The Island of the Day Before (Umberto Eco, 1994)

I liked The Name of the Rose a great deal. I liked Foucault's Pendulum quite a bit. So I read this on the strength of Umberto Eco as author. Didn't work out as well.

I never really did figure out what Eco was up to in this one. It's worth reading because there is a ton of interesting things floating around - ideas about the efforts to figure out longitude; politics and battles at the time of the 30 Years War; Richelieu and Mazarin; etc.; long discussions about knowledge, religious belief compared to scientific method, role of imagination; etc.

So I think the best aspect - and perhaps what Eco was up to - was giving the reader a window into the mindset and conversations of the first half of the 17th century.

As far as the plot - the protagonist (Roberto) is shipwrecked, and ends up being washed up onto an abandoned ship moored just far enough off a south seas island such that Roberto - a non-swimmer - is pretty much trapped. The abandoned ship relates to the intrigues surrounding the efforts to be the first to reliably calculate longitudes, and Roberto explores. While imagining things with a woman back in Paris whom he hopes to love.