Today I figured I'd try to read through The Name of The Rose by Umberto Eco, and am currently about ~60pgs. I feel profoundly dumb. To lay out my bonafides, last year I got a little under halfway through Foucault's Pendulum before tapping out because I found the plot too meandering and felt that I had more or less 'got' what Eco was getting at. Conspiracy theories bad, and a conspiratorial mindset can connect pretty much anything to anything else. Or something like that.
I can appreciate that Eco is clearly a very intelligent guy, but his prose and characters aren't (from what I've read) particularly affecting. I don't feel much emotional connection to any of them, and the dialogue often feels at least a little stilted.
This far in TNoTR, I feel pretty lost in terms of context. Without a passing knowledge in monastic and theological schisms in the fourteenth century, I don't have much of a grasp on the theological and political background context which the novel is steeped in. It makes it pretty difficult to orient myself with what's going on and what the stakes are.
What doesn't help are the sections of untranslated Latin. I get it, Eco, you can understand Latin, very cool – please get on with the story. It also doesn't make a great deal of sense to me because (ostensibly) I'm reading William Weaver's english translation of Umberto Eco's Italian translation of a fictitious neo-gothic French book by Abbé Vallet which is itself a translation of Adso of Melk's manuscript which was written in Latin. So within the framing device, I struggle to understand why there'd be untranslated Latin. I'm sure I can gloss the meaning from context, but if the Latin is so inconsequential, WHY INCLUDE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.
I just…I don't know, guys. I want to like Umberto Eco, I want to enjoy his novels, but whenever I read them I feel profoundly bored and profoundly stupid. The primary emotion they elicit is frustration: at the text and at myself for not "getting" it. It's not like I can't enjoy difficult texts, Book of The New Sun and Moby-Dick are two of my favourite books Maybe my inability to makes me moron with utterly plebian tastes, but I just don't get what I'm missing here.
Update:
Despite my gripes, I've pushed on and completed Day One. Some people imply that the novel gets a bit less arduous from here, and I suppose I should see for myself. William's final line was a lovely gem of wisdom. I also get the sense that Jorge de Burgos is being framed in an antagonistic or even villainous light – which is weird, because I can't fathom why an author would portray Jorge Luis Borges as a bad guy. Maybe I'm reading too much into what little information I have to work with. I'll stick with it and may post another thread after Day Two.
Update Two:
Yeah, this one just isn't for me. It's not captured my interest, and reading it feels like a chore. I'm fine reading "difficult" works so long as I'm enjoying the process and being told an enjoyable story. This is just work to slog through. Didn't finish.
by jaythejayjay
31 Comments
Pretty sure that untranslated latin is supposed to make you feel uncounfortable or out of place. It’s the same strategy movies use when they put a character talking in a different language than the rest without subtitles.
“Without a passing knowledge in monastic and theological schisms…”
I think the (admittedly rather slow) first 100 pages of *Name of the Rose* are meant to give you that passing knowledge.
At the end of the day, it’s a historical crime thriller. A particularly highbrow one, but still a historical crime thriller, and imho therefore in the category of ‘read it if you’re enjoying it, but if not don’t worry about it’
The Name of the Rose is indeed challenge. If you don’t want to go the long way you can watch the Sean Connery adaptation.
I loved it, but I think I just cheerfully read around some of the things that you’re hung up on. It’s a historical mystery at the end of the day, with the detectives in increasing peril as the book goes on.
It’s fine if it’s not your thing, and it’s still fine if it’s not your thing because you feel so out of your depth that you don’t enjoy the reading experience. I was at the library yesterday, looked at a blurb, and said to my partner, “is it OK if I admit that I’m totally defeated by deeply symbolic Latin American novels?” You are not alone! And you aren’t a moron.
I think it might not be fair to use your lack of understanding as a yardstick for how good the novel is. It’s not for you; that’s absolutely valid. Not every book is for every reader. But to try to suggest that your frustrations demonstrate an issue with the book is unfair to the book and makes your opinion seem petty and small-minded.
(There’s a book, *The Key to the Name of the Rose*, that translates the Latin and explains the historical context of the characters.)
Back in the 90s my friend Harry warned me off *Foucault’s Pendulum*. He understood my limits.
Not all writings are supposed to elicit an emotional connection.
You might need to build up your understanding with more background knowledge, too.
It’s been *years* since I’ve read The Name of the Rose, I think back then I was in high school, but I still remember it as one of the best books I’ve ever read. Eco is a master of semiotics. His prose is not meant to make you *feel*, but *think*.
Symbolism hides in every sentence and every word he picks, in expressions, and in imagery. They are purposeful and are supposed to send a hidden message for the reader to find. Look at the novel as a game of clues, think of yourself as a detective solving the murders. I remember the the first scene in the book, the one describing the road to the abbey, is filled with so much symbolism, it blew my mind as soon as I understood what he was trying to convey.
It’s not an easy read. Most of the time you have to re-read a paragraph to fully grasp the meaning of it. But once you understand what the novel stands for, you’re in for a ride.
I love Eco, but I would warn anyone whom I recommend his books to that the first ~100 pages can be a hard going but in the end it’s worthwhile. That being said, I could never get into The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, perhaps because the subject matter isn’t that intriguing to me.
As for not understanding the political and theological turmoil in the Name of the Rose, it isn’t really necessary to understand them to follow the plot. The crime at hand is about the monks and the murders, and ~~Sherlock Holmes~~ William of Baskerville figuring out who did it.
I first read the book at around 17, and since have actually become a historian of the Middle Ages with a lot of knowledge of the politics and intrigue going on. It does make the story richer if you do have that knowledge. Just like reading the Silmarillion and knowing the Norse Sagas can make the Lord of the Rings better – but you don’t need it.
—
**Here’s the nerd part**
If you do want a rough idea about the background:
The monastery is run by old school monks that follow the rule of St Benedict. They want to be left alone and pray as they wait for the end of the world.
The Franciscans are a new order of monks that believes its members should be poor and do charitable work to make the world a better place. William is a Franciscan.
Some Franciscans – the Spirituals – say that not only should their monks be poor, but the church itself should be poor and give away all its wealth. These are the guys around Ubertino of Casale.
The Spiritual position is considered dangerous by the popes, because there are heretics in Europe – the Waldensians and others – who also preached poverty and charity (and murdered wealthy priests, a few years before the events).
Rome sends some judges (the legates) to determine whether they should ban the Spiritual Franciscans or the entirety of the Franciscan order. The prosecutor tasked with this is Bernardo Gui (who belongs to the Dominican order, whose mission is serving the church).
William has sympathy for the Spirituals.
Many Waldensians and other heretics sought refuge in monasteries and with the Franciscans after they were crushed. Everyone in the book is aware of that, and everyone hurls accusations and suspicions over this…
Edit: the Franciscans are also the only ones with a sense of humor. Their founder St Francis of Assisi used laughter and jokes to appeal to the masses, which was unheard of before.
If you don’t mind your flow being disrupted I find having wikipedia at the ready on my phone is a must while reading Eco’s works in order to actually get enough of an understanding of what’s being written about. I personally don’t mind and love the little tangents those articles lead me down. I remember in one session of reading Rose, this was around midway through the book I think, I ended up with like 35 tabs open about various biographies, Church doctrines and numerous historical events.
*The Name of the Rose* is what *The Da Vinci Code* wanted/tried to be.
I didn’t finish Foucault’s Pendulum because it went over my head when I read it.
There are two things you can do to rectify this situation: Let yourself feel stupid, miss a whole bunch of meaning and *finish* the story and then pick up the stuff you missed on re-read.
Or you can simply not read it and chalk it up to not liking Eco’s style.
Both are perfectly valid; and in the case of difficult texts, I prefer to treat myself as a simpleton, not read deep, and then appreciate what I can, so that when I revisit it later, after chewing on it for a bit, I find more to the story that I missed the first time.
I did not get much out of Book of the New Sun the first time. But the second read was glorious. The third read, more so.
We had to study Il Nome della Rosa in high school (liceo classico) in Italy and we were told Eco purposely wrote the first 100 pages to be difficult to shed the more “commercial” readers.
But also, his intention was never to write a straight historical crime thriller. He wanted to comment on religion, semiotics and philosophy, and to attract as many people as possible he wrapped the candy (religion, semiotic and philosophy) in a colorful wrap (the thriller).
IIRC, Eco comments on the difficulty of the first hundred pages in “Postscript to The Name of the Rose,” which appears at the end in some editions. The Postscript is itself a joy if you like that kind of thing.
🤣 Apart from having two sisters married to Italians, the main reason I wanted to learn Italian was to be able to read *Il nome della rosa* in the original. Then I discovered I’d have to learn at least some Latin, too. So I did. But I majored in French with a minor in mediaeval history, so had already read and been interested by several original documents from the period.
No shame in putting it away and returning to it, *if you want to*, next year or even later.
Maybe Eco just isn’t for you. Not every author is fascinating or enjoyable to every reader.
My long-term Book I Feel I Ought To Finish is James Joyce’s *Ulysses*. 35 years and counting. Slowly.
I remember the first 100 pages of my first time reading that book were a total struggle. It’s dense and pedantic.
But you don’t have to understand all of this material to enjoy the book, it gets a little more straightforward later, and slowly you start to understand some more of the archaic stuff.
The book is designed as a page turner for people who studied classics or are super smart or have read shit tons of books (like Borges, Nabokov, other high modernist stuff), but it also works as a murder mystery for people who can pretend they are smart. Just pretend you understand it for a bit, and eventually things will click.
Or just put it down. No shame in that. I’m glad I pushed through and read it and have read it once or twice since then. Not a huge Eco fan, but Foucault’s Pendulum is good too.
I’ve read both and I am basically a dumb-dumb. The Name of the Rose will become more clear as you go along so if you hang in there I thought the pay off was worth it. The first time I read it many years ago, I called in sick to work to finish it because I was so engrossed by the end! I don’t remember Foucault’s Pendulum as well but I remember being thoroughly confused but I do remember getting it by the end and thinking that the sense of confusion actually added to the book since the main character is also thoroughly confused! The untranslated Latin bits just help you (or me anyway) that I am lost in a world I don’t understand. A literary labyrinth, which is fitting!
I doubt Eco’s intent was to show off his knowledge of Latin. He is presenting the reader with a puzzle, which can be more or less ‘puzzling’, excuse the pun, depending on your own knowledge of Latin but remains a puzzle for anyone. I would advise you to gloss over anything you don’t understand and let the book guide you through the story instead. No need to feel intellectually stunted at all, I can assure you you can appreciate the book with zero knowledge of Latin. That being said, once you’re done, if you liked the book and are still curious, you can look up translations online to unlock the Easter eggs hidden behind the Latin, if you will.
All Latin phrases are translated in the Appendix.
Didn’t Eco say that the price of entry for Name the Rose was the first 100 pages?
Read Baudolino it’s more accessible and a lot of fun.
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>I had more or less ‘got’ what Eco was getting at. Conspiracy theories bad, and a conspiratorial mindset can connect pretty much anything to anything else. Or something like that.
I just want to say, as someone who has read the whole thing, this isn’t quite it. Eco’s protagonist *is* increasingly skeptical of conspiratorial thinking–until >!of course, the conspiracies all end up being true. And deadly. And the protagonist survives only by the skin of his teeth. His friend, who flippantly creates the algorithm to deduce the name of God, doesn’t fare so well.!<
I think Eco’s actual point is that >!while these conspiracies seem absurd, and they might not all be true–there are enough conspirators (and maybe even substance) that they can have lethal power, even for the skeptical.!<
The Name of the Rose is an infamously challenging text, and Eco is an infamously challenging writer.
I do not think struggling to read it indicates you are “dumb”.
There’s a book that may be helpful to you (it was to me) called “Key to The Name of the Rose” by Adele Haft. It helped me read the book, which is actually good in its own right.
Name Of The Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum are two of the very few books that I’ve read twice. Name wasn’t too bad except for a many-pages chunk where he’s basically information dumping a lot of stuff about heresies and schisms; I found it to be a really interesting mystery. Foucault’s is definitely less straightforward (but I still loved it, in high school I spent way too much time reading stuff about the Golden Dawn, OTO, etc, and it came out right at the end of high school so I was primed and ready for it).
The only other one I’ve read is Baudolino… it felt much more straightforward. Very fantastical, but straightforward (though I’m sure me not being a historian or a scholar of religious mythology meant a lot went over my head). Maybe give it a try if you’re not completely turned off of Eco (and no big deal if you are, there are a lot of books out there, no need to torture yourself).
Eco was once asked in an interview how he felt about the fact that many people bought Foucault’s Pendulum, but few of them managed to get through it. He responded, “Isn’t that every novelist’s dream, to be bought by many but read by few?” It was a funny response, but it tells you something about how he sees himself and his audience.
That said, I did like The Name of the Rose, and Foucault’s Pendulum (though less so), and I’ve read and enjoyed plenty of his other books, like The Island of the Day Before and Baudolino. I actually enjoy all the intellectual distractions and philosophical asides, but I get that it’s not for everyone.
If you still want to give Eco a try, maybe read his columns/essays (for example, How to Travel with a Salmon), which are much more lighthearted and funnier than the novels. Funnily enough, one of the essays is a list of made-up publisher’s rejections of famous books, and the one for James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake reads, “Please send back the manuscript. I only review books in English, and this is written in some kind of gibberish language that I don’t speak.”
Eco is *meaty*. If you’re getting through his writing at a quarter of the speed you usually go at, you’re doing good.
You’re not stupid. But even if you don’t get everything the first read-through, you’re picking up on stuff.
The thing to remember is it tries to be a historically accurate mystery. The debate of Christ’s poverty was a real topic and some of the characters are real. William himself js based on a real person who held similar opinions to Williams. I think Eco wanted to provide the reader the historical context because the events and character motivation involved in the mystery really do incorporate the history of the times depicted. When you read further you’ll find some of the characters have background history with some more controversial religious sects. It’s all related. For me I found it interesting so when I was reading this, I often looked up the actual history on wiki. Maybe that’ll help. This will also allow.yoi to skim through the exposition you don’t find enticing enough to read through.
I read the book as a Uni student, so I was maybe 19-20. While I’m a bit of a history nerd and always have been, my knowledge on church history and schisms is limited at best. You don’t need to know that much though. Eco built this novel in layers and he did it on purpose. There is the church/medieval history, there is the religious aspects, the philosophical ones, the crime and mystery etc. anybody can get something from it, by tapping into the layer(s) they feel comfortable with or have knowledge to interpret. I’m a Communication major and this particular work by Eco is recommended a lot in the study of semiotics. I really recommend using a good annotated edition, that includes translations of any unknown Latin word. It will make a big difference.
I just finished reading it yesterday, shit you not. Parts were a chore but the end is worth it.
But here’s a website which
translates all the untranslated bits:
https://marco.tompitak.com/notr/
Was very helpful. Especially that last line.
What I loved about the Name of the Rose is that you take on the role of both of the protagonists. Anyone who reads it is inherently naive like Adso (due to the historical nuances, languages, etc.) , and if you want to understand the novel you have to do an exorbitant amount of research ala William of Baskerville.
I find the novel to be one of the most enjoyable that I have read, but it is a process. If you can get into the research and learning about the specific historical elements, you will enjoy it.