I was really very disappointed by The Name of the Rose, I somehow expected so much more from a book that has received such critical acclaim. To be fair there is a good story in there, a very good story even, it’s just a little hard to find in amongst all the excess waffle and self-aggrandising tosh. In fairness it is very possible that some, at least, of my complaints may be down to the translator (one William Weaver) rather than Eco himself but certainly not all of it. This book doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be: medieval docudrama, religious docudrama, murder mystery, philosophical debate, or maybe a set text for a Latin student.
Bearing in mind that this book was first published in 1980, it is pretentious in the extreme. There are extensive passages in Latin; just how many potential readers in 1980 would have stood any chance of reading those Latin passages? Of course it does endear it to the literary academics who love to demonstrate just how smart and well educated they are. Even the English text was a problem, constantly using archaic words long since gone out of use that were not even to be found in my Collins dictionary and necessitated constant googling until I got fed up with it (life’s too short) and I started guessing their meaning from context instead! “Oh, but,” I hear you say “that increases the realism and atmosphere; it is set in medieval times after all!” However this isn’t realism; realism would have required the whole thing to have been written in Latin. Latin would have been the lingua franca of the day, especially in a monastery and particularly when involving monks taken from all over Europe, so using archaic English words is not realistic, it’s just confusing for the average reader.
This is a long book – 500 pages in my edition – that could have been reduced by at least two thirds without detracting in any way from the plot or, more importantly for an historical fiction like this, any loss of medieval atmosphere. It is not necessary to describe every bit of doubtless well researched minutiae in order to create such an atmosphere (for example six pages of exposition to describe the sculpture over the church door that advanced the story not one iota). Although it does of course demonstrate most eloquently just how much dedicated research Signor Eco has put in and the VERY extensive philosophical passages demonstrate what a marvellous semiotician he is, though this time not so eloquently; at least I found them neither clear nor persuasive. In fact so much detail eventually bores and consequently achieves the opposite by destroying any atmosphere that might otherwise have been achieved.
Now, please don’t get me wrong; I am interested in the details of medieval life and am in fact currently reading a non-fiction book on medieval life in a city. The problem is that in a non-fiction book such details can be presented in an interesting manner not really available to a writer of fiction, particularly historic fiction. In the novel such levels of detail just get in the way of the story being told. I confess that by the end of the book I was skimming long passages until something actually starts happening again. Incidentally I am also currently reading a novel set, admittedly, a few centuries later which manages very effectively to create the atmosphere of its period (17th century) using the structure of sentences far more than the use of obscure archaic words.
All very sad really since, as I’ve already said, there is a very good story tucked away in there; it just required unreasonable amounts of dedication to extract it.
Bearing in mind that this book was first published in 1980, it is pretentious in the extreme. There are extensive passages in Latin; just how many potential readers in 1980 would have stood any chance of reading those Latin passages? Of course it does endear it to the literary academics who love to demonstrate just how smart and well educated they are. Even the English text was a problem, constantly using archaic words long since gone out of use that were not even to be found in my Collins dictionary and necessitated constant googling until I got fed up with it (life’s too short) and I started guessing their meaning from context instead! “Oh, but,” I hear you say “that increases the realism and atmosphere; it is set in medieval times after all!” However this isn’t realism; realism would have required the whole thing to have been written in Latin. Latin would have been the lingua franca of the day, especially in a monastery and particularly when involving monks taken from all over Europe, so using archaic English words is not realistic, it’s just confusing for the average reader.
This is a long book – 500 pages in my edition – that could have been reduced by at least two thirds without detracting in any way from the plot or, more importantly for an historical fiction like this, any loss of medieval atmosphere. It is not necessary to describe every bit of doubtless well researched minutiae in order to create such an atmosphere (for example six pages of exposition to describe the sculpture over the church door that advanced the story not one iota). Although it does of course demonstrate most eloquently just how much dedicated research Signor Eco has put in and the VERY extensive philosophical passages demonstrate what a marvellous semiotician he is, though this time not so eloquently; at least I found them neither clear nor persuasive. In fact so much detail eventually bores and consequently achieves the opposite by destroying any atmosphere that might otherwise have been achieved.
Now, please don’t get me wrong; I am interested in the details of medieval life and am in fact currently reading a non-fiction book on medieval life in a city. The problem is that in a non-fiction book such details can be presented in an interesting manner not really available to a writer of fiction, particularly historic fiction. In the novel such levels of detail just get in the way of the story being told. I confess that by the end of the book I was skimming long passages until something actually starts happening again. Incidentally I am also currently reading a novel set, admittedly, a few centuries later which manages very effectively to create the atmosphere of its period (17th century) using the structure of sentences far more than the use of obscure archaic words.
All very sad really since, as I’ve already said, there is a very good story tucked away in there; it just required unreasonable amounts of dedication to extract it.
but I think I agree!!!
