The Name of the Rose
by Umberto Eco
First published 1980 · English · 556 pages
- Novels
- Historical fiction
- Mystery and crime
A historical mystery set in an Italian abbey in the fourteenth century. A Franciscan friar, William of Baskerville, arrives with his young assistant Adso to take part in a theological meeting, only to find the monks disturbed by a series of mysterious deaths. William begins to investigate, and the trail leads towards the abbey's labyrinthine library and its closely guarded books.
Part detective story, part portrait of medieval life, the novel explores faith, reason, power and the fear of forbidden knowledge. It was Eco's first novel and a worldwide success.
Quotes
Books are not made 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...
Because learning does not consist only of knowing what we must or we can do, but also of knowing what we could do and perhaps should not do.
There are magic moments, involving great physical fatigue and intense motor excitement, that produce visions of people known in the past. As I learned later from the delightful little book of the Abbé de Bucquoy, there are also visions of books as yet unwritten.
A monk should surely love his books with humility, wishing their good and not the glory of his own curiosity; but what the temptation of adultery is for laymen and the yearning for riches is for secular ecclesiastics, the seduction of knowledge is for monks.