Ruusun nimi (1980)

Un excellent roman, subtil dans ses interrogations sur la quête et la valeur de la vérité, parfaitement mises en abyme via le format du roman policier. A défaut de proposer des personnages extrêmement fouillés, il met très bien en scène les interrogations philosophiques et théologiques de moines d’obédiences opposés (bénédictins et franciscains, notamment). Questionnements sur la vérité et la foi sont ici entremêlés de façon subtile. ( )

I have to admit I was a bit reluctant to pick this title off my TBR shelf. Somewhere along the way I'd gathered that it's not the most straightforward of reads, and I wasn't sure if the setting of a 14th century Italian abbey and divisions within the Catholic church would grab me enough to keep me ploughing through the more challenging sections. I am, however, delighted to have found this a really worthwhile and enjoyable read.

A young novice monk named Adso accompanies his mentor, Brother William of Baskerville, to an Italian abbey famous throughout Christendom for its superlative library. Here, William will be attending a theological meeting to discuss two contentious points which have been splitting orders within the Catholic Church, namely whether Christ was poor or not and whether the pope or the Holy Roman Emperor should hold political authority in Europe. Upon arriving, the abbott tells the visitors about the recent tragedy of a young monk falling to his death from a tower at the abbey, and as William was previously an inquisitor he is asked to discretely investigate how the death occurred so the matter can be quietly put to bed before the controversial delegation arrives. In the week that is to follow more suspicious deaths occur amongst the monks, and the young novice has the learning experience of a lifetime as he observes Brother William's enhanced powers of deduction as he deciphers the secret codes and symbols of the library to find the root of the malevolence within the abbey.

This is exactly the type of subject matter I would run a mile from in a book, so I was surprised at how quickly I became hooked by the story. The setting of the ancient abbey in the Middle Ages was a superb backdrop for the "whodunnit" aspect of the plot, and with a complex cast of pious characters it wasn't obvious who the perpetrator was until close to the end. The famed library of the abbey was so mysterious it almost became a character in its own right, and I thoroughly enjoyed the many scenes that took place within it.

Heavily woven into the story are the themes of the interpretation of signs and the political fallouts within the orders within the Catholic church at that time. Eco was a professor of semiotics, and I would argue that in some passages he loses himself in the joys of his own academic specialism to the detriment of the reading experience for the average reader who may not share the same depth of joy and understanding of this complex area. Similarly, I glazed over a little as some parts of the religious divides were expounded in much lengthier detail than I needed (or wanted). However, in fairness this was the exception rather than the norm, and although The Name of the Rose required close reading to keep track with everything that was going on, I found it hugely interesting and galloped through it accordingly at a fair pace.

4 stars - a book richly rewarding in so many ways. Dropping half a star for the sections in which Eco got carried away with his own ego, and spoilt by Mantel's Cromwell trilogy I really wish the publishers had created a similar list of who's who at the beginning of this novel as the cast of characters and religious political persuasions got complicated at times. ( )

NA

I liked the setting, plot and characters, but found some passages to be slow. Felt like Eco was distracted from the story by pretentious waffling. ( )

It's 1327, and monk Brother William and his trainee/scribe/John-Watson-like sidekick Adso have arrived at an Italian abbey. There are charges of heresy flying around various mendicant orders, and William has been called to attend a meeting of the Pope's representatives (this is during the Avignon papacy) and prominent Franciscans as a representative of the Emperor. When he arrives, a monk has been found dead, and William is tasked to investigate. As more monks fall, their deaths echoing the prophecies of Revelations, William and Adso attempt to determine the actor behind the deaths and the secrets of the abbey's labyrinthine library.

This book was unapologetically pretentious, and though I really enjoyed it, I can see why others wouldn't. Even in the most tense moments of the book, it seems that there's always time to spend a few pages of dialogue (with nearly page-long passages by each interlocutor) about fine points of differences in theological leanings among various orders of Catholic monks. Someone just died? Well, when better to read a laundry list of all the holy objects in the abbey's crypt! But wow, this book appealed to the part of me that fell in love with Latin in school; it was a lot of fun to catch the passing allusions to various writers that I could ("if they wanted something here that was not more perennial than bronze..."), even though I'm sure I missed a lot of them. It's definitely a slow read, but I found it really enjoyable, especially given how impressively the historical setting and its context were rendered (and it was a total blast from the past for me as I got to remember my European history). ( )