It has been said that The Name of the Rose was one of the most purchased, most displayed, and least read bestsellers. This notion expressed a belief that at least more people wanted to be perceived as sophisticated enough to read the book than wanted to make the effort of reading it.

On one level, The Name of the Rose is a decent whodunit set in an isolated northern Italian medieval monastery. William of Baskerville is our Sherlock and Adso, his young assistant, is the unlearned neutral narrator (His neutrality is seemingly due to lack of sufficient understanding to put a sophisticated gloss on his reporting - but he is writing the story decades later.). Upon their arrival, the abbot asks William to investigate the death of one of the monks. As he does so, the bodies pile up, a number of potential suspects and motivations are suggested and then rejected as the suspects themselves become victims. (In that regard, William echoes TV detectives who come to solve one murder, fail to stop several more, but then compensate by solving them all. See, for example, Midsomer Murders - The Early Cases Collection).

Mixed in with the mystery, however, are discursions in semiotics, hermeneutics, biblical analysis, religious debate, literary theory, and medieval history. And what would a medieval mystery be without the inquisition?

The Name of the Rose is a ludicrously difficult book to read if one insists upon understanding everything that one is reading. The book has spawned at least two book-length scholarly analyses as well as a book dedicated to supplying Latin-to-English translations for the dozens (hundreds?) of Latin phrases as well an explanation of the philosophical and literary theories that Eco introduces. (The product description to The Key to The Name of the Rose: Including Translations of All Non-English Passages (Ann Arbor Paperbacks) promises: "an approachable, informative guide to the book and its setting--the middle ages. The Key includes an introduction to the book, the middle ages, Umberto Eco, and philosophical and literary theories; a useful chronology; and reference notes to historical people and events.").

The book has also generated many conflicting interpretations and evaluations of its merit. Eco himself felt compelled to write a Postscript several years after the book's publication. The postscript is helpful in figuring out what Eco was `really' up to. Eco describes a novel as "a machine for generating interpretations." The book's popular success so surprised Eco that he ponders "why the book was being read by people who surely could not like such `cultivated' books." (He concluded that the unsophisticated Adso made readers feel it was OK to not fully comprehend the book.). The Postscript is now included in many versions of the book and I recommend it. The Everyman version does not appear to have the postscript, but this older version does: The Name of the Rose.

Eco clearly enjoys parading his learning - and there is little doubt he is an extraordinarily learned man. What is one to make of his casual use of the most obscure words? (I sometimes suspected he was making up words.) Is he trying to make most us feel stupid? Or is he writing for a very select audience? Or is he urging us to extend our grasp? He explains in the Postscript that wanted readers to become fully immersed in the medieval world, but once past that initiation to become his "prey, or rather the prey of the text". An author who views his readers as prey is just a little weird.

Eco expended great effort studying medieval history and transcripts and the effort shows in most respects, but it was disconcerting to learn that he felt justified in having William spout "disguised quotations" from Wittgenstein (who lived some 450 years after the events of this book) because such things were what William *should* have said. Such intentionally misleading writing violates an implied pact between author and reader. However, I do not wish to make too much of what I perceive as a transgression. The book should be read, pondered, and re-read - or it should be chucked in the trash can in frustration over the umpteenth foreign language or otherwise impenetrable word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, or page. Both reactions are understandable. I suggest reading it first. ( )

Umberto Eco was Professor of Semiotics at Bologna University when The Name of The Rose was published in 1980. Semiotics is the study of sign systems, a more arcane and subtle version of the spurious field of symbiology invented by Dan Brown, a would-be Eco. The grandfather of semiotics, the American philosopher Peirce, defined a sign as ‘something that stands to somebody for something else in some respect or capacity’. In other words, a tripartite entity which involves a thing, an observer, and a sign mediating between the two and which is capable of different interpretations: a rose, its various names, and a seeing, scenting self. Eco’s novel is, among other things, an attempt to embody in artistic form the principles and practice of semiotics, and at the same time, to show how important it is for freedom of thought. The interpretation of signs is a key activity and theme of the book, and may be said to operate in two contrasting areas: interpretation from deduction, and interpretation from doctrine...

Read the full review on The Lectern:

http://thelectern.blogspot.com/2009/1... ( )

Ein sehr interessantes, mitreißendes aber auch lehrsames und anstrengendes Buch stellt "Der Name der Rose" wohl auf jeden Fall dar.
Interessant und mitreißend ist es für alle, die sich für rätselhafte Morde und geheimnisumwobene Verhältnisse interessieren. Denn eines steht fest: Die Morde sind packend und, wahrscheinlich gerade weil, Der Leser durch William von Baskerville und Adson an Sherlock Holmes und Watson erinnert wird, zieht Eco eindeutig Parallelen zu jenen englischen Klassikern, mit denen er sich selbst in die Reihe der spannenden und intelligenten Detektivromane einreiht, und das zu recht. Williams Wissen und Kombinationsgabe sind einmalig und bestechen, gerade in dieser mittelalterlichen Umgebung, durch die Anwendung wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisse und die Vermischung von Wissenschaft und Glauben und nicht zuletzt durch Williams realistischen Umgang mit dem Glauben.
Lehrsam ist das Buch durch die Ausflüge in historische Gegebenheiten, Häresiediskussionen, Inquisitionsverhandlungen und Ordensbildungen. Gleichzeitig machen diese geschichtlichen Abrisse das Lesen aber auch beschwerlich und teilweise fällt es dem Leser schwer, dem Kontext zu folgen und sich alle Details zu merken. Denn Aufmerksamkeit ist vo hoher Wichtigkeit, um nicht am Ende alles durcheinander zu bringen.
Mir erschien es beim Lesen teilweise fragwürdig, welche der beiden Handlungsstränge, die Morde und die Ordensfrage, nun der eigentliche ist. Wenn auch beide miteinander verbunden scheinen, so könnten sie doch auch unabhängig voneinander existieren. Der Anfang des Buches nimmt den Leser sofort gefangen, durch die einmalige Präsentation Williams Kombinationsgabe und Selbstbewusstsein, lässt im weiteren Verlauf allerdings nach. Der Plot driftet immer mehr von der Mordgeschichte ab und konzentriert sich auf die, zunehmend verwirrenden und langatmigen, Probleme mit dem Papst und dem Orden der Franziskaner.
Ein Hintergrundbuch, das historische Gegebenheiten und Religionsfragen erläutert, würde ich nicht zwangsläufig empfehlen. Der aufmerksame und geneigte Leser erhält die wesentlichen Informationen und somit auch Beweggründe und Auslöser für verschiedene Ereignisse und Handlungen. Es ist jedoch empfehlenswert, sich eine Ausgabe zuzulegen, die lateinische Passagen übersetzt und vielleicht auch einige Begriffe des Klosterlebens.
Alles in Allem ist es durchaus ein gelungenes Werk. Zum einen durch die packende Mordserie, zum anderen durch seine Lehrhaftigkeit. ( )

Voor de verandering vond ik de film niet eens zo storend. Klassieker in mijn boekenkast. ( )

mi è piaciuto molto contrariamente a quando avevo cercato di leggerlo nel 1980 alla sua prima edizione. ( )