Zero quantity

The Zero Issue by Umberto Eco ... this book tells us the story of a newspaper that will never see the light of day, because its publisher wanted it from the beginning to be a tool of extortion more than a media tool. Under the pretext of seeking the truth, five individuals with all of them different and failed previous experiences were invited to form an editorial board, whose apparent mission is to reveal the truth to public opinion and the reader. The starting point is the year 1992, and through the periodic meetings of the editorial board members, their discussions, and their work programs to prepare the zero issue of the newspaper, the secrets of covert journalistic work and its suspicious methods aimed at influencing public opinion and directing it to serve the interests of certain parties are uncovered. This is known and not new. What catches our attention in this new novel by Eco is the intertwining of the present with the past, as the book narrates the history of Italy in the last decades of the previous century, coloring it with the false ghost of Mussolini returning to seize power again, but he suddenly dies, and the coup against the state fails. A conspiracy that perhaps originated in the imagination of "Bergadutchio," the editor who is more obsessed than others with the idea of a global conspiracy involving political parties, the Vatican, the American Central Intelligence Agency, Freemasonry, and some financial circles. Everyone thought that all of this was just the product of Bergadutchio's sick mind, but when he was found murdered, everything became real. Eco's novel is a new, more frightening maze than his previous works because it makes us wonder: are we also, every day, victims of unseen hands working behind the scenes through newspapers and television channels, moving us like puppets? And our desire to know the truth turns into a fear of discovering it. A captivating novel Eco left us before his departure on February 19, 2016, to make us feel the importance of not accepting what is told to us and always judging with reason in all circumstances.