Wicked ecstasy

After having my fun with some of the descriptions in Adso's big love scene, I was actually pretty touched by his experience. What about you?

The library

Christy mentioned the library should have its own post. I agree. It was probably my favorite thing about the book — that the library is a labyrinth, that it's in many ways more sacred than the abbey's church, that physically it's a just a fire hazard of mouse-chewed parchment and vellum — it's so heart-breakingly fragile — but it's the very foundation, the sum, really, of centuries and centuries of human knowledge.

And the fact that it houses the last copy of Aristotle's "Comedy." Brilliant. And the fact that old Jorge couldn't bring himself to just destroy the book. He could have just thrown it in the dung heap, but he didn't! But he had to poison the pages so anyone who read it would be destroyed. The book would live. But the reader wouldn't. I love that. And also the fact that it was Aristotle. Jorge knew that not even the church could offer up an authority to counter the wisdom of that eminent Greek philosopher. (The time setting is interesting, because the Renaissance was just around the corner, when all of that beautiful, pagan, humanistic Greek stuff would be rediscovered and flood the world of arts and letters and politics. So maybe the end of the world, at least Jorge's world, the world of the Middle Ages, really was at hand).

What were your impressions of the library?

The apocalypse

Isn't the staying power of religious-based fear remarkable? I couldn't help thinking that, reading about the millennial fears in NOTR, and the conviction among the cranky monks that this old whorish world was going to implode any day now from the weight of its sin. Then you turn on the TV and here are all these conservative politicians and teabaggers 700 years later saying essentially the same thing: that we have to chase the Evil One from the Oval Office and bring religion to the fore of public life before God smites us.

I mean, there's old Alinardo who's telling William the millennium has arrived and the Antichrist is going to show up any second now, and William says, um, the millennium was 300 years ago, dude. Undaunted, Alinardo employs some self-serving math and says, no, the millennium doesn't date from the birth of Christ but from 300 years later, when Constantine ceded control of Rome to the pope. Tricky, huh? Our public life is rife with this kind of junk, with spinning the facts and math when they don't work out the way you want!

Do you think Eco is tapping into some fundamental, timeless truth about people and how susceptible they are to being controlled by fear and misinformation? And it's sort of sadly humorous that at least in the Middle Ages the populace had illiteracy to blame for their ignorance and herd mentality. Jorge believed you controlled people through controlling access to knowledge. I wonder what he would make of a world where access was completely unfettered, was available with the click of the mouse, and yet a large segment of the population still chose fear and misinformation and explanations based on demonology not reason.

Jorge of Burgos

Did you like him even a little?

The manuscript

Any thoughts on the narration — Adso recounting a story of his youth in old age — and what about the introductory part about his manuscript floating around in the 20th century? Do you think that adds anything to the story?

The mystery

Did you find the mystery absorbing? Was there anything you particularly appreciated or disliked about it?

The setting

I think one of the strengths of "The Name of the Rose" is that the tone and style vividly evoke a Medieval setting. I've tried to read other historical novels by contemporary authors, and for the most part I'm rarely convinced, perhaps because modern sensibilities creep in here and there and threaten the feel of authenticity. But, with this, I felt totally immersed in the 14th century, complete with sometimes tedious religious/philosophical asides. (There was that one part where William says "elementary" to Adso, and that made me think of the Sherlock Holmes era). What was your experience?

Adso and William

What did you think of this pair?

"The Chatham School Affair"

I've wanted to read this book by Thomas Cook for a while now. He had a new release this year, "The Fate of Katherine Carr," which was quite good and very dark. This is a better-known title by him, and I think the premise from Publishers Weekly sounds interesting:

"Elizabeth Channing is trying to change the path of her life as, in 1926, she arrives to teach art at a small boys' school located in the Cape Cod village of Chatham. Believing that "life is best lived at the edge of folly," she immediately enthralls the novel's narrator, Henry, the headmaster's son. But Elizabeth is drawn to a fellow teacher, Leland Reed, a freethinker who is unhappily married and has begun to have serious doubts about his life. The inevitable tragedy and its aftermath is narrated by a mature, melancholy Henry looking back at the strange, bleak fates of those involved."

Does March 20 sound good?