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Bonus Ep 62 - The Name of the Rose 1: Introduction
🕑 Added 2024-05-10 18:38:45 +0000 UTCAmazing patrons, here is your first bonus episode of May 2024 and the first episode in our new book club series that you voted for: Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. In this introduction, we bring you up to speed on the background you need before we get into the book itself next time. We start with a question that is simple in theory but not in practice: what genre is this book? Could be murder-mystery, could be postmodernist ruminations on the nature of academia, who's to say? Next, we talk about that author Umberto Eco and the frankly insane number of things he was trying to get across in the book. Then we discuss what you need to know about liturgical hours, a concept that is foreign to us but quite important to the story. Then there's the very detailed historical setting of this historical fiction, which Eco was obsessed with: a combination of political, social, cultural, and religious factors that form the basis for the unfolding narrative. Finally, we unravel some of the secrets of the unnamed abbey, which serves as the physical setting for The Name of the Rose, including the Aedificium and its mazelike, 56-room library, which is modeled after the Sacra di San Michele abbey near Turin, Italy (see the cover image). There's a lot here but it's a fantastic novel and we can't wait to cover the whole thing along with you over the next few months!
Attachments:
1. The layout of the Aedificium library and its 56 rooms, including the letters on the doors
2. A map of the political boundaries of Europe at the dawn of the 14th Century
Comments
Craig H
Also, it makes for a great puzzle in a murder mystery.
Craig H
Re: the overcomplicated layout of the aedificium - as Eleanor said there's no historical precedent (or even reason) for this layout. It's purely a literary device. Eco, as a semiotician, was fascinated with labyrinths, their meanings and how they were used to hide meaning. This aspect of TNOTR reflects many of the works of Jorge Luis Borges (who also loved to play with the meanings of images and mirrors, which is also seen in TNOTR), of whom Eco was a fan.
Micius Porcius
In the ancient world too of a sort. Pitchers with water in a series raised above each other with lines drawn on them for x amount of time and small holes in the bottom to drain into the next one.
David Fulton
On telling time at night. Water clocks with alarm bells existed as far back as 1198 in england. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x68m530 Jump to 16:45 in the video and you can see one in action.
