Take a photo of a barcode or cover
chrisssl 's review for:
The Name of the Rose
by Umberto Eco
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
The idea of a murder mystery set in a 14th century remote Italian monastery sounds intriguing as a concept. But as a 500+ page novel, so many difficulties must be overcome: a homogenous cast of characters; each boringly devout and celibate and male, anachronistic motivations and investigations of characters playing the part of crime-solvers hundreds of years before the time we begin to associate with them, and an overly pious and simple social hierarchy and setting. And yet The Name of the Rose manages to be quite convincing as a book following from its premise. Beneath the nondescript monastic habits there are a plethora of unique characters, distinct roles within the abbey and motives. Within the worship of Christ exists every manner of fractures, conflicts and competing orders, calls of heresy and blasphemy. Pursuing a murderer are our main characters Adso of Melk and his master: William of Baskerville. Their obvious parallels as proto Watson and Holmes figures are cute but never jarring as their perspectives are justified in a pantheistic outlook on life and faith. For most the book will shock the reader in how much variety exists in such a devout subject and place. A reader will be lulled and perhaps bored by the frequent prayers, latin hymns of monastic life just as quickly as reawakened by musings about great geopolitical machinations, poisons, inexplicable deaths and at the centre: an ancient, mysterious library.
That being said, the book's best component is not retrofitting a fairly modern genre in far older trappings but rather the rich accompanying background, provocative questions about nature and faith, and the constant tension of heresy: be it debates about humour, bloody histories of inquisitions, appreciation of art, pursuit of knowledge, natural philosophy or deep schisms about poverty and property. This feels like a maximalist novel enclosed in the very narrow walls of a monastery - each page of the book is used expansively, evoking so many overlapping symbols, epistemological paranoias, intertextual references, and historical contexts in the midst of a murder mystery that one will quickly lose track as to what is cogent to the murder. Some, I think, will find this annoying and over-written (certainly there is a scene describing the mural of an archway in the beginning of the book that feels deeply pretentious) but it grew on me and is key to really enjoying the novel, which has much more to offer than an Agatha Christie novel in 14th century Catholic garb. While mechanically it should be familiar and satisfying to those whodunnit novels, the subtext and atmosphere and peripheral subplots really elevate the book to something special.
That being said, the book's best component is not retrofitting a fairly modern genre in far older trappings but rather the rich accompanying background, provocative questions about nature and faith, and the constant tension of heresy: be it debates about humour, bloody histories of inquisitions, appreciation of art, pursuit of knowledge, natural philosophy or deep schisms about poverty and property. This feels like a maximalist novel enclosed in the very narrow walls of a monastery - each page of the book is used expansively, evoking so many overlapping symbols, epistemological paranoias, intertextual references, and historical contexts in the midst of a murder mystery that one will quickly lose track as to what is cogent to the murder. Some, I think, will find this annoying and over-written (certainly there is a scene describing the mural of an archway in the beginning of the book that feels deeply pretentious) but it grew on me and is key to really enjoying the novel, which has much more to offer than an Agatha Christie novel in 14th century Catholic garb. While mechanically it should be familiar and satisfying to those whodunnit novels, the subtext and atmosphere and peripheral subplots really elevate the book to something special.