THE NAME OF THE ROSE by Umberto Eco
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
“You have spoken to me of a strange story, an incredible story. About a banned book that has caused a chain of murders, about someone who knows what only I should know... Tales, meaningless accusations. Speak of it, if you wish: no one will believe you.”
TITLE—The Name of the Rose
AUTHOR—Umberto Eco
TRANSLATOR—William Weaver
PUBLISHED—orig. 1980 (trans. 1983)
PUBLISHER—orig. Bompiani—Italy (trans. Harcourt—US)
GENRE—literary fiction—(post-)modern classic, satirical gothic novel, medieval murder mystery
SETTING—a monastery in medieval (14th c.) northern Italy
MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—labyrinthine library, murder mystery, detective & his sort of “student sidekick” MC duo, monk scribes & monastery scriptoria, the philosophy & theology of humor, banned books & book burning, lust & laughter, medieval Christian iconography, Catholic mythology, secrets & forbidden knowledge, cryptography & symbolism, books & ancient manuscripts, readers, the spirituality of music, sects, dreams & visions, heretics & heresy, Inquisitors & the Inquisition, classism & vehicles of class politics/oppression
“…at every title he discovered he let out exclamations of happiness, either because he knew the work, or because he had been seeking it for a long time, or finally because he had never heard it mentioned and was highly excited and titillated. In short, for him every book was like a fabulous animal that he was meeting in a strange land.”
Summary:
The Kunderian title for this book would be “On Lust & Laughter.” The Holmesian title for this book would be “A Study in Semiotics.” The Gothic title for this book would be “The Seventh Trumpet.” As it is, “The Name of the Rose” is the book’s post-modernist title. (I hope this will do in place of a true summary, which, for this book, would be impossible to give accurately enough.)
My thoughts:
This was my third time reading this book & reading it a) on audiobook & b) in community with the Archaeo Bookclub group has officially elevated this book to my all-time favorites shelf. This book literally has all of my favorite things:
1) It’s hugely satirical with a lot of humor & subtle, tongue-in-cheek dialogue, observations, & asides, as well as tons of subversions of gothic, murder mystery, & theological themes.
2) The explorations of art history, iconography, & christian symbolism along with the deeper philosophical rumination & theological tangents are all so fascinating & the best part about them is that it’s almost impossible to tell when they’re being engaged in with sincerity or facetiousness.
3) All of the characters are vividly rendered, original, & complex. Some of them are sympathetic, some of them utterly detestable, & all of them are flawed in the most human, tragic, & believable ways.
4) The plot is as labyrinthine as the library around which the story revolves to the point where it took me three readings before I finally feel like I “got it.”
5) The booksss. All the discussion & descriptions around books, ancient manuscripts, libraries, scriptoria, illumination, ancient literature, acquisitions & collections in the medieval era, bookcraft, knowledge & reading is truly phenomenal. 😚👌🏻
I look forward to many more rereadings of this book!
“The good of a book lies in its being read. A book is made up of signs that speak of other signs, which in their turn speak of things. Without an eye to read them, a book contains signs that produce no concepts; therefore it is dumb. This library was perhaps born to save the books it houses, but now it lives to bury them.”
I would recommend this book to readers who aren’t adverse to “not getting it” on your first reading & enjoy a good reread just as much if not more than a first-time read. Also to readers who enjoy lengthy tangents, digressions, & philosophical discussions in their literature… This book is best read with great fortitude! Oh & on the audiobook version (narrators: Sean Barrett, Neville Jason, Nicholas Rowe). Cannot emphasize my recommendation of that performance enough, tbh. It’s *phenomenal.*
Final note: I also finally watched the 1986 film version with Sean Connery & they did an *incredible* job with that adaptation. I was super impressed. The ending was absolutely perfect—especially the couple of parts they changed & the last line they picked to end the movie on. Just really really good all around.
“For it is a tale of books, not of everyday worries, and reading it can lead us to recite, with à Kempis, the great imitator: ‘In omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam inveni nisi in angulo cum libro.’” (Translation: ‘I looked for rest in everything & found it nowhere but in the corner with a book.’)
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
CW // implied rape / sexual assault, inquisition torture & interrogation, animal death, biblioteka ekpyrosis (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)
Season: Fall
Music pairing: your favorite Lady Mass—I prefer ‘Scottish Lady Mass,’ by Red Byrd, Yorvox
Further Reading—
A STUDY IN SCARLET by Arthur Conan Doyle & other Sherlock Holmes stories
Peter Tremayne’s Sister Fidelma Mysteries (First book: ABSOLUTION BY MURDER)
Ellis Peter’s Brother Cadfael Mysteries (First book: A MORBID TASTE FOR BONES)
Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot Mysteries (First book: THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES)
more by Umberto Eco (THE NAME OF THE ROSE was his first novel). . . (I have an illustrated edition of his ON UGLINESS text, & his novel MISREADINGS on my shelves.)
THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO by Horace Walpole
Read my ★ ★ ★ ★ review for CASTLE OF OTRANTO here.
THE MONK by Matthew Lewis—TBR
THE LIBARY AT NIGHT by Alberto Manguel
“The Library of Babel,” “Death and the Compass,” & “The Secret Miracle,” by Jorge Luis Borges—TBR (all three of these stories are in LABYRINTHS)
“The Eye of Allah,” by Rudyard Kipling—TBR
Bernard Cornwell—who has some of my favorite medieval era worldbuilding; his Saxon Chronicles (First Book: THE LAST KINGDOM) are also narrated from the POV of an elderly monk character reflecting back on his life
“The Harlem Ghetto,” by James Baldwin
Fady Joudah’s Foreword to the english translation of Maya Abu Al-Hayyat’s YOU CAN BE THE LAST LEAF
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