Umberto Eco

[saliotthomas]

Just finished Foucauls pendulum

The fact that i came to Foucaults Pendulum late was good because i had some references to eased the approche to a very,very dense read.
I read the Domned kings serie last year by Maurice Druon where the trials of the templar(and the following events) are very well discribed.The Crusades through the arabian eyes by Amin Maalouf was also good concerning the birth of templar order,and the assassin sect(the old man of the montain).
So i had few white stones to help me keep the path.Still i had to grab the book hard not to get lost by some of Eco digressions.
I loved it though, and Eco light tone is a fine balance to thesis side of the book.I liked the ironie of the end (the launderie list) and the all paradox about knowledge.

 

[beer good]

Umberto Eco talks about not reading books.

 

[Gabrielle Ray]

Hiyah,

guess you love books....

Have read the name of the rose at least a 8ish times, first at 15, last a few months ago. TBR definite yet take your time, and lock yourslef in a room if not very expert in medieval literary erudition on the devil and the Bible
great as well: Foucault's pendulum, resits until the p.80 and you will not leave the book until the end. Same water, yet easier: Perez-Reverte's Club Dumas


Morry

'Foucault's Pendulum' annoyed me - I felt the need to scream at the book 'Get on with it!!' And speak (or rather, type) as a fan of 'The Name of the Rose' (you have to love a book which uses the phrase 'Vessel of dung' as an insult).

Having said that, it is a very full book.

And I agree with your comment on 'The Dumas Club' - that's a pretty good book, and it introduced me to the splendid Arturo Perez-Reverte.

 

[Gabrielle Ray]

Umberto Eco was interviewed on 'Front Row' (BBC Radio 4) this week. He had interesting things to say about Dan Brown.

His latest book features the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

 

[beer good]

Umberto Eco: 'It's culture, not war, that cements European identity' | World news | guardian.co.uk

 

[direstraits]

Has anyone here read his This Is Not The End of The Book?

They said many things in the book, but I found what his co-author Jean-Claude Carriere said about the impermanence of technology being one of the most important problems of the ebook very interesting.

In my opinion he's both right and wrong on that (though he's probably more right than wrong). It's true that we need a device to read digital text, and have to worry about stupid things like 'formats'. But we've some a long way since EBCDIC/ASCII encodings, and have settled on pretty much an industry accepted standard.

From a technical perspective, Carriere has pinpointed the single most important problem we have to solve to gain widespread adoption. But we need widespread adoption for the standard to gain permanence.

Their perspectives, while extremely important, are viewpoints from lifetimes spent on the printed word. I'd be interested to hear views from bibliophiles who've grown up with technology and won't use points like 'I print documents from computers even more often than before computers came into my life'.

I'm off to read the ebook thread somewhere else in this forum and post my 2 cents there.

 

[Author]

I have The Name of the Rose on my 2012 reading list.

 

[Polly Parrot]

Feel free to comment on it after you've read it.

 

[Author]

Yeah right. I am a terrible reviewer. No chance.

 

[blackfootyankee]

Just started reading this one today:

 

[beer good]

Damnit, I envy anyone who gets to read Foucault's Pendulum for the first time.

 

[eclair]

blackfootyankee, are you liking it thus far?

 

[blackfootyankee]

blackfootyankee, are you liking it thus far?

Oh yes. But sadly I haven't been able to go into it for the holiday activities are keeping me busy.

Today I did start a new non fiction book:



Let's hope I can have some time to sit and actually read these two selections properly. I am basically just skimming through them which is not a good thing. I will likely start from the top as soon as time permits.

 

[blackfootyankee]

blackfootyankee, are you liking it thus far?

The intense research in constructing this novel, just like any other Eco book, is extraordinary! It moves like a wild fire through a dry forrest. I should not be so amazed because Eco is one talent whose prose is rarely experienced - a voice that leaves all other authors in the dust. I am just begun reading this treasure and I can surely feel that it is going to lead me a fantastic journey. This novel demands to be read at a specific pace, and it also demands several reads to grasp it's scope, its brilliance. I am gathering all this just from my initial reading. Fabulous!

 

[sparkchaser]

And here we go. Welcome back Carlos.

 

[Conscious Bob]

I really liked Foucault's Pendulum when I read it but would Leonardo have been that good an engineer?

 

[Hedwig]

I really loved "The Name of the Rose", but I had a hard time with the Pendulum. I thought it had a strong beginning and went more and more absurd from there. Maybe it's just too intellectual for my poor little brain.