I found these images of some Tympanson carvings, simillar to that discussed in the book
http://www.aup-kwidzyn.ckj.edu.pl/pu..._w_Moissac.jpg
http://www.alma-larsson.de/Chartres/...rz%20klein.jpg
http://www.aup-kwidzyn.ckj.edu.pl/pu...ry_w_Autum.jpg
Printable View
I found these images of some Tympanson carvings, simillar to that discussed in the book
http://www.aup-kwidzyn.ckj.edu.pl/pu..._w_Moissac.jpg
http://www.alma-larsson.de/Chartres/...rz%20klein.jpg
http://www.aup-kwidzyn.ckj.edu.pl/pu...ry_w_Autum.jpg
Great find DM. :thumbs_up Those look just like what's being described. :)
Virgil and DM thanks for posting all of that and the quotes. Wow, those are totally intriguing. I must admit this book is a fascination to me, as to the art and architectural aspects. Thanks for posting those carvings DM. They are marvelous/
I was thinking the same think in reading that list of demonic creatures. I wondered how the tortoise fit in, also. Have you ever seen moray els? They are truly demonic looking, not to mention the fact that they can be quite vicious. I didn't really know that frogs were a symbol of evil either.
Yes I wondered about the turotise as well. The frogs, I found currious, but they are considered one or the plagues in the Bibile, and they are probably considered evil becasue of thier ambious nature. As well people use to think that you could get worts from toads, and worts were often associated with witches.
Hehe yes I have seen morays, I always thought they were pretty cool, but they do resemble seprents and cane be agressive.
These images are the representations of Mattew, Mark, Luke, and John.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
I kow the second of those is from Chartre Cathedral. The west facade of that cathedral is amazing! below the tymphanum is what is dubbed "The kings and Queens", and it is some of the early gothics greatest carvings because they are so graceful and lifelike.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Muse
The last of the three images is from the great tymphanum of Autun Cathedral. It goes by two names, The Weighing of the Souls and The Last Judgement. If you look in one corner you should see the image of judas with a noose around his neck. It was carved by a man called gisellbertus, and this is know because he carved his name into the sculpture. :nod: I had to study these two cathedrals in school...
From reading the book its easy to assume that the monastry is a good few hundred years old, and from the grotesque discriptions of the tymphanum etc it would be right to believe that the church was constructed in the Romanesque period. The First one though seems to be quite similar in the discription....
:)
Thank you for the background info on the art work, quite interesting, yes I guess from the way in which the monostary was described it sounded to be of Romanesque desgin.
Eco is an enthusiast of detective novels. He was the co-author of a collection of essays about such stories. The theme of the novel is signs and logical connections among signs. Sherlock Holmes is probably the world's best known detective, and William of Baskerville is at the abbey to solve a murder, actually a series of murders, which he will eventually do. Occam was mentioned, because of his famous contribution to logic and philosophy. Occam's razor is significant to the novel, because some would try to add unnecessary complications to the solution of the murders. everything in the Name is a sign of something.As soon as I learned William's name, I knew that he was to be a detective.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
Signs, the relationships among signs, and how signs relate to other things or people
Yes, I know Peter. It was a rhetorical question to Petrarch in that her reading seemed to be strictly as a historical novel of the middle ages. My point was that it's more than that. Thanks on the Occam's razor explanation. That's the first time someone has linked it with the novel's themes.Quote:
Originally Posted by PeterL
I asked this before - does the fact that Arthur Connon-Doyle also wrote the book "The White Company" tie into this novel at all? It is based on Medieval England during the 100 Years War. If you read the beginning paragraphs of that novel, you will note that a monk had a illicit affair with a woman and is expelled, exiled from the monastery. I read the novel a few years ago, but I found it curious now, that Eco is writing this novel set in a monastary and one woman has been prominently involved in the plot. I wondered about the combination of Holmes stories and this one, and if the two contributed to an influence for Eco. This might be a lame question, but I finished listening to the audiotapes and have an idea of the story now and the ideas behind it. I definitely need now to read the novel, but the audiotapes were a good introduction and aid to a better understanding of what I will read in greater depth. I do find the book quite fascinating in the aspect of influences and riddles, mysteries, symbols, images, art, etc.
Niamh, thanks for adding the historical information on the photos that Dark Muse has posted. They are amazing. I wrote a paper in college on Romanesque architecture - it is quite fascinating and beautiful. Are these carvings of the Romanesque period?
The last one definitely is. I'm not sure about the first one, i think its romanesque from the curve at the top of the tymphanum, but the second one is Gothic. The west facade of Chartres Cathedral is amazing at night time. All lit up. I really like the Tymphanum at Autun Cathedral. The images are really grotesques, and scary. I'm sure any person walking up to the west facade of that cathedral would be terrified at the sight of it. In that sense you can almost imaging the terror Adso was feeling upon looking at the tymphanum of the church in the book.
Yes I would say that the first one is most likely Romanesque, becasue the carving is not quite as intricate, and it has more of a rounded arch, than a pointed arch
yeah thats what i was thinking....
Janine, I don't think anyone has the answer to that. I don't think many of us have read The White Company. But it is an interesting relationship you point out, and given that Conan Doyle is important to the theme of the novel, it is quite possible.Quote:
Originally Posted by Janine
I think it's a great book. :)Quote:
This might be a lame question, but I finished listening to the audiotapes and have an idea of the story now and the ideas behind it. I definitely need now to read the novel, but the audiotapes were a good introduction and aid to a better understanding of what I will read in greater depth. I do find the book quite fascinating in the aspect of influences and riddles, mysteries, symbols, images, art, etc.
Thanks Virgil, for addressing my question. It is funny how I came about reading "The White Company"...I was simply browsing through my collected works of Doyle one day and started to read chapter one...curiosity grabbed me; before I knew it I was totally captivated. I marveled at the fact, I had not previously known that Doyle wrote about Medieval times. The book is not without it's humor, also. I loved the way it was written and I am surprised to find out not many people have read it or even know of it. Surely Eco must have.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
No doubt it is. I believe so, if you say so. I need to get into the real meat of the actual text and not just listen to the lines being narrated; although, I admit, this audiobook was very well done. It is an abridged version unfortunately. Maybe ideal would be to read the book, at my own pace; then relisten to the tapes. It would be good to see the film version, as well.Quote:
I think it's a great book. :)
DM and Nimah, I think those are more Romanesque being rounded as DM pointed out, Gothic would be pointed at the top.
Yes, i'd kind of mentioned that in my post....
Quote:
The last one definitely is. I'm not sure about the first one, i think its romanesque from the curve at the top of the tymphanum, but the second one is Gothic. The west facade of Chartres Cathedral is amazing at night time. All lit up. I really like the Tymphanum at Autun Cathedral. The images are really grotesques, and scary. I'm sure any person walking up to the west facade of that cathedral would be terrified at the sight of it. In that sense you can almost imaging the terror Adso was feeling upon looking at the tymphanum of the church in the book.
The only Dolye I've ever read is Sherlock Holmes related. But he has a great reputation as a writer of many things. Unfortunately he's only remembered today for Sherlock.Quote:
Originally Posted by Janine
I love audio tapes. I've written about that elsewhere. They make reading along a pleasure. I think most are well done.Quote:
No doubt it is. I believe so, if you say so. I need to get into the real meat of the actual text and not just listen to the lines being narrated; although, I admit, this audiobook was very well done. It is an abridged version unfortunately. Maybe ideal would be to read the book, at my own pace; then relisten to the tapes. It would be good to see the film version, as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Janine
Hi Janine--Conan Doyle did indeed write a lot of historical fiction. He aspired to be something like the next Walter Scott, and was always deeply disappointed that no one was much interested in his historical fiction. They just wanted to read Holmes stories, which both puzzled and infuriated him. I haven't read any of Conan Doyle's historical fiction since back in High School and I can't remember the White Company well enough to speak to the possible influences on Eco. It's an interesting idea though that Eco may have been thinking of other Conan Doyle works. Certainly Eco's background as a Medieval scholar would have to be the primary impetus for the setting of The Name of the Rose, but it would be intriguing to see if there are some ways that Conan Doyle's work influenced Eco's portrayal of the period.
Petrarch, thanks for taking the time to talk about this idea and possibility. I thought you, of all people, might have a better insight into the connection and I am glad you do know of Doyle's other works, besides Sherlock Holmes tales. It is interesting you should mention Scott, because as I was reading "The White Company" I thought there was a similiarity to Sir Walter Scott's novels. I was so amazed to find that Conon Doyle had written something, other than mystery stories involving the notorious Sherlock Holmes. I don't know of anyone else who has read the book or any other of his historical fiction. I read online that these had fallen out of popularity and yet, I thought TWC was quite witty and well written. I will have to see what else I can find out about the novel in connection to Eco's thinking and creativity.Quote:
Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love
Virgil, yes, these audiobooks can be quite helpful indeed. Unfortunately, I could not listen and read along with this one, since it was abridged, but still I felt it was a good introduction to the story and I enjoyed certain parts very much. The narrator did all the parts as though it was a play; therefore it was quite captivating. I just wish I had had time to listen to it twice but I had to return it tonight to my library. I can always get it out and listen to it again after reading the actual book, which I took from the library tonight. I am intrigued enough to give the book a second chance.
Niamh, It is true that you had mentioned both - Romanesque and the Gothic. I was mostly reading part of your statement, that was quoted by someone else, think DM, so I guess I missed this full description and the one encompassing the Gothic arches. Sorry about that. I think it must have been terrifying, as you describe, especially at night.Quote:
Yes, i'd kind of mentioned that in my post....
Quote:
The last one definitely is. I'm not sure about the first one, i think its romanesque from the curve at the top of the tymphanum, but the second one is Gothic. The west facade of Chartres Cathedral is amazing at night time. All lit up. I really like the Tymphanum at Autun Cathedral. The images are really grotesques, and scary. I'm sure any person walking up to the west facade of that cathedral would be terrified at the sight of it. In that sense you can almost imaging the terror Adso was feeling upon looking at the tymphanum of the church in the book.
Ok, I posted on the description of the church door. Now in contrast is the extended description of the marginalia art that Adelmo paints in the folios. The marginalia description also occurs on the first day in the chapter After Nones. William and Adso meet the scholars and copyists in the scriptorium. Let me copy out the entire important section:
And then in another book, the following imagery is described:Quote:
This was a psalter in whose margins was delineated a world reversed with respect to the one to which our senses have accustomed us. As if at the border of a discourse that is by definition the discourse of truth, there proceeded, closely linked to it, through wondrous allusions in aenigmate, a discourse of falsehood on a topsy-turvy universe, in which dogs flee before the hare, and deer hunt the lion. Little bird-feet heads,, animals with human hands on their back, hirsute pates from which feet sprout, zebra-striped dragons, quadrupeds with serpentine necks twisted in a thousand inextricable knots, monkeys with stags’ horns, sirens in the form of fowl with membranous wins, armless men with other human bodies emerging from their backs like humps, and figures with tooth-filled mouths on the belly, humans with horses’ heads, and horses with human legs, fish with birds’ wings and birds with fishtails, monsters with single bodies and double heads or single heads and double bodies, cows with cocks’ tails and butterfly wings, women with heads scaly as a fish’s back, two-headed chimeras interlaced with dragonflies with lizard snouts, centaurs, dragons, elephants, manticores stretched out on tree branches, gryphons whose tails turned into an archer in battle array, diabolical creatures with endless necks, sequences of anthropomorphic animals and zoomorphic dwarfs joined, sometimes on the same page, with scenes of rustic life in which you saw, depicted with such impressive vivacity that the figures seemed alive, all the life of the fields, plowmen, fruit gatherers, harvesters, spinning-women, sowers alongside foxes, and martens armed with crossbows who were scaling the walls of a towered city defended by monkeys. Here an initial letter, bent into an L, in the lower part generated a dragon; there a great V, which began the word “verba,” produced as a natural shoot from its trunk a serpent with a thousand coils, which in turn begot other serpents as leaves and clusters.
What is different I think about these images is that they do not fit orthodox structure of the world view. One of the themes of the novel, perhaps the central theme, is that congruent to the orthodox world view is a subversive world view that wants to over turn orthodoxy. These images represent a “world reverse,” a “topsy-turvy universe” stated in the first two sentences I quoted. While the church door represents a conservative outlook, the marginalia suggests a subversive outlook. So much of the novel deals with the nature of heresy and what is heretical. Heresy by its nature is a subversive belief, an inversion of the natural perspective, an undermining of the signs that maintain a common understanding of how the world works.Quote:
The entire margins of the book were invaded by minuscule forms that generated one another, as if by natural expansion, from the terminal scrolls of the splendidly drawn letters: sea sirens, stags in flight, chimeras, armless human torsos that emerged like slugs from the very body of the verses. At one point, as if to continue the triple “Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus” repeated on three different lines, you saw three ferocious figures with human heads, two of which were bent, one downward and one upward, to join in a kiss you would not have hesitated to call immodest if you were not persuaded that a profound, even if not evident, spiritual meaning must surely have justified that illustration at that point.
What is important following the absorption of these images is Adso’s reaction:
And then Adso recalls a verse in his vernacular German, which translates to the following:Quote:
As I followed those pages I was torn between silent admiration and laughter, because the illustrations naturally inspired merriment, though they were commenting on holy pages.
The earth above heaven is the inversion of established mindset. And the reaction of laughter, not only Adso but William and Malachi and the other monks, stands in stark contrast to the stern reaction of God on the throne admonishing. Those that have read the novel know the importance of laughter in the novel. Laughter is the subversive reaction that will take the world of the middle ages into the world of the Renaissance. At least that’s my understanding of this novel.Quote:
Be silent about all wonders;
That earth has risen above heaven—
This you should consider a wonder.
Very well said, perhaps it is also symbolic of the fact that it seems there are things within the monostatry that may not be quite as orthodox, as they may appear upon the outside without further exmination.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
Also sense you mentioned hersey which does play a role, I think William had made some very good statements on the subject, perhpas when I get the oppertunity I shall quote some of the ones that particulary struck me.
Thanks DM. Please do.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Muse
Here are some passages upon the subject or relating to the subject of heresy that I found interesting within the book, up to the point I have read thus far.
Quote:
And this is the evil that heresy inflicts on the Christian people, obfuscating idea and inciting all to become inquisitors for their personal benefits.
These first two are acutally by Adso.Quote:
For what I saw at the abbey then caused me to think that often inquisitors create heretics. And not only in the sense that they imagine heretics where these do not exist, but also the inquisitors repress the heretical putrefaction so vehemently that many are driven to share in it, in their hatred for the judges.
The next are from a discussion between Ubertino and William though I did not copy the whole discussion, I quoted the highlights and what I thought the most interesting and important parts.
Ubertino:
Quote:
They gathered at night in a cellar, they took a newborn boy, they threw him from one to the other until he died, of blows or other causes. And he who caught hum alive for the last time, and held him ad he died became the leader of the sect. And the child's body was torn to pieces and mixed with flour.
William:
Ubertino:Quote:
These things were said, many centuries ago, by the Armenian bishops about the sect of Paulicians. And about the Bogomils
William:Quote:
They lighted candles on Easter night and took maidens into the cellar. Than they extinguished the candles and threw themselves on the maidens, even if they were bound to them by ties of blood. And if from this conjunction a baby was born, the infernal rite was resumed, all around a little jar of wine, which they called a keg, and they became drunk and would cut the baby to pieces and pour its blood into a goblet, and they threw babies on the fires still alive, and they mixed the babies ashes and his blood and drank.
Quote:
But Michael Psellus wrote this in his book on the workings of devils three hundred years ago!
One thing I found interesting is that it was mentioned that Ubertino himself was accused of hersey and yet it seems he is unable to see how perhaps he might be doing the same thing to his enimies in his accusations, that others are trying to do to him.Quote:
Under torture you say not only what the inquisitor wants, but also what you imagine might please him, because a bond is established between you and him.
Those were horrific images (some), but so very interesting Dark Muse. Thanks so much for taking the time to look all of that up and quoting it. I assume you had to retype it all. Good job.
Virgil I read your post also, and found it an interesting two parts of the book. I recall when listening to my tapes I stopped and listened intently to those two sections - the images were so vivid and I love all the art in the novel. Likewise, if you had to type all of that, thanks so much for taking the effort. This is quite interesting and I am getting much out of this discussion on the novel, even though mostly I am just reading along with the posts.
Hehe yes I did retype, so I am glad you enjoyed. Indeed some of the images were quite horrific but also much intriguing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Janine
Hehe. Now that I went back to re-read that paragraph, it is very well written if I say so myself. Sometimes the words come out just right. Usually it takes a bit of rewriting (which I don't do for lit net posts) for me to rise to that level of writing, but this time the sentences came out well balanced and with precision and rhythm. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Muse
Virgil, :thumbs_up :D on your long post and great observations! That was very helpful. Thanks.:)
Janine, these are just my theories. I can't even begin to consider myself an expert on this novel. If someone has better ideas or thinks otherwise, I'm more than open to revising my thoughts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Janine
;) I know that and that is ok, I like you theories. They help me understand the book much better. I am hoping to actually read the book now. I can't promise anything. It is a library book and so it is hard having a time limit to read it. I would really like to mull over it for months; I read like that sometimes, you know. I will have two weeks, and I can renew it another two weeks and then have a grace period, so that is a long time, I suppose. I have other books to read too, so we will see. I have only part of the last chapter left in "Kangaroo"; will be done with that novel today. I have enjoyed it.;) :thumbs_up Then we have Chekhov and Lawrence short stories and "Dubliners"; I can deal with those easily though. Oh yeah, and still need to listen to second half of "Women in Love"....do I sound bogged down? Well, it should all work out now. I have the desire to do all these mentioned. Thanks for recommending this novel TNOTR. I find it fascinating:nod:Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
god i loved this book...
i'll have to read through all your posts...i just wanted to express how much i love and respect mr. eco and this book...
OOOHHHHH!!!!:flare:
I really hope William out smarts that bernard whats his face guy!!!
Here is a very interesting exchange between William and Jorge. It's on the second day, the Terce chapter. They are back in the library and the two have a debate over laughter and comedy.
I think the key line is William's response mid way: "“But sometimes it is right to doubt.”" The connection between laughter as a response to doubt is a central theme, but I think Eco is also suggesting, although not so much in this scene, that redicule, that which produces laughter, is a method of undercutting ideals and that is why Jorge is so compelled to prevent the comic impulse.Quote:
At first I could not understand why William had embarked on this learned discussion, and with a man who seemed to dislike such subjects, but Jorge’s reply told me how subtle my master had been.
“That day we were not discussing comedies, but only the licitness of laughter,” Jorge said grimly. I remembered very well that when Venantius had referred to that discussion, only the day before, Jorge had claimed not to remember it.
“Ah,” William said casually, “I thought you had spoken of poets’ lies and shrewd riddles. ...”
“We talked about laughter,” Jorge said sharply. “The comedies were written by the pagans to move spectators to laughter, and they acted wrongly. Our Lord Jesus never told comedies or fables, but only clear parables which allegorically instruct us on how to win paradise, and so be it.”
“I wonder,” William said, “why you are so opposed to the idea that Jesus may have laughed. I believe laughter is a good medicine, like baths, to treat humors and the other afflictions of the body, melancholy in particular.”
“Baths are a good thing,” Jorge said, “and Aquinas himself advises them for dispelling sadness, which can be a bad passion when it is not addressed to an evil that can be dispelled through boldness. Baths restore the balance of the humors. Laughter shakes the body, distorts the features of the face,
makes man similar to the monkey.”
“Monkeys do not laugh; laughter is proper to man, it is a sign of his rationality,” William said.
“Speech is also a sign of human rationality, and with speech a man can blaspheme against God. Not everything that is proper to man is necessarily good. He who laughs does not believe in what he laughs at, but neither does he hate it. Therefore, laughing at evil means not preparing oneself to combat it, and laughing at good means denying the power through which good is self-propagating. This is why the Rule says, ‘The tenth degree of humility is not to be quick to laughter, as it is written: stultus in risu exaltat vocem suam.’ ”
“Quintilian,” my master interrupted, “says that laughter is to be repressed in the panegyric, for the sake of dignity, but it is to be encouraged in many other cases. Pliny the Younger wrote, ‘Sometimes Ilaugh, I jest, I play, because I am a man.’ ”
“They were pagans,” Jorge replied. “The Rule forbids with stern words these trivialities: ‘Scurrilitates vero vel verba otiosa et risum moventia aeterna clausura in omnibus locis damnamus, et ad talia eloquia
discipulum aperire os non permittimus.’ ”
“But once the word of Christ had triumphed on the earth, Synesius of Cyrene said that the divinity could harmoniously combine comic and tragic, and Aelius Spartianus said of the Emperor Hadrian, man of lofty behavior and of naturaliter Christian spirit, that he could mingle moments of gaiety with
moments of gravity. And finally Ausonius recommended moderate use of the serious and the jocose.”
“But Paulinus of Nola and Clement of Alexandria put us on guard against such foolishness, and Sulpicius Severus said that no one ever saw Saint Martin in the grip of wrath or in the grip of hilarity.”
“But he recalled some replies of the saint spiritualiter salsa,” William said.
“They were prompt and wise, not ridiculous. Saint Ephraim wrote an exhortation against the laughter of monks, and in the De habitu et conversatione monachorum there is a strong warning to avoid
obscenity and witticisms as if they were asp venom!”
“But Hildebertus said, ‘Admittenda tibi ioca sunt post seria quaedam, sed tamen et dignis ipsa gerenda modis.’ And John of Salisbury authorized a discreet hilarity. And finally Ecclesiastes, whom you quoted in the passage to which your Rule refers, where it says that laughter is proper to the fool, permits at least silent laughter, in the serene spirit.”
The spirit is serene only when it contemplates the truth and takes delight in good achieved, and truth and good are not to be laughed at. This is why Christ did not laugh. Laughter foments doubt.”
“But sometimes it is right to doubt.”
“I cannot see any reason. When you are in doubt, you must turn to an authority, to the words of a father or of a doctor; then all reason for doubt ceases. You seem to me steeped in debatable doctrines, like those of the logicians of Paris. But Saint Bernard knew well how to intervene against
the castrate Abelard, who wanted to submit all problems to the cold, lifeless scrutiny of reason not enlightened by Scripture, pronouncing his It-is-so and It-is-not-so. Certainly one who accepts dangerous ideas can also appreciate the jesting of the ignorant man who laughs at the sole truth one should know, which has already been said once and for all. With his laughter the fool says in his heart, ‘Deus non est.’ ”
“Venerable Jorge, you seem to me unjust when you call Abelard a castrate, because you know that he incurred that sad condition through the wickedness of others. ...”
“For his sins. For the pride of his faith in man’s reason. So the faith of the simple was mocked, the mysteries of God were eviscerated (or at least this was tried, fools they who tried), questions concerning the loftiest things were treated recklessly, the fathers were mocked because they had
considered that such questions should have been subdued, rather than raised.”
“I do not agree, venerable Jorge. Of us God demands that we apply our reason to many obscure things about which Scripture has left us free to decide. And when someone suggests you believe in a proposition, you must first examine it to see whether it is acceptable, because our reason was created by God, and whatever pleases our reason can but please divine reason, of which, for that matter, we know only what we infer from the processes of our own reason by analogy and often by negation. Thus,
you see, to undermine the false authority of an absurd proposition that offends reason, laughter can sometimes also be a suitable instrument. And laughter serves to confound the wicked and to make their foolishness evident. It is told of Saint Maurus that when the pagans put him in boiling water, he complained that the bath was too cold; the pagan governor foolishly put his hand in the water to test it, and burned himself. A fine action of that sainted martyr who ridiculed the enemies of the faith.”
Jorge sneered. “Even in the episodes the preachers tell, there are many old wives’ tales. A saint immersed in boiling water suffers for Christ and restrains his cries, he does not play childish tricks on the pagans!”
“You see?” William said. “This story seems to you offensive to reason and you accuse it of being ridiculous! Though you are controlling your lips, you are tacitly laughing at something, nor do you wish me to take it seriously. You are laughing at laughter, but you are laughing.”
I also found the discussion about laguhter within the book to be an interesting one, though I have not yet gotten that far within the book as I have been reading other things as well, but I do recall their previous discussions on the subject
Hey, Virgil, you didn't vote yet for the book.
I didn't finish. I'm only a third of the way through. I will eventually.Quote:
Originally Posted by Janine
Geez, I should have kept with it. I took the book back to my library thinking it was hopeless when I got sick. I didn't know you had not progressed further. Now I am into other reading so I guess I will have to abandon this for now - unless I relisten to the audiotapes - which are quite fascinating actually. A second time around would be so much better and clearer to me. I may do that if this is not too late in here and apparently this thread is left "open-ended". It is certainly a fascinating book to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
My vote is coming as well. I didn't read as much as I should've, when other books got in my way. I've got about 300 pages left.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
Just finished reading the novel. Brilliant!
Had ordered the movie on dvd, which arrived yesterday...might go watch that...
I had kind of suspected you know who (no spoiler for those who havent finished it yet) a few times, but then went nah!
Hi Niamh, Glad you liked the book. I guess it is not too late to post something in here - right? Now that pressure is off, I might try to listen again to the audiobook. I felt it was brilliant, too. If I make it to my library, in the next few days, I should try to check it out. It was quite good the first time around, but during some of it, I lost my full attention span, because I was multi-tasking.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niamh
I would love to see that film. Cross-my-fingers, maybe this month it will come into my library. I think I saw it there once before. If not, maybe I can request it from another library. Let me know how is it, if you can.
Just finished the book!! Whoo Hoo. Now I have to read through all the posts.
Ok, I finally finished The Name of the Rose. I was a great book, and the ending was magnificent. I must say that I cannot claim to understand the core of the work, but I can sense the major themes. Here are some of them. (1) Semiotics, how do we interpret the signs in the world. (2) The labyrinth as a metaphor for our traveling through our lives. (3) The establishment of an understanding of the world’s order based on how we interpret the signs and how we wind our way through the labyrinth. (4) Subversion of the established understanding of the world’s order. (5) Apocalypse as the metaphor for the destruction of one world view so that can be constituted.
I can’t copy from a web site instances of these themes and I don’t have the patience to type out huge swaths of narrative, but I think if you look through the scenes you can those themes. I’m sure there are more. Here’s a particular passage at the climax where Jorge and William confront each other and argue. This is Jorge speaking on why he has hid the Aristotle book on laughter and comedy:
What Jorge is referring to is the transition that has occurred from the Platonic view of the universe held n the early middle ages to the Aristotelian view (represented by William of Occam and Thomas Aquinas) by the high middle ages, and that if this book (which I don’t think actually exists or has been lost to history) would further undermine the nature of our understanding of God.Quote:
“…And so the cosmos, which for the Areopagite revealed itself to those who knew how to look up at the luminous cascade of the exemplary first cause, has become a preserve of terrestrial evidence for which they refer to an abstract agent. Before, we used to look to heaven, deigning only a frowning glance at the mire of matter; now we look at the earth, and we believe in the heavens because of earthly testimony. Every word of the Philosopher, by whom now even saints and prophets swear, has overturned the image of the world. But he had not succeeded in overturning the image of God. If this book were to become…had become an object for open interpretation, we would have crossed the last boundary.”
William rebuts with the nature of jokes and how they liberate the mind, and actually concludes his rebuttal with the most fascinating of lines:
That is an incredible line that strikes at the very themes of the novel. Perhaps if there is a central theme of the novel it may be that. Semiotics is a human endeavor, completely lacking in significance to the outside world. There is no real interpretation of the world, just the human mind making something out of what it sees. And so I think that’s why the novel may be post modern. Ultimately it undermines all generated orders of the universe.Quote:
“The hand of God creates; it does not conceal.”
A side note, those that try to find signs in history toward some destination (for instance Marx) are foolishly interpreting signs, according to this understanding of reality. There are no signs or destinations predetermined. Just events.
Something I don’t understand though. Why this animosity by Eco to Jorge Borges. Jorge, the character, the villain, is clearly modeled on Borges the writer. I don’t understand that in the least.
If I have a negative criticism, the characters sometimes, actually many times, come across as stick figure ideas. They are not very deep or three dimensional. But this is a novel of ideas, rolled together into a cracker jack mystery story. I consider this a great novel.