A Book Review: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

How do we know what we know?

The question of epistemology resides at the heart of every journey to search for the truth. The river of history is flowing with human tragedies, bred from decisions or actions prompted by the incorrect epistemology. In the age of reason, we are trained to seek rational explanations behind the mysteries we encounter in the everyday life. However, a few centuries ago before the enlightenment, the world was a very different place, where rationality was not as highly valued as today.

The Name of the Rose, is a historical fiction/murder mystery novel written by Italian author, philosopher, and semiotician Umberto Eco. This book explored the question of epistemology (and many other things). In 1983, an English translation of this novel became a best-seller, and inspired a movie adaption starring Sean Connery in 1986. Decades later, The Name of the Rose is now considered a classic. Recently, I dug up a copy of this book from my local library and dived into its content.

Admittedly, The Name of the Rose is probably one of the hardest books I've read. I spent 3 weeks to read this book from cover to cover, but it was an immensely rewarding read. If my introduction has grabbed your interest, then please feel free to continue reading my review.

Synopsis:

The year was 1327, the church dispatched a Franciscan priest called Brother William Baskerville to an Italian abbey. His mission was to investigate an alleged case of heresy. After a lengthy journey, William arrived at the secluded monastery with his apprentice, a young monk called Adso of Melk. Upon their arrival, William and Adso encountered 7 mysterious murders fashioned after the Book of Revelation.

At this turn of event, William turned detective. As a disciple of William of Ockham and Roger Bacon, Brother Baskerville is armed with reason, logic, and empirical insights, its edge honed to the sharpest by the thirst for knowledge. Wielding the power of rationality, William Baskerville endeavored to solve the gruesome murders at the monastery by collecting evidence, deciphering secret symbols and coded manuscripts. His search led him to the shadow-haunted labyrinth of the abbey, where strange things happen at night.

My thoughts about this book:

If you asked me to describe The Name the Rose, I would describe the book as a combination of Summa Theologica plus Agatha Christie novels. Indeed, I believe this is the most fitting description for The Name of the Rose.

As I mentioned earlier, this novel is not an easy read. Gentle readers, I must warn you. The first 100 pages of the book contained tons of medieval Christian theology and history. So if you lack interests in these topics, then it is possible that you will never make it past the first 100 pages. The overwhelming information does establish the background for the book, but I found the pace in the first 20% of the book as slow as a crawling snail, and as dry as the rustling winter leaves. The first 100 pages were both painful and difficult to digest. The good news is, if you can make it past the first 100 pages, then the story begins to unpack, showing you the goodness it harbors within.

However, even after The Name of the Rose passed the introductory section, the book remained a difficult read. The story in this book is quite complex, as the book alludes to an in-depth exploration for the question of epistemology amidst medieval church theology and power struggles. Meanwhile, as if adding frosts to snow, sentences (and sometimes, paragraphs) in Latin constantly appear on almost every page, making an already difficult book even harder to read. Those who are proficient in Latin may breath lightly when reading this book, but for those who are uninitiated with Latin, reading The Name of the Rose may prove to be a monumental task.

By now, you must be thinking The Name of the Rose is a dry academic novel, and you are probably contemplating to never read this book, right? Well, I believe this book is not for everyone, but some people will love it. Especially if you fit into the demography of a free-thinker, who possesses a passion for epistemology. Allow me to explain.

The central character, William Baskerville, is basically medieval Sherlock Holmes. William was a former inquisitor, who left the inquisition because he disliked their Modus operandi. He seeks knowledge via reasoning, rationality and evidence, while disfavoring religious presupposition. The characterization of William fits into the central theme of the book; the age of reason kicking the womb of faith, diving head-long into a fascinating expedition about inductive and deductive reasoning. Without spoiling the story, let me entice you by saying, that if you are planning to read this book, then as food for thought, it may be worthwhile to ponder if the murder case in the book was ultimately solved by induction, deduction, both, or something else?

Other than an interesting, thoughtful central theme, this book also maintained an atmosphere of cryptic suspense throughout the entire story. This greatly enhanced the flavor of the book. When I was reading this book, I was also trying to deduce the identity of the murderer, by looking at the facts and information surrounding every character appeared in the story. Suffice to say, the author Umberto Eco did an excellent job at endowing every character with a pint of suspicion that will keep you guessing and speculating until the end.

The Name of the Rose requires its readers to invest great efforts. It is a slow and difficult read, where parts of the book can be quite dry. However, at the heart of this book resides rich contents and powerful allusions that made the investments worthwhile. If books are like a box of chocolates, sometimes picking the hard ones over the soft ones may prove to be more rewarding in the end. I really like The Name of the Rose, and if you decide to read this book, then I hope you will like this book too.