

Umberto Eco: Exploring Imaginary Lands With One of Italy’s Masters of Fiction - espeed
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/28/arts/international/umberto-eco-a-master-of-fiction-considers-historys-lies.html?hpw&rref=arts&_r=0

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bradleyjg
A terrific author whose philosophical work informs his fiction, but not in a
heavy handed or didactic way. I only wish there were more novels.

If you haven't read anything by him, I'd start with _In the Name of the Rose_.
The beginning is a little tough to get into, but if you persevere you are
amply rewarded (in the afterwords it is disclosed that this was a deliberate
literary choice, I won't spoil it by explaining the rationale, but it does
make sense). _Foucault 's Pendulum_ is the magnum opus.

Edit: after _In the Name of the Rose_ I'd probably go with _Baudolino_ , but
FP is a valid choice as well.

~~~
SaulOfTheJungle
I've read _The Name of the Rose_ and really enjoyed it. What should I read
next?

~~~
codelust
Foucault's Pendulum gets my vote too if you want to read something that is as
straight forward as Eco can get.

The Island of the Day Before, Baudolino and The Mysterious Flame of Queen
Loana felt more like he was trying to test you, in each of those books, to see
if you are worthy of consuming the entire book. Every time you feel you have a
reasonable grasp of what is going on, he'll descend into a phase where you'll
be lost again.

The Prague Cemetery, on the other hand, was utterly fascinating. Really
enjoyed it.

~~~
mariuolo
I read the Prague Cemetery after everything else and found it incredibly
boring.

Perhaps not even Mr. Eco is immune from repeating clichés.

~~~
codelust
His works, after The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum, had become
significantly mode self-indulgent. TPC is no exception to that, except that it
is considerably less indulgent than the books between FP and TPC.

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antiterra
Much of Eco's work was translated by the great William Weaver who passed away
earlier this month. I came to appreciate Weaver's translations through another
Italian legend, Italo Calvino. Calvino had a way of incorporating scientific
and philosophical concepts within passionate human drama. HN readers might
enjoy his work as well.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/arts/william-weaver-
influe...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/arts/william-weaver-influential-
translator-of-modern-italian-literature-dies-at-90.html?_r=0)

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Weaver](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Weaver)

~~~
vanderZwan
> _He had a stroke several years ago that severely hampered his ability to
> speak — an especially difficult hardship, friends and relatives said, for a
> loquacious man who had built his life communicating in words._

That is sad to hear, but as Renoir supposedly said when asked why he spent
three decades painting with painful arthritis: “The pain passes, but the
beauty remains.”

Thank you for your translations, William Weaver.

[http://www.openculture.com/2012/07/astonishing_film_of_arthr...](http://www.openculture.com/2012/07/astonishing_film_of_arthritic_impressionist_painter_pierre-
auguste_renoir_1915.html)

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keithpeter
_" The fact is that the world is divided between users of the Macintosh
computer and users of MS-DOS compatible computers. I am firmly of the opinion
that the Macintosh is Catholic and that DOS is Protestant."_

You need to read the whole column to get the joke[1]. I like to imagine that
fully Libre Gnu/Linux would be Jain, and Android would be Baptist.

Eco's routine journalism can be really funny.

[1]
[http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_mac_vs_pc.html](http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_mac_vs_pc.html)

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nraynaud
Why are there so many links towards this paywalled site? It's the only
paywalled site that I see on HN, why is that?

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001sky
answer> delete your cookies and the paywall is porous

~~~
nraynaud
I use private browsing.

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bananacurve
Non-paywalled link:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/28/arts/international/umberto...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/28/arts/international/umberto-
eco-a-master-of-fiction-considers-historys-lies.html?hpw&rref=arts)

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astine
This is just a rather superficial interview with Mr. Eco. He does touch on the
medieval belief in a spherical world but they don't go into detail about such
things. Interesting, but brief and not what the title promised.

~~~
mcguire
But it does show some hints as to why Eco is so unbelievably great.

" _Every writer, every artist, every musician, scientist is profoundly
interested in the survival of his or her work after their death. Otherwise
they would be idiots._ "

And, of course,

" _In the States, they publish an enormous collection of books called 'The
Library of Living Philosophers.' It started with John Dewey and Bertrand
Russell and the last book was about Richard Rorty. For mysterious reasons —
probably because there is nobody else is around — they chose me for the next
one. These are books of 1,500 pages. I am supposed to write 100 pages of
philosophical autobiography. And there are 25 people, working at this moment,
each writing a paper on my philosophical activity. And I am supposed to read
all of them and to respond to each of them with at least three or four pages
each. I think I have two years to work on it, and I am hoping to die before I
have to do it._"

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meatsock
if you like eco, check out 'Q' by luther blissett, which is given away for
free on his website[1] along with all of his other works.

1:
[http://www.wumingfoundation.com/english/biography.html](http://www.wumingfoundation.com/english/biography.html)

