I just recently read this book and had to share some thoughts about it, to bounce some of my impressions off others who have read it.
For those unfamiliar with it, this debut novel from author Umberto Eco was first published in Italian in 1980, but later became a smash hit around the world in many languages. It's sold over 50 million copies and has received many international awards.
Overtly this book is a murder mystery. It's framed as a story of someone who found a narrative of 14th century events within medieval manuscripts, and despite being entirely fictional, it is presented with real authenticity.
Set over the course of seven days, the basic plot concerns a young Benedictine monk, Adso of Melk, who is conscripted to join the erudite Franciscan monk William of Baskerville as he visits a monastery in northern Italy to witness a theological debate. William is a former inquisitor, and his deductive powers are immediately on display, in a hilarious incident where he divines the whereabouts of a missing horse, in a way that brings to mind Sherlock Holmes at his best. The local abbot asks William to investigate the mysterious death of an illuminator who recently fell from the abbey's library. But from then on, someone at the abbey dies mysteriously daily, apparently following the pattern of apocalyptic judgements found in the book of Revelation.
The key to this mystery appears to lie in a mysterious book (the missing second part of Aristotle's Poetics, in which he discusses laughter) and the labyrinth that holds the abbey's giant collection of books. This library is built like a giant maze and occupies an entire floor of the massive castle that makes up the abbey. As the story progresses, William slowly collects evidence and eventually explores the mysterious labyrinth that is at the heart of the story.
But this is more than just a detective story. It's also seen by many to be an intellectual exploration of what truth is, from theological, philosophical, scholarly, and historical perspectives. Eco himself was a scholar in semiotics, which is the systematic study of sign processes and the communication of meaning. So, it's not surprising that his book has many themes relating to interpretation and meaning, and about the importance of inquiring carefully to determine truth. As he once said, "Books are not meant to be believed but to be subjected to inquiry. When we consider a book, we mustn't ask ourselves what it says but what it means."
Many of these themes only emerge in the closing parts of the novel. The character of William represents the importance of rational investigation and logical deduction, which contrasts the dogmatic censorship of some of the other characters, who are determined to keep the secrets of the library closed and hidden. We're encouraged to sympathize with William's approach and to criticize that of his detractors.
Yet there's something ironic about the closing part of the novel. William concedes in the end that while it looked like everything was planned, much of what happened was a result of coincidence and error. It's not that readers are left with loose threads that are unexplained; rather, the chain of events turns out to be more a result of chance than of human decisions. Eco himself says about the novel's conclusion that "very little is discovered and the detective is defeated." For this reason, the book is sometimes considered a work of postmodernism.
Certainly, Eco's own remarks about the significance of the novel would appear to support that. The edition I read had a lengthy postscript from the author, with some of his own commentary about the book. He wants each reader to come with their own interpretation, and deliberately doesn't want to interpret things for us. In his view, "the author should die once he has finished writing, so as not to trouble the path of the text." But as much as he insists on refusing to give an interpretation of his book, it seems clear that he is making a case for postmodernism, and where the series of deaths in the story are ultimately just a chaotic pattern of multiple causes and accidents, and without real meaning, thus suggesting that the quest for certainty and meaning is often fruitless. Even the chosen title "The Name of the Rose" was deliberately chosen to be something neutral and empty, rather than a clue to what the novel is about.
The Name of the Rose is not an easy book to read, because it constantly makes frequent allusions to literature, geography, and history, and is very demanding on its reader. There's a dense cast of characters, often with similar names. Many times we're confronted with entire sentences in Latin, without any translation, adding real obscurity. The style often feels scholarly in tone. At times a lengthy paragraph will go on for an entire page, and the reader must wade through lengthy lists that feel more like a catalogued inventory of a ship's cargo than a novel. Eco has been criticized for all this, but he has stated that he deliberately made the first one hundred pages difficult and demanding, despite suggestions he abbreviate this by friends and editors, because he wanted to eliminate any would-be readers unwilling or unable to persevere and thus be unworthy of his book.
The theological debate over Christ's poverty is particularly central to the novel, because the dispute that occupies the monks concerns whether Christ had been poor and whether this is an ongoing mandate for the church; and also whether the pope or the emperor should hold political authority in Europe. The abbey was chosen as a neutral location, with repetitive from both sides.
I did appreciate the academic and theological flavour of the novel, particularly the account of some of the rhetoric about apostolic poverty (p340ff), which has a historical basis in real debates from the 14th century, and revolved around whether Christians could rightly hold any property. Unsurprisingly this theology appealed to the impoverished masses of the time and threatened the wealth and land ownership of the church. it was condemned as heretical by Pope John XXII in 1323, although the Spiritual Franciscans continued to live by that doctrine. I found this background of these theological disputes stimulating and fascinating.
Despite the theological subject matter, and a setting populated with clergymen, the novel does still venture into some dark moral territory. One of the sub-plots concerns the same-sex passions of a monk in a sexual relationship with another monk. Even Adso himself ends up having a sexual fling with one of the local girls. To be fair, all this is described in a very sober, poetic, and even intellectual way (p.245), so rather than having the feel of a saucy romance novel, it recalls passages of Song of Solomon and similar texts. So even carnal acts are presented in a detached way, and closely connected with spiritual struggles of the soul, and they feel more like poetic and theological observations about virtues and vices than pure smut.
Despite the promise and potential, I still found myself feeling somewhat disappointed by the time the novel wrapped up. There is some excitement in the closing part, including a showdown with the main villain, and a massive fire. And when we discover how all the events unfolded everything does make sense. But is it simply divine justice orchestrating events, as the story's villain believes? Or have multiple causes and accidental happenings contributed to the chain of events more than anything else, as Eco wants us to believe? As a result, there's a sense of postmodern ambivalence and ambiguity about the ending, despite there being no loose ends. Furthermore, even the narrative of final events didn't feel that suspenseful or exciting on a surface level.
The Name of the Rose has turned out to become a surprising bestseller, and a modern classic. It's just a pity that despite its success, it doesn't quite live up to what I was hoping for in the end, and I expected more of a pay-off. But perhaps that says more about my sentiments about post-modernism than it does about this book.
by EndersGame_Reviewer