Happy Wednesday, everyone! Wednesdays also mean WWW Wednesday updates. WWW Wednesday is a bookish meme hosted originally by SAM@TAKING ON A WORLD OF WORDS. 

The mechanics for WWW Wednesday are quite simple: you just have to answer three questions:

  1. What are you currently reading?
  2. What have you finished reading?
  3. What will you read next?
www-wednesdays
What are you currently reading?

It is already the middle of the week. How has your week been so far? I hope it’s going well and heading in your desired direction. We’ve already crossed the midpoint of the year, and we are already in the second half of the year. How time flies! Before we know it, we will be welcoming the ber-months. Anyway, I hope the year has been going well for everyone. I hope you’re being showered with blessings and good news. May the rest of the year be prosperous, brimming with wealth, but more importantly, with good physical and mental health. I hope everyone is already making progress on their goals. If the year has gone otherwise, I hope you’ll experience a reversal of fortune in the months to come. In terms of reading, I am well ahead of my goal, but I’ve been lagging behind in my reading challenges. As such, my focus in the second half of the year will be on catching up with those.

Speaking of goals, I’ve just finished reading Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum and am about to start Dušan Šarotar’s Panorama. This will be my first novel by a Slovene writer. I first came across Šarotar and Panorama through online booksellers, and my curiosity about the book led me to include it in my 2025 Top 25 Reading List. Foucault’s Pendulum is also part of that list. Both books align with my current reading motif: exploring works by European writers. I haven’t started Panorama yet, so I can’t share any impressions for now. However, I’ll be sharing my thoughts in this week’s First Impression Friday.

What have you finished reading?

My foray into European literature is in full swing. Over the past week, I revisited two familiar places and writers whose works I had previously explored. The first of the two books I completed was The Fish Can Sing by Nobel Laureate Halldór Laxness. Interestingly, before the pandemic, I had never heard of Laxness. I first came across his name through online booksellers. In 2020, I read Independent People, making him the first Icelandic writer whose work I had encountered. Now, about five years later, I return to his work with The Fish Can Sing—my third Laxness novel.

Originally published in 1957 as Brekkukotsannáll (Annals of Brekkukot), it was his first major work after receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature. Set in a humble cottage named Brekkukot—hence the Icelandic title—in Reykjavík, the novel follows the fortunes of Álfgrímur, an orphaned boy raised by his adoptive grandparents. His mother, who arrived at Brekkukot fully pregnant, left for the United States shortly after giving birth to him. Álfgrímur’s grandfather, Jón, earns a modest living as a fisherman. He fishes for herring, cod, lumpfish, and other sea creatures from his small boat, selling them from a wheelbarrow he pushes through town. Honest and principled, Jón kept the price of his catch steady, regardless of market conditions—but his was not a profitable trade. For young Álfgrímur, it seems his future is already determined: to become a fisherman like his grandfather. However, as he ventures across Reykjavík, Álfgrímur meets a colorful cast of characters—minor politicians, businessmen, and social climbers—each of whom prompts him to question the path laid out before him. One figure in particular captures his imagination: the enigmatic opera singer Garðar Hólm, who travels the world and returns home only sporadically.

The Fish Can Sing is, at its core, a coming-of-age story. Through Álfgrímur’s interactions with a diverse array of characters, the novel explores shifting perspectives on life and destiny. But it’s also a poignant homage to a vanishing way of life. Set in early 20th-century Iceland, a time of significant socio-political transformation, the novel reflects on the quiet dissolution of traditional ways in the face of modern progress. The shortest Laxness novel I’ve read so far, The Fish Can Sing only deepens my admiration for his prose. Like his earlier works, it offered valuable insights into Iceland—its people, culture, and changing identity.

From one highly-heralded writer to another, my literary journey next took me to Italy, at least Umberto Eco is Italian. It has been almost a decade since I first came across him. His novel, The Name of the Rose, was repeatedly mentioned in must-read lists. It was a no-brainer for me to read the book. Here’s a fun fact. I thought that the book was written in the Medieval period. Imagine my surprise when I learned that it was written in the 20th century although I did get the setting correct. Nevertheless, I loved the book, prompting me to read more of his works. Fast forward to 2025, I have completed yet another Eco novel, my fifth.

Originally published in 1988 as Il pendolo di Foucault, the novel was translated into English a year later. The novel commences with Casaubon, the narrator, hiding in Paris’ Musée des Arts et Métiers after closing; the museum is home to the famous pendulum of Léon Foucault, hence the book’s title. His friend, Jacopo Belbo, the senior editor at a publishing house in Milan, Italy, has gone missing. Casaubon believes that his friend was kidnapped by a shadowy group of occultists who, he now believes, are now after him. As time ticks and the pendulum swings, the novel flashes back to the past when Casaubon, Belbo, and Diotallevi first met and became partners. In 1970s Italy, Casaubon was working on his thesis about the Knights Templar. It was then that he first met Belbo who invited him to review a manuscript about the Templars. The manuscript was written by  Colonel Ardenti who claims to have discovered a secret plan of the Templars to take over the world. Ardenti mysteriously disappeared after he met with Belbo and Casaubon. Casaubon shortly joins Mr. Garamond’s publishing house. Mr. Garamond also owns Manutius, a vanity publisher that charges incompetent authors large sums to print their work. Slowly, Casaubon, Belbo, and Diotallevi are immersed in occult manuscripts and conspiracy theories.  

Foucault’s Pendulum takes the readers on a literary roller coaster. Compared to Eco’s debut novel, it is way more complicated, with its several layers and confounding turns. Nevertheless, it reminded me of his other books. The references to the Knights Templar and the Holy Grail reminded me of Baudolino while the characters’ vocation reminded me of Numero Zero. Eco, a semiotician, also riddled the book with symbols and images that tickles the imagination. In fact, it does remind me of Dan Brown who, like Eco, is a renowned semiotician. History, symbolisms, and conspiracies converge in a lush tapestry capably woven together by Eco. Foucault’s Pendulum is certainly no easy read but it is, nevertheless, a worthwhile one.

What will you read next?