World Book Day!

Monthly Book Club - Pilot Meeting: The Name of the Rose

A quick update today to introduce the monthly book club, which began last night in The Rising Sun, Manchester, to discuss Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose.

The Name of the Rose is, essentially, a murder-mystery novel, that uses the plot to debate philosophical ideas about truth, interpretation, power, religion and political rule.  It is told in first-person by a medieval monk, Adso, who has accompanied an older monk William of Baskerville (note the Sherlock Holmes connection) to an old and grand monastery where William will act as a judge in a dispute between the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor.  On arrival at the monastery, they discover a young monk has taken in own life in mysterious circumstances and this is quickly followed by another death, this time a murder.  William and Adso are given the task of discovering the murderer before the Pope and Emperor arrive.

There were five of us last night to discuss the novel.  We all found the text a challenge, in particular the style that Eco had chosen for Adso's narrative voice and the long, dialogues that explored deep, philosophical ideas surrounding theology.

We agreed, however, that while it was difficult, we could understand the reasoning behind Eco's choice, as he was attempting to create a realistic voice for the characters, who were medieval monks who spent their lives in intellectual consideration of interpretation and reflection of Biblical stories.  We also agreed that the philosophical discussions were interesting and that the plot and characters were largely a vehicle for exploring these ideas.

There was some debate over whether Eco was a man in turmoil over his religious beliefs, and his attitudes towards women and homosexuality.  Alternatively, some felt that Eco was critical of the medieval Catholic church, and more widely, any organisation, institution or government that attempted to control truth and reject alternative interpretations.  

Umberto Eco himself was a professor of semiotics, and as such was concerned with signs and symbols and the meanings that could be interpreted from them.  The long dialogues contained within the novel concern themselves with logical and philosophical debate over the meanings of certain signs and symbols within the Bible.  For example, there is a long discussion of laughter in the novel, which one character, Jorge, believes is sinful.  William, the 'detective' of the story, debates with him, arguing that just because the Bible does not specifically reference Jesus laughing, he does not consider that evidence that he didn't, although he does state that if Jesus had known what Christians would do after his death in his name, he could not blame him for not laughing.  William concludes that it is logical to assume that Jesus does laugh, and that Jorge's reasoning is false.  To further argue that comedy is 'sinful' portrays Jorge as something of a fanatic - a man lost to reason.

Adso himself experiences some peculiar experiences with signs that question his faith.  He reflects upon a mural on a door and its ornate depiction of Hell and sees that, whilst on one hand it is horrific, it is also in some ways captivating and beautiful.  Furthermore, he sees images depicted of both the Virgin Mary and the Whore of Babylon in the Book of Revelation, and he realises that he can't tell the difference between the two images.  

The labyrinth itself provoked an interesting discussion concerning what is represented.  On the one hand, it appears that solving the riddle of the labyrinthine library is the key to solving the murders.  The fact that William and Adso are not permitted to enter the library, and so have to investigate it by night and in secret, illustrates the counterproductiveness of placing restrictions upon knowledge - the Abbot wants them to discover the truth, but prevents them from investigating the area where the murders are occurring in order to control and protecting access to the library, which represents knowledge.  Given the ending of the book, this turns out to be highly ironic.

On the other hand, the labyrinth also illustrates the difficulty of discovering absolute truth - there are many signs within the library that appear to be of great significance, but again, it is somewhat debatable whether they really have any bearing on the case and seem to be there almost at random.  Eco's point appears to be that while many possible interpretations of signs are possible, knowing absolute truth is virtually impossible.  William himself states at one point in the novel that truth is 'unknowable'.  Therefore, the Catholic Church's imposition of truth on its followers is wrong, because their interpretation is no more 'true' than anyone else's.  The novel consistently refers to 'piousness' and 'heresy' and those who form alternative explanations of metaphors, signs and syllogisms within the Bible, are labelled as 'heretics' because their interpretation differs from that of the Church.  As Ubertino says in the novel: 'there is a fine line between good and evil', indicating that what the church views as 'heretical' and, therefore, evil, is often a subtle difference of interpretation.  It also highlights the hypocrisy of the Church as it sanctions murder and torture of heretics, which is clearly an evil act, given the words of non-violence by Jesus within the Bible.  William himself points out that 'sometimes it is right to doubt' suggesting that sometimes doubt is a more sensible course to take - for example, over the issue of whether Jesus ever laughed.  He isn't specifically referred to as laughing, but we might reasonably assume that He did but it wasn't important enough to mention.  The point is, we simply don't know, so the most sensible conclusion is to admit that.

The backdrop to the plot is a meeting of the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope, in order to settle a dispute between the two, which could lead to war.  The question concerns whether earthly, governmental power should rest with governments or with the papacy, with William acting as the adjudicator.  Without giving away the decision, the novel makes it clear that tyrannical government of all kinds is wrong, and, given that Eco grew up in Mussolini's Italy, it is not surprising that he would feel strongly about types of governmental power.    

There are many other points that could be raised here, but this is already a longer blog post than I intended!  If you have read The Name of Rose, or if you want to, please comment below and let's continue the discussion online.

Thanks to all those who came to the meeting last night - it was a great start to the book club and there was a very interesting discussion held.  I hope to see you all, and some new entrants, next month.

Next month's book: Brighton Rock by Graham Greene

Brighton Rock is a murder-thriller set in 1930s Brighton.  It follows Ida Arnold's pursuit of gangster Pinkie Brown after his murder of Hale in the opening pages.

The novel challenges the stereotype of the good detective and the evil murderer, as the reader questions who's side they are really on.

It subtly interweaves and debates Catholic and secular ideas about morality, as well as ideas such as forgiveness, damnation and mercy (amongst others

For May's meeting, we are doing the Fantasy genre - please bring suggestions to the meeting (or post online) and the book will be chosen at random at the next book club meeting on April 17th.

Please avoid science fiction, young adult and dystopia, as these genres will be covered in other months.