“Historical truth, for Menard, is not what has happened it is what we deem to have happened.” What we deem to have happened, Eco answers, in the same ironic tone, is what the newspapers tell us has happened. “History, mother of truth: the idea is astounding,” writes Borges, tongue-in-cheek.

Eco has found inspiration, once again, in Borges’s literary inventions, but this time the result is disappointing.Įco’s unacknowledged starting point is the underlying idea in the short story “ Pierre Menard, Author of Quixote”, Borges’s celebrated spoof of poetic truth. Literary ghosts have a habit of coming back to haunt the writers who have conjured them on to the page, and the spirit of Borges hovers over Eco’s latest novel – the spirit, but not the letter. Sophisticated and wide-ranging, Requiem brings the Delirium trilogy to a thrilling conclusion.I n The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco – in what some might consider an act of lèse majesté towards his literary hero, Jorge Luis Borges – gave his murderous blind librarian the name of Jorge de Burgos. With lyrical writing, Lauren Oliver seamlessly interweaves the peril that Lena faces with the inner tumult she experiences after the reappearance of her first love, Alex, the boy she thought was dead. They live side by side in a world that divides them until, at last, their stories converge. Requiem is told from both Lena and Hana's points of view. Regulators infiltrate the borderlands to stamp out the rebels.Īs Lena navigates the increasingly dangerous terrain of the Wilds, her best friend, Hana, lives a safe, loveless life in Portland as the fiancée of the young mayor.

Pockets of rebellion have opened throughout the country, and the government cannot deny the existence of Invalids. But the Wilds are no longer a safe haven.

The nascent rebellion that was underway in Pandemonium has ignited into an all-out revolution in Requiem, and Lena is at the center of the fight.Īfter rescuing Julian from a death sentence, Lena and her friends fled to the Wilds. Now an active member of the resistance, Lena has transformed.

Requiem book lauren oliver