The Name of the Rose

The most earnest and simultaneously one of the most intellectually demanding yet satisfying novels I've ever read. Umberto Eco has given us a book that, to me, reads as an ode to the written word and to the knowledge inherent with it. Intertwined with that is a melancholic agreement that human knowledge, written or otherwise is inherently limited. And that everything we do with it, no matter how grand, is tantamount to all of us thinking we can grab the sun just by reaching for it. And that this applies to all knowledge, secular or religious, intellectual or bare basic, only salts the wound opening again and again and again.

It's long, it nearly drowns itself in the sheer number of allusions to Catholic history and study, and the various show more lines upon lines of untranslated Latin, German, French, certainly make this a challenging text. Is it any wonder that Eco is apparently a James Joyce scholar? There are definite echoes (god help me I didn't mean that as a pun). Eco and Joyce both know their respective peoples and regions very well and have, putting it lightly, mixed feelings towards them. There's pride along with shame. Constant questioning with no answers at best and horrific answers or even violent opposition at worst. But in the end they both realize the uniqueness of their respective positions as, more or less, 'self' (by way of a certain awareness) imposed outsiders who chronicle the trials and travails of the people who, incidentally, share their heritage. Definite echoes (again, sorry) of Shai Agnon here minus some of the overinflated (and to me) somewhat artificially pious egotism.

Now, Eco has been classed as a postmodernist...but I don't quite agree with that label as he reads more like a high modernist. Hell, the story itself can easily be read as an allegory for modernist thought. We have a mountain fortress of sacred and unquestionable knowledge far and away removed from the secular or incorrectly religious life 'down there' that is in the process of the story torn apart from without and within and that finally (spoilers) burns down and caves in on itself. The knowledge and the security that came with it has been dashed and now all who remain have the choice to either pack up and run or attempt to create something left of the detritus. William and Adso's final exchange during the (SPOILER) fiery destruction of the library affirms the weakness of human knowledge and leaves the reader at a sobering, but enlightening, impasse. What do we do when our long held beliefs are shown to be nothing if not fallible? When so much of what we think written in stone (or in a book) is just as likely to spring from chaos or happenstance? Eco the modernist leaves us here, now if as a postmodernist he picks up the ball and runs with it in later novels this I can't say...but I certainly look forward to finding out.

One more thing that deserves mentioning. The secret text discussed and eventually discovered in the story (SPOILER, again) Aristotle's oft discussed and sorely missed missing chapter 'On Comedy', is the crown jewel of this book. Eco masterfully ties it in as not only the potential for the furthering of human knowledge beyond the stagnation of dogmatism (be it theological, philosophical, or both) but as also a beautiful metaphor for human kind's consistent folly in how it feels reason, thought, and feeling, 'should' be dictated, as opposed to how they 'could' be. In essence we have an entire novel of the human mind and its relationship to knowledge, in this case the knowledge gleaned from the printed word but it may as well be from any source.

I loved this book and recommend it wholeheartedly to any and all who crave a great story that will drive them, stir them, and make them think about the possibilities and impossibilities, the frustrations and the joys that come with being a sentient being. show less

“When I call Thee answer me O God of my justice.”

Fog, cold, dampness, silence. The sound of the psalms drowns out the groans of desire. And the groans of death. The darkness of the world penetrates the holy shelter, crawls in the labyrinth, that miniature of the universe which contains the invaluable gift of knowledge. Knowledge sacred and profane. Knowledge competing with dogmas as books become the centre of the monks’ existence.

But blood begets blood. Fanatics beget malice. Eco writes about timeless questions echoing through the stone walls of the remote monastery. Why do we always seem so adamant that we know what God has in His mind? Why do we insist on limiting our perception of God and the world He created? In the era of two show more popes and the vicious conflict between the Emperor and the Church, ‘men of God’ argue over whether Jesus ever laughed, on poverty, on books written by ‘pagans’. Never mind that people drop dead like flies…

For me, the apocalyptic visions with the meticulous dialectic of Brother William make the novel unique. Every theme is there, every riddle and its answer. Lust and pride. Sacred ecstasy, the will to do good in the wrong way. As the soft snow covers the rugged landscape tenderly, creating more silence, ominous symbols point to the eternal question: what differentiates the heretic from the martyr?

From carnal love to unicorns, from animals to Aristotle, Eco wrote one of the most demanding, thought-provoking, beautiful novels ever written.

For the record, I firmly believe Jesus has an extraordinary sense of humour. Who else would ever put up with the human race, miserable wretches as we are…

“Then we are living in a place abandoned by God?”
“Have you found any places where God would have felt at home?”

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/ show less

Giacchè dopo aver letto il saggio in appendice al romanzo ("Postille a Il nome della rosa"), Umberto Eco è riuscito a farmi sentire un minus habens, mi trovo nell'imbarazzo di dire qualcosa di sensato su questo romanzo.
Ebbene sostanzialmente posso dire questo: facile da leggere, difficile da comprendere.
Latino medievale a parte il testo è veramente scorrevole, superato lo scoglio delle prime cento pagine che l'autore ha scritto dichiaratamente per inserire il lettore nel gioco che ha condotto. Perché secondo me Il nome della rosa è un gioco e non per questo esso ha minore valore letterario. Gioca con i suoi protagonisti e gioca con il lettore. I primi si muovono nell'aristotelica unità di luogo, in un labirinto che non è solo show more quello della biblioteca, ma che per estensione è anche l'abbazia stessa. Il giallo è solo un pretesto e qui entra in gioco il lettore che deve capirlo. Il nome della rosa è tutto e nulla. Per essere un giallo è un giallo da poco perché Guglielmo da Baskerville non risolve veramente il mistero dell'abbazia, in quanto perde il confronto con l'assassino. Il romanzo è sicuramente un romanzo storico, trattando di eventi storicamente e puntualmente collocati nella realtà medievale e nella cronaca del tempo, ma non tratta di personaggi storici noti (a parte qualche rarissimo caso). E in un certo senso è anche un saggio di teologia e filosofia medievale e classica, perché per bocca dei personaggi sono presentate molte istanze di queste materie. Da qui ne deriva la difficoltà di interpretazione ed è chiaro che Il nome della rosa ne diventa fonte inesauribile.
Pertanto il mio consiglio è di farsi prendere dal testo e immergersi nell'abbazia insieme ad Adso e Guglielmo e di approfondire man mano con loro le infinite sfumature del testo. Perché come dice eco "un romanzo è una macchina per generare interpretazioni". show less

Where do I begin? This book is dense and multi-faceted, and worth every hour and brain cell and glimpse into post-Templar monastic life. The mystery is more relevant in the film adaptation, while the mystery of the Labyrinth and the conflicts between the different Orders are the main part of the book.

Set "somewhere" in Italy in 1327 and written by the aged Adso, he recounts his journeys as a young man with his master, William of Baskerville, to solve a suicide (later two, later three murders) within a Franciscan monastery. William must also argue for a monk, Michael, who is shortly to journey to the Pope in Avignon to argue for the sanctity of the poverty of Christ. Arguments against the Benedictines, who hold that the Church should be show more rich in material things.

I don't profess to understand, or sometimes even follow, the various power-plays between the sects of Franciscans, Benedictines, Cluniacs, Minorites, and other monastic orders, except in the broadest possible scope. What I did find fascinating was the animosity between the Pope and the Holy Roman Emporer and how each side vied to gain the upper hand. And how, sadly, the ruthless Inquisitor Bernard Gui wins the unconscionable arguments.

While re-reading this I found my original pen drawing of the labyrinth, with its towers and openings and polygon sides. The search that William and Adso make of the labyrinth-library is meticulous and leads me to wonder if such a building ever existed. Just like the Library of Alexandria, all of the forever-lost learning is a central tragedy. As is the treatment of the poor, illiterate peasant girl and condemnation of so-called heretics.

A brilliant work by a brilliant mind. show less

I found reading The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco a chore as it was dense, slow moving and complex. Often touted as a whodunit, I would class the book as historical fiction as it is set in an Italian monastery in 1327, and the mystery also includes a fair amount of biblical analysis, medieval studies, and a slight knowledge of classical Latin as there are many quotes that need to be deciphered.

The story is told by Adso, a young novice monk who is travelling with William of Baskerville, who has been called upon to investigate a crime in a Benedictine abbey. Of course the deaths mount and it becomes apparent that William is on the trail of a conspiracy with both dangerous knowledge and the future of the Catholic Church hanging in the show more balance. William is a very interesting character and he sets about solving the mystery with logic, theology and his own innate curiosity and intelligence. The book is layered with history, religion and, the part I found most difficult, lengthy passages of medieval rhetoric.

Originally published in 1980, The Name of the Rose has won many awards and is considered a literary masterpiece. For me, it was just too long, too dense, and too difficult to keep track of. The many untranslated Latin passages made me feel uneducated and I suspect that I might have gotten more out of simply watching the 1986 film. show less

As Brother William of Baskerville, an English Franciscan monk, nears the Italian abbey where he’s to attend a conclave, he correctly deduces from tracks in the snow and other minute details that the party of brethren approaching him on the road are seeking a horse — whose name he also guesses.

Naturally, this astonishes both the search party and William’s companion, his scribe, a German novice named Adso. It also pleases the abbot, who’s delighted to have so keen an observer on hand, because a young monk has died under suspicious circumstances, and the mystery must be solved before the conclave takes place in a few days’ time.

Or, to be precise, the abbot seems pleased, but the readily apparent struggle between truth and show more expediency dividing the abbey’s occupants, heightened by the anticipated high-level meeting, clouds his motives.

The year is 1327, and the church is fighting itself, with one pope in Rome, and the other in Avignon. The expected French envoys — and, menacingly, their accompanying armed force — include a charismatic, unscrupulous inquisitor whom William knows and fears; he was once an inquisitor himself but gave it up because he felt the entire process of hunting heretics was irrational and unjust.

Since then, he has openly avowed the empirical philosophy of Roger Bacon and William Occam (he of the famous razor), beliefs that unsettle many other monks and, in their eyes, skate dangerously close to heresy.

Moreover, the abbot has forbidden William to investigate the library stacks, labyrinthine rooms that no one save the librarian himself may enter. This restriction cripples William’s efforts, particularly after more monks die, and he supposes that a hidden text holds the key. So, with Adso in tow, he invades the abbey’s sanctum sanctorum, with ever-startling results.

Adso makes a superb narrator and foil, a Watson scared of where knowledge will lead, to William’s Holmes, who thinks knowledge itself can be neither good nor evil. A weighty theme, and The Name of the Rose tips the scales at almost 600 pages, but Eco does a brilliant job focusing on two issues that, at first glance, seem too ridiculous to kill for, whether for personal motives, to serve the church, or for reasons of state.

First, did Christ ever laugh? And second, did he and his apostles choose poverty, the belief on which the Franciscan order rests?

But the narrative, if at length, shows why these questions matter in 1327 and today. If Christ did not laugh, the official reasoning goes, satire, jokes, and humor are either vile, a threat to faith, or both. However, William argues that if a devout person must have only a certain sober, humorless mind, then the inquisitors rule, as in fact they do, and the crucial precept of accepting faith through free will ceases to exist.

As William warns Adso, “The Antichrist can be born from piety itself, from excessive love of God or of the truth, as the heretic is born from the saint and the possessed from the seer. Fear prophets, Adso, and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them.”

The question of poverty has a more immediate political implication. The Franciscan order has splintered, prompting rebellions against church power, to which the church has responded by burning heretics, charging the use of magic, and accusing their opponents of free love and appalling butchery. But as William tells Adso, the rebels don’t care about church doctrines, especially; they resent the extreme wealth of the church and the regimes it supports, both of which contribute to keep the poor as they are.

Amid all this, monks continue to die, and William must divert his efforts from solving the mystery to play politician during the conclave, standing up for his beliefs while avoiding condemnation. As you may have figured out by now (how did I give it away?), The Name of the Rose is a discursive book, but no less mesmerizing for that:

The Name of the Rose does what the best historical fiction should: illuminate the past by its own lights and therefore reveal the present. As a mystery, it is excellent; to that, add profundity and power. show less

Uno dei più bei libri che abbia mai letto!! La capacità di scrittura di Eco si esprime al massimo in questo libro. Un uso del linguaggio da vero maestro ..metafore, descrizioni, etc rendono questo libro un capolavoro.

Juuuust perfect! There are so many events happening in this book, all combined with such a great sense of observation, knowledge, judgement of all on earth, above and in the imagination. I was flabbergasted of how baleful and magical the plot was.. The Name of the Rose scales the immeasurability of knowledge, imagination, and reality. Umberto Eco uses the study of language and symbols, ensnared in a fictive murder mystery, to illuminate to the reader the similarities and differences between what we consider as reality and show more what actually is. It’s odd how transcendent this book is..you’re tracing your own footsteps back in time, but also forward, for what’s to come.
This personification of human complexity and contradiction in thought, feeling, and emotion is why The Name of the Rose draws from many wells. It tackles religion, epistemology, politics, philosophy, and psychology.

The Name of the Rose will always endure on my shelf as a mysteriously potent novel that is about everything and nothing at all..it turns the world upside down... show less