I am a lapsed novel reader, and every year at Christmas I promise to climb back on the wagon. For the second holiday season, Umberto Eco provided the means. This season, I finally read Name of the Rose. In the interest of keeping NYR (New Year's Resolution) 1--namely to post more on R47--and in hopes that the ensuing conversation might help encourage me to keep NYR2 (read more novels)--I'll make a brief post here.
Brandon, I remember you posting something somewhere about the book--could you provide a link? General reaction: I enjoyed the book and felt transported into the 14th century. (And I wanted to stay there, although I think the burning of the library may have totally undone me--I would have become a wandering mad mendicant.) Eco plays with a lot of things, and I lament my lack of Latin yet once more as it means I missed key issues that were at play. One theme that I enjoyed thinking about, and one that seems ever relevant, is the danger of certainty and the shifting sands of knowledge and justification. Both the philosophical issues (Aristotle, later Bacon, vs, Plato, Plotinus, Augustine) and the theological issues (the chronology of the attainment of the beatific vision, and the role of poverty in the life of Christ, the Church, the believer) are imminently current.
So what do you all recall/review from the book, and what did you make of it?
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5 comments:
Since reading NotR, my mind often refers back to the book. Interestingly, Eco's novel helped to introduce me to central tendencies in intellectual and cultural aspects of the high and later Middle Ages--since my interests are so much earlier, and I don't range much beyond the 12th century, and very rarely do I consider continental fields.
My first review of NotR is up here.
Mostly, my fascination with NotR came from:
1) the factual-historical blended with the fictional (and the tensions of that dichotomy)--and how that affects readers' perception;
2) the factual details used throughout.
This second aspect is what still lingers in my mind, really. Somehow, Eco holds so much information about the Middle Ages that it seems to seep into the pages of the story. On every page there seems to be minor details about the life of medieval people, and very little of it seems forced. Instead, the book creates a believable setting that invites readers to live in the 14th century with the characters. There are so many minor details and subtle cues in the book, I think it would take me at least several more reads to pick up on many of them--and no doubt reading the book-length Postscript would prove helpful.
As to the language barrier: I agree. Perhaps once I've learned Latin (and read through my MA exams list, which has several books about continental history and philosophy), I'll be able to notice many more of the subtleties and bits I didn't catch on my first reading. Although, if you can't wait to learn Latin, there is on Amazon The Key to The Name of The Rose: Including Translations of All Non-English Passages (U of Michigan P, 1999), found here).
I forgot to mention in my previous comment: I'm currently in the middle of Eco's other medieval fiction novel, Baudolino, and finding a lot of the same trends in his fiction. It has a very different feel, and is a different style (not detective fiction, really), but some of the same things strike me. Again, the most striking aspects are the details of the medieval world and Eco's ability to meld fiction and historicity together. I'd also recommend this novel to medievalistas, although I think I like NotR better.
Also forgotten in the last comment: I found the movie adaptation of NotR (1986, starring Sean Connery, Christian Slater) very good. Some of the bits about Adso's relationship with the woman are changed, and the ending slightly differs (because of that--again, it's Hollywood's necessity of romance, I think). Still, I liked it as both an adaptation and a movie. It's rated R for a reason, though, so I wouldn't show it to any children.
I'll try to look at your original post tomorrow--have 4 syllabi yet to complete, and classes start tomorrow. Just a quick comment, though: as you know, I share your geographic and chronological interests, so Italy and the continent in the 14th century was not familiar territory to me. I spent a lot of time in print and online reference sources trying to find out how much of the background was solid. Reading the novel led me to enrich my knowledge of the period greatly.
I remain haunted by the image of the library in flames: that image recalled by the calm narrator might be Eco's commentary on the transitory nature of all realities, even apocalyptic prophecies when they come 'true' in some sense. Will read/post more tomorrow or the next day. Be well.
Yes, the thought of all those beautiful tomes still makes my stomach nauseous.
Your comment about "Eco's commentary on the transitory nature of all realities" makes me wonder if the burning of the library and the end of the novel doesn't somehow relate to, specifically, the transitory nature of the Middle Ages--and, by extension, through Eco's cultural theories (about neomedievalism), of our own era. This is something we've discussed before, and a concept that we've thrown around a bit. I especially discussed it in my honors thesis, in relation to neomedievalism. Reading Eco's own thoughts (in "The Return of the Middle Ages") on the Middle Ages as an era of transition and his comparisons to our current era of transition, I wonder if he hasn't embedded these theories in his own fiction. Specifically, I wonder if the burning of the library and the seeming uncertainty of the characters at the end of NotR (representing a piece of postmodern literature reflecting on the moments of a medieval past) might point to (and emphasize) Eco's cultural theory that we, like the medievals, are stuck in a time of deep uncertainty. He does relate such deep cultural uncertainty as a major parallel between ourselves and the medievals in his essay, after all. Could this be a moment of metatextual cultural reflection?
Finally looked at Brandon's review on PoKR. The novel does indeed succeed for most readers as a mystery first of all, and it is a good one.
I enjoy Eco's play with the notions of certainty and significance-as-truth. Near the end, William is frustrated because he falsely read the signs as a whole pattern, when in fact, his interpretation of the data from one perspective was flawed. Yet at the same time, that pattern (the orderly working out of the apocalyptic text) made the novel. Adso's defensive 'but you WERE right, you just didn't know how or why' rings both true and hollow. Much to love in the book--not enough time to say more now, though. Be well!
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