Umberto first came to my interest when I saw the movie version of his
book The Name of the Rose. The movie featured
Sean Connery and a young
Christian Slater.The book takes place during the late years of
the middle ages prior to the enlightenment. For those of us that never
lived during the dark ages, the setting of the movie feels more like
the period described in history books as the dark ages.Umberto
takes us back to a monastery hiding a dark secret in the form of a lost
book by Aristotle. The monastery appears to hold a great repository of
books safely kept within a keep that is designed in the form of a
physical labyrinth.The book is at its simplest a murder
mystery, however Umberto Eco is incapable of writing a simple book.
Umberto, a researcher that has spent far to much time in the bowels of
the Vatican, takes us back to display the complexity of living under
the shadow of the inquisition.Its under this shadow that a
murder investigation must take place. Packed with church doctrine,
dogma, politics and power plays, the characters must navigate the
conspiracies within conspiracies, that protect essentially the reader
and the world from the truth. Aristotle wrote a fiction book & the
book goes against the preachings of the
catholic church of the middle
ages.Without the movie first time Eco readers may find it
difficult to dive into the mind of a Vatican researcher. Umberto plays
the English language like a virtuoso despite his Italian heritage.So
how do those of us that speak English as a first language keep up? We
can start by understanding the human condition that Umberto taps in
many of his novels.We can start by understanding the human condition that Umberto taps in many of his novels, such as Baldalino, The Island of the Day Before, Foucault''s Pendulum, and many others.The human condition he picks apart with
precision is that of the lie. Follow the lie, follow the liers, and
follow their motives for lying and the book will reveal itself to you.