•
Rating: The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco (Ita) 1980 Edizioni Bompiani
"what's the point of reviewing something that everything has already been said about, like "The Name of the Rose", review something else" (Fusillo)
"well, if it's what I like most about Eco together with the pendulum, I don't see why I shouldn't review it, I could review "Foucault's Pendulum..." (cptgaio)
"but everything's been said about that too" (Fusillo)
"oh well, it means you'll come give me a 1" (cptgaio)
"for sure" (Fusillo)
"but what about Eco and Eco, review Faust'o... that is real culture!" (Iside)
Premise (or, why do you want to hurt yourself?)
The premise that comes spontaneously to me stems from the debate (quite fair in its raising interesting questions) about the usefulness of reviewing "classics", since, indeed, everything has been dissected about them, every word "criticized", and every end discussed. My opinion on this is based on three fundamental precepts:
A) If we accept this hypothesis as valid, 70% of the reviews on DeBaser are useless since existing (correct me if I'm wrong) since 2001, it arrives quite late compared to quite a bit of Classical Criticism (I will use many seemingly random capitals in this review, I rely on your insight and/or your benevolence), thus carrying a heavy burden of things already said but...
B)... but we know that DeBaser is not an ordinary Criticism Site because on these pages "Everyone must find what they want, even with fetishism, even as a sordid voyeur, like the basest of soul peepers. But also not." Therefore, a mediocre and not even that pleasant reviewer like myself has the free will in choosing between the two options: knowing full well that it could unleash the infallible machinery of the DeBraccio DeSecolare DeBaseriano... but also not.
C) In the History of Literature, there are loads of reviews of books that don't exist: I don't see why I can't write one about something that exists very much (for things that don't exist, I'm gearing up). I know it's a weak argument, but I felt like writing it.
Remember: whatever is discussed, in the end, there will remain, nonetheless, only the Name...
(a)Critical Analysis of "The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco and without mentioning the plot since everyone already knows it...
"The Name of the Rose" is a novel as beautiful as it is fake and "constructed".
In short, the review could already end here: because from a critical point of view, this novel is already born "dead", simply because as early as 1983 (just three years after its publication and we know well that a book is not a record and three years is minimal time in literature), Eco himself, in the famous "Postscript", wrote the best possible critical analysis of his work. In an apparently onanistic apotheosis (can one say?) that unfortunately appeared unpleasant to the majority of his contemporaries and whose greatness was understood only, probably, in a flash by the next generation of readers (I read it in 1985 but was justified because I was too small to fully understand them).
Eco says many things in the postscript: that setting the novel in the Middle Ages was natural because he had a medievalist vocation, that one should not be too misled by the similarities between the character of Jorge da Burgos and the great (and then living) Borges (with all the references to "The Library of Babel"), that the detective plot was born from the innate desire to poison (in literature) a monk (and here I don't know if I'm the only one who saw an homage to Agatha Christie) and many other beautiful things, but above all the main one, which is, even if not directly said, that "The Name of the Rose" was nothing but a well-intentioned and good-faith hoax.
With this book, in fact, the author made the "jump": he moved from university texts and cultured essays, on semiotics and aesthetics, to mass literature and in doing so proposed all the archetypes of the case: from Manzoni to Dumas, even going through (and I know you will frown because I put it in "light" literature) Cervantes. But not content, he elegantly stayed with a foot in two stirrups and also winked, yes, to all that breed of readers with "difficult" tastes, putting in all possible attractions: from the promiscuous use of Latin to medieval theological disputes.
The funny thing is that usually these sly "make everyone happy" attempts end up not making anyone happy and yet the undeniable narrative and cultural talents of Eco managed to "fool" the vast majority of those who read the book (and who read it in later moments), decreeing its fame at various levels and ensuring the Alexandrian Professor a future also as a novelist ("Foucault's Pendulum" for some aspects is even superior).
I know I have said everything and nothing, but I think for a book like this, this is the right way to proceed (don't get mad if I just hint that the novel should be read on various levels: detective, historical, theological etc. etc., right?) after all, the same ending admits it: what triggers violence and death is a subtle "nothing" but complex. Like a simple smile or a dramatic, long, useless struggle for power can be.
The ultimate goal is to understand what truly remains of things when extinguished.
"Stat Rosa Pristina Nomine, Nomina Nuda Tenemus"
Mo.
Loading comments slowly
