The Name of the Rose
by Umberto Eco
What a lively abbey... at night!
The book tells a murder mystery set in a 14-century Italian monastery, which also held other secrets. The plot is well-structured and well-paced, not too intense yet very intriguing. The story is told in a humorous and pleasant fashion, interwined with details about lives of the Mid Age religious people, reflections on religion and philosophy, and meditations on the intricacies of ... books. And unlike many popular thrillers, the main characters are carefully developed, with good guys personable and bad ones believable. Some parts are a little bit too excessively descriptive, but overall well writeen, even in this translated version.
In short, Rose is a book to enjoy, to learn and to be amused....
However, as soon as I put down the book, I also realized that I had been led by a very deliberate writer to a journey of his design. Eco is likey an atheist who holds something strongly against the Mid Age religion, which he studies as a profession. His opinion is brought out by William of Baskerville, the hero of the book:
"You understand, Adso, I must believe that my proposition works, because I learned it by experience; but to believe it I must assume there are univeral laws. Yet I cannot speak of them, because the very concept that univeral laws and an established order exist woudl imply that God is their prisoner, whereas God is something absolutely free, so that if He wanted, with a single act of His will He could make the world different."...
So the author conjured up a story to illustrate the chaotic consequences of believing in God and to say loudly that there is no God after all - through the mouth of a wise monk.
Not fair, I have to say, even though I am not religious myself. So Rose is a fun book but one does not have to get the message. :-)
If you are not convinced by this "charge", I do have more evidence. :-)
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1 comment:
Hey LuGuo, I liked your revelation which made the book all the more thrilling; it makes things more exciting when there's a hidden agenda. But I have to confess that I didn’t arrive at the same conclusion. Well, he might be an atheist, but I'm not sure if I could deduce that from his novel. My general impression was that he is an expert on church history in the middle ages, and his novel casts a very critical eye on this time period and the role of the church in suppressing free thoughts with only interest in accumulation of power and wealth.
I read this page again, and still think the character was expressing his perplexed state of mind about the power of sciences versus that of God. Right after that quote, Adso asked "...but you don't know why you know that you know what you do?" which was approved of by "a look of admiration" from his master. I was wondering, wouldn't this be some sort of agnosticism, for the least? (Even this would qualify to be betrayal to their faith.) Atheism is a bit too radical. In fact, again, as I originally thought, it portrayed a progressive monk, who was courageous and intelligent in admirably adopting a scholastic view of nature in such an orthodox time.
Nonetheless, I enjoyed your review of the book, as always as it is intellectually stimulating. Are you going to read his "Foucault's Pendulum"? It's a bit strenuous to read it.
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