psychology and psychiatry.
That said, Eco succeeded in creating a fine ambience in which to set his excellent creation, Simone Simonini. I found him lifelike and I was genuinely interested in his career. The Jekyll-Hyde personality split was nicely handled although more attention might have been paid to the adventures of each half and how they interacted creating difficulties for the other. There was no need to create mystification in the reader’s mind as I’m sure we all got it from page one.
For those who have read Sue and Dumas, Eco’s indebtedness to both was clear. Eco was able to capture the ambience and horror of Sue quite well. The bodies under Simonini’s house was lifted almost intact from Sue’s Mysteries of Paris.
By the way, I erred in saying Les Mysteres Du Peuple hasn’t been translated into English. The prominent Jewish-American socialist, Daniel De Leon translated the story in the years after 1900. However as the novel was published in twenty-one fascicles of 200-300 pages under the names of the lead characters of each fascicle it took awhile to make the association. Most of the fascicles have been published by print on demand publishers.
With the rich resource of two characters in one, of which one is as virtuous as Jekyll and the other verging toward the amorality of Hyde, Eco could have exploited the conflict of morality between the two halves having the Priest working to foil, the efforts of Simonini, perhaps even exposing him as a police agent to the revolutionaries and as a double agent to the authorities.
I guess, what I’m saying is that while I found the story engrossing I was annoyed because the potentialities were not more fully exploited. I mean, why mention the criminal turned police inspector, Vidocq, if you aren’t going to develop him somewhat. Vidocq was a terrifically interesting person. A great memoir written by him too. As I said, it wouldn’t have hurt to have followed Dumas’ example and had a team researching and organizing while Eco wrote it up.
Since I’ve felt constrained to read Eco’s novel corpus I may add to this at a later date.
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