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From: sdyer@bbncca.ARPA (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: net.books,net.religion
Subject: The Name of the Rose
Message-ID: <745@bbncca.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 28-May-84 03:28:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: bbncca.745
Posted: Mon May 28 03:28:58 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 28-May-84 06:17:08 EDT
Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma.
Lines: 22

Have any of you out there read "The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco?
I have been waiting for this to come out in paperback for the past year,
and it's finally arrived for the summer vacation reading season.

This is a dazzling, erudite work which can be appreciated on many levels.
It has the form of a detective story set in the 14th century in an Italian
monastery, wherein a Franciscan monk from Britain and his young assistant
attempt to uncover the secrets of a series of murders.  It is a page-turner
in the tradition of most best-sellers, but there is real meat on the old
bones of the murder mystery genre.  The morals and mores of the 14th century
are made suffocatingly real, as we experience how these people actually
think, and the book delves into all sorts of interesting issues about the
nature of truth, orthodoxy and intellectual freedom.  This is the kind of
book which can be read profitably more than once--first for the fun of the
mystery, and later for the subtleties of the text.

I'd be interested in hearing what others have to say who've read it.
I've doubtless missed many points on my first pass through the book.
-- 
/Steve Dyer
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