{"id":10179,"date":"2018-10-24T07:49:24","date_gmt":"2018-10-24T12:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hilbertthm90.wordpress.com\/?p=10179"},"modified":"2022-06-21T12:22:26","modified_gmt":"2022-06-21T17:22:26","slug":"year-of-mysteries-part-9-the-name-of-the-rose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/2018\/10\/year-of-mysteries-part-9-the-name-of-the-rose\/","title":{"rendered":"The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today we’ll dive into my thoughts on Umberto Eco’s masterpiece novel The Name of the Rose<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Reputation of the Name of the Rose<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I’m honestly a bit shocked at how resistant I’ve been to this book the whole year. I knew it would be “hard,” so I kept putting it off. But I love Infinite Jest<\/a><\/em> and Gravity’s Rainbow<\/a><\/em> and a bunch of hard books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This book has a reputation it doesn’t deserve. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn’t think it was hard at all in the same way those other ones are. It’s actually written in a very similar way to the way I write. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are so many interesting layers to this book that it will be hard to discuss the “mystery novel” aspect because that was only one piece (and kind of the least interesting).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Language<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Early on, we get one of my favorite characters. He can’t speak any known language, but he’s lived in so many places that he’s developed his own. It takes from all the common languages and merges into a strange thing anyone can understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eco doesn’t do this in the abstract, either; the speech is written out fully. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This character is a synecdoche for the book itself. The Name of the Rose<\/em><\/a> isn’t a historical work or pure fiction or a mystery novel or postmodernist metafiction or theology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It draws on a bunch of sources and amalgamates them to a strange hybrid a reader from any of these backgrounds could appreciate on a different level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eco doesn’t hide the pieces. They are all in plain sight through the characters. We have Jorge de Burgos representing Jorge Luis Borges. We get William of Baskerville representing Sherlock Holmes. And the title itself is obviously a reference to Romeo and Juliet<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…Or is it? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eco actually tells us the true inspiration is a Latin verse by a Benedictine monk named Bernard of Cluny. Since Eco was a semiotician, I have to believe he also had Wittgenstein in the back of his head, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the mystery?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The narrator travels to a monastery, and upon arrival, there is a mysterious death of one of the monks. He appears to have thrown himself from the window of a library. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the next few days, many more deaths occur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This occupies the main narrative momentum, but I basically want to not discuss this further. Anyone who reads this book for the mystery is in for a shock. Let’s get back to the references.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Borges Influences<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Everyone sees some of the obvious Borges references from his famous stories. But if you’ve read Labyrinths<\/a><\/em>, you might start to think every single story<\/strong><\/em> in the collection gets referenced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n