It’s also very good storytelling, but the part I remember was the sort of library filled with knowledge and these games, which teased you with knowing things and not knowing things. Yet there was something amazing about this belief that you could classify knowledge. At university, I read lots of French books referring to this medieval period where all knowledge was supposed to be classified, and re-classified and super-classified, and it became sort of idiotic, this academic approach that these monks had. It is about the adventure of a Franciscan friar and his novice in medieval Italy and it is part murder mystery, part game with semiotics and medieval knowledge. I had no idea at the time that the medieval mindset was any different to the modern one. “I read this a few years ago and it was one of those books you always remember because it creates a whole new way of thinking. Foreign Policy & International Relations.It’s disappointing, because 200 pages in I was having a really great time, but by the end, the Eco had rather gotten on my nerves. I liked the Borgesian/Nabokovian framing device as well.Īll around, it was a good book with lots of great twists, but I felt like it almost went too hard, like Eco took everything one step more complicated and five pages longer than it needed to be. I liked William and Adso, as well as their relationship, and William’s Sherlockian vibe-and I did really enjoy the conclusion of the mystery, if the culprit of the plot was a bit obvious. I thought it could have managed without the political approach, instead embracing solely the philosophical discussions that relate to the mystery, which were just as interesting.The book also adhered to some medieval concepts that I could have done without, like the mad disabled man who is portrayed as twisted and repellant, and the gay men who are all predators. The philosophical discussions were interesting at first, but by the time it arrives, the delegation of monks debate is rather underwhelming, because it distracts from the murder mystery.

The love plot was one of the most unnecessary I’ve ever read in fiction, and I skipped big paragraphs of Adso’s romantic digressions that contributed very little if anything to the overall narrative. Eco does that thing where he decides that because of the genre, everyone speaks in paragraphs, and the long-windedness of William’s explanations to his mentee, Adso, begin to grate a bit. He kept adding, and adding, until there were whole chunks that seemed unnecessary. The problem was that Eco bit off more than he could chew. It started out well-the writing on the sentence level was superb, and the combination of intensely researched historical fiction and biblical murder mystery was really fun and compelling. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco was increasingly disappointing as the narrative went on.

The name of the rose by umberto eco