The Name Of The Rose

the novel

"...I wrote The Name Of The Rose simply because I wanted to. A good reason. First comes the desire, like the desire to make love. Then one sits down at the worktable and begins, I won't say to write, but to play, to construct a possible world.

The first year, after I got the desire, I didn't write, I designed, I made a plan of the abbey, I sketched out the list of names, I even drew the faces of the characters. So I believe one writes a novel because of the desire to construct a world. And to communicate..." Umberto Eco

The Name Of The Rose novel 

One of the games I play when I go downtown and I'm a bit bored is to find a pretty girl and walk a few paces behind her, then watch her head turn as she passes shop windows in which she can see her reflection. You have to look for a flick of her hair or a downward admiring glance at her own ass to score a point and on most days you can get a pretty good batting average, at least 0.5!

Umberto Eco is a lot like that. Oh, he's vane...he loves showing off, he's smart, well-read and 100% addicted to the magpie mania that enables him to pilfer influences from here, there and everywhere. I'm sure I miss lots of his literary puns and jokes but that's half of what makes him wonderful. He's so self-involved, it's refreshing.

Unlike e.g. Spalding Gray, who just talks about himself and his life, Eco ploughs more abstract fields. In the case of his novel, The Name Of The Rose, it's the Middle Ages, 1327 in particular, and the greatest library in Christendom, containing books by Arabs, Jews and even the records of heretical texts.

The drama that escalates around this great library is whether the abbot of this great monastery should allow this Knowledge to become accessible to the monks and scholars who come from all over Christendom to taste these forbidden fruits or should he only serve these dangerous treats to an elite few, who he's certain cannot be tempted from the true path.

In most cases, this would remain the abbot's problem and his alone...but circumstances, first the death of an illuminator and then that of a young monk, plunged head-first into a barrel of pigs' blood, bring in an investigator, one Brother William of Baskerville, an English monk, who has more than a touch of Sherlock Holmes about him.

What unfolds is a dazzling discussion of medieval political problems...

"...The Middle Ages are a mirror for the present. We find there the roots of our problems, of our anguish, of our crises..." Umberto Eco

...propelled forward by Baskerville's investigations into the murders, with more bodies piling up every day.

Eventually Eco's novel went on to sell 17 million copies worldwide, with sales boosted by the feature film, also called The Name Of the Rose, directed by Jean Jacques Arnaud, starring Sean Connery & F. Murray Abraham. However, you'd be wise to avoid judging the book by the movie as they are two very different beasts. The book is a playful meditation, the film is a whodunit.

Umberto Eco: The Name Of The Rose

"...This is an excellent mystery novel on par with the best of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. Be ready for lots of Latin phrases, obscure vocabulary and some intriguing medieval politics..." Amazon reviewer B. Connor

"...In The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco describes monks' attempts in medieval monasteries to obtain and preserve knowledge in writing and signs. Knowledge was limited and those who hoarded it had power. The murder mystery develops around the possession of this precious commodity shattering the religious brotherhood..." Amazon reviewer Gary Severance

"...Scholarly author, Umberto Eco, has heaped mystery upon mystery in this epic tale. This book may be considered esoteric, as it does take more of an effort to read...however, the reader shall be rewarded!...The book is a venerable deposit of knowledge that gives the mind a justified work-out..." Amazon reviewer Sancti Spiritus