Reply #5: I've read "The Name of the Rose" and "Foucault's Pendulum," and have been working on [View All]

[jobycom]

"The Island of the Day Before" for a couple of years. :) I was just planning to start it again. It's a bit plodding and dull to me, so far. It seems to lack the linguistic precision of his earliest two works, or maybe it has the precision but not his easy prose. Or maybe it's the translation. It's just never gripped me entirely, neither emotionally nor intellectually. Gotta have one or the other.

I was a medieval history grad student when I read his other two, so they flowed well for me. A lot of "The Name of the Rose" was lifted straight from medieval religious treatises. The movie is also very good, but not similar to the book. The movie is a light period mystery, the book is an intellectual epic, in that while it only happens physically in a monastery, the intellectual backdrop of the book encompasses the whole of European theology. It's also brilliant in the way it constructs the mystery and the actual story in a way that reveals the theological debates of the time, and even by the end captures a couple of fatal theological flaws. William of Baskerville by the end of the book goes one step away from disproving God, then backs off. To me, it's one of the great novels of all time in any language, but yeah, it's difficult if you aren't versed in the history and theology he is using.

"Foucault's Pendulum" was a reverse "Da Vinci Code," in a way. It, too, delved into the world of international, multi-generational conspiracy theories involving the descendants of Jesus, using much of the same background as "Code" used, only delving into more detail. Much easier read than "Rose," though. While you can get overwhelmed by the detail, the plot moves along more traditionally, and the characters are emotionally engaging after you reach a certain point. And you don't have to pick up every detail to enjoy the conclusion. It's a good book for conspiracy folk, as it shows how easy it is to construct false conspiracies--though I won't reveal whether they are all fake in the book. For that matter, I won't even reveal whether the book reveals whether they are all wrong, or not.

Eco was my favorite writer for a while, but after I got bogged down in "Island," I quit following him. I'll have to look up the one you mention. I've missed him, frankly. Aside from Jan Martell, Tracy Chevalier, and, though he's supposed to be a genre writer, Gene Wolfe, I haven't found any writers as complex and multi-dimensional as Eco.

You've got me interested in him again. I can see "Island of the Day Before" on my "unread" shelf from where I sit. I think I'll fall asleep with it tonight. :)