WALKING WITH LEE AND ECO

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mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} </style> --> <br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">It’s a bad week when we lose both Umberto Eco and Harper Lee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Maybe it’s because I’m English that I don’t have the affection <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">To Kill a Mocking Bird</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>that I feel I’m supposed to have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EcGUWx9G9t..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="384" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EcGUWx9G9t..." width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OqJg1eeFuL..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="418" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OqJg1eeFuL..." width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">A few honest Americans I’ve talked to aren’t sure whether they <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really </i>like the book or not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>It was drummed into them at an early age that this was such a good book, and such an important book, and they <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">had</i> to like it because.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>For many it seems to have been the first "serious" book they ever read.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UZl5o66w3A..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UZl5o66w3A..." width="270" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HgR9JD19CD..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HgR9JD19CD..." width="560" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Of course most of us in the English speaking world had never heard of Umberto Eco until <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Name of the Rose</i>, which first appeared in English in 1983.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>It was obviously a very good thing, but also really hard to read.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>The movie made everything easier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LaMTADJqfo..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4raXLMGm-O..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4raXLMGm-O..." width="400" /></a></span></span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EPgmZCkrsG..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="410" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EPgmZCkrsG..." width="640" /></a></span></span></div><br /><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">I’m actually much fonder of the essays in Eco’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">How to Travel With a Salmon</i>– and elsewhere he did an analysis (and a take down) of James Bond plots that even as a fan of Ian Fleming I find just wonderful.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">I can’t swear that either Lee or Eco was a great walker but Lee did write this: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s a little bit Hannibal Lector isn’t it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>If we have only understand people by climbing into their skin and walking around, we’re never going to understand many people at all. Which is of course a completely reasonable point of view.  Here's Harper Lee on the movie set.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br /><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jIrEUED6Tb..." style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="388" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jIrEUED6Tb..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br /><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Eco wrote a book titled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Six Walks in the Fiction Wood</i>which contains this passage: </span><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; letter-spacing: 1.0pt; line-height: 200%;">"There are two ways of walking through a wood. The first is to try one of several routes (so as to get out of the wood as fast as possible, say, or to reach the house of grandmother, Tom Thumb, or Hansel and Gretel); the second is to walk so as to discover what the wood is like and find out why some paths are accessible and others are not. Similarly, there are two ways of going through a narrative text." </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br /><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LaMTADJqfo..." style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LaMTADJqfo..." width="610" /></a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">That strikes me as just dumb – surely there an infinite number of ways to walk through a wood, and an infinite number of ways to go through a text.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>But this is Fine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>This is the joy of literature, right?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>We can love and admire writers, and in some metaphorical way walk with them, but we don’t have to agree with them about everything, or in fact anything.</span></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheHol..." height="1" width="1" alt=""/>