Nicholas's review
The Name of the Rose: including Postscript to the Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Since Eco, a semiotician, is a fan of lists, and I would butcher a review or have to spend 10 hours to complete a few paragraphs satisfactorily, I'm going to leave myself a list of thoughts.
-Eco captures the episteme(s) of the period brilliantly, referencing the intellectual conflicts of medieval modernity, caught somewhere between aging religiosity and the growing discovery of scientific insights, between interiors and exteriors, the pseudo and the genuine, what one knows and feels to be true and what one believes is true, between tainted purity and righteous blindness, and in the lack of organized and expedient communication tools (such as literacy, the printing press, megaphones..) amongst groups, the power of manipulating perception.
-Intertextuality, layered narrative voices, so much interwoven complexity. I loved the theological debates and historical background and setting.
-I plunged into an agitated state of despair after finishing this. If because I was released from ...more
-Eco captures the episteme(s) of the period brilliantly, referencing the intellectual conflicts of medieval modernity, caught somewhere between aging religiosity and the growing discovery of scientific insights, between interiors and exteriors, the pseudo and the genuine, what one knows and feels to be true and what one believes is true, between tainted purity and righteous blindness, and in the lack of organized and expedient communication tools (such as literacy, the printing press, megaphones..) amongst groups, the power of manipulating perception.
-Intertextuality, layered narrative voices, so much interwoven complexity. I loved the theological debates and historical background and setting.
-I plunged into an agitated state of despair after finishing this. If because I was released from ...more
