cocoonofbooks 's review for:

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

4.0

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I did not have high expectations for this book after seeing a lot of reviews describing it as boring or dry with too many tangents on philosophy and religion. I, however, really enjoyed it. I don't know if it's because of the excellent audiobook narration or the fact that I'm Catholic and found the elements of Church history interesting, but I thought the book was engaging most of the time.

There are a lot of pieces of the book that I enjoyed, probably most of all the central mystery and William's application of deductive reasoning in a time and place that did not appreciate such. I also appreciated the reminder that at every stage in the Church's history there have been theological debates that threatened to rip the Church apart or, at this time, caused people to be burned as heretics, though the issue at hand (the extent of Jesus' poverty) is one you rarely hear about nowadays.

Things I enjoyed less:

Adso's interaction with the girl in the kitchen was super weird. Like, this girl who is prostituting herself for food sees a cute guy who doesn't even speak her language and immediately throws off her clothes to have sex with him. And then Adso obsesses over her for several chapters. I didn't see the point of that whole thing. Also, the "villain" of the book, the murderer, was the one wholly unlikeable character in the book, who is also blind, contributing to the trope of disabled = evil. And by the end I had a little bit of trouble following the order of events and everyone's motivations.

I can see why this book isn't for everyone, but I enjoyed the read.