Umberto Eco: Numero Zero

Much like with The Name of the Rose, I feel like I must be missing something here.  Eco is widely regarded as a great writer, perhaps one of the greatest, and has legions of devoted fans.  What are they seeing that I am not?  Very nearly half of this book was themeless, plotless recountings of historical events, most of which seem to be invented, but were not.  The general impression is that Eco embarked on a long line of research, discovered the potential for a conspiracy theory, and shoehorned it into a detective novel.  Perhaps Italian audiences, being more familiar with the names dropped in huge piles on every page, were more receptive to or interested in these sort of speculations.  Perhaps the whole novel is really a cover for Eco's theory that Mussolini's death did not occur as in the textbooks.  But the entire plot he concocted as a setting for the plot he thought he uncovered was bald and superficial, offering nothing particularly inventive or engaging.

With the exception of a few character points that I found applicable to my life.  The character of Maia is described as constantly jumping trains of thought, and scarcely noticing that others had a hard time following her.  I have known, and was borne by, such people.  This was a nice way of capturing their essence.  And the protagonist may well have been me when he observes that only losers know very much.  How simultaneously true and depressing.