Friday, February 4, 2011

Travel with salmons...

How to travel with a Salmon is a collection of essays, or parodies as the author calls them, by acclaimed writer Umberto Eco, written in a period of two decades. The essays are satiric, humorous, irreverent and takes on the issues of living in the post modern world of consumerism, vanity and excesses. Most of the essays are written as a parody of Do yourself books- How to travel with a  salmon, How to eat ice cream, How to write introduction for books, How to write introduction for art catalogues...

There is an essay that parodies science fiction novels and hilariously uncovers the ugly face of red tape and bureaucracy. The essay How to travel with a Salmon, is about the authors unsuccessful attempts to preserve a costly salmon bought on his way to a city for some days stay. To add to the spoiling of fish, author had to pay an exorbitant bill for all the bottles of alcohol that he displaces from the minibar, to store the fish. How to buy gadgets is a piece on those shopping catalogues, which tries to sell things that are never useful or even practical. How to take intelligent vacations, makes fun of people who tries to show off their class by reading heavy books.

So instead of wasting your valuable time reading my blog post, treat yourselves by checking out this wonderful and funny book.


5 comments:

  1. Sounds like a very interesting book.

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  2. lai.. now i read ur article.. and how cum its time waste , i learnt something new here .. :)


    Bikram's

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  3. parody of Do yourself books? Lol, sounds like a book for me!! I'll definitely check it out! Good post..

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