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Bonus Ep 62 - The Name of the Rose 1: Introduction

Added 2024-05-10 18:38:45 +0000 UTC

Amazing patrons, here is your first bonus episode of May 2024 and the first episode in our new book club series that you voted for: Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. In this introduction, we bring you up to speed on the background you need before we get into the book itself next time. We start with a question that is simple in theory but not in practice: what genre is this book? Could be murder-mystery, could be postmodernist ruminations on the nature of academia, who's to say? Next, we talk about that author Umberto Eco and the frankly insane number of things he was trying to get across in the book. Then we discuss what you need to know about liturgical hours, a concept that is foreign to us but quite important to the story. Then there's the very detailed historical setting of this historical fiction, which Eco was obsessed with: a combination of political, social, cultural, and religious factors that form the basis for the unfolding narrative. Finally, we unravel some of the secrets of the unnamed abbey, which serves as the physical setting for The Name of the Rose, including the Aedificium and its mazelike, 56-room library, which is modeled after the Sacra di San Michele abbey near Turin, Italy (see the cover image). There's a lot here but it's a fantastic novel and we can't wait to cover the whole thing along with you over the next few months!

Attachments:

1. The layout of the Aedificium library and its 56 rooms, including the letters on the doors

2. A map of the political boundaries of Europe at the dawn of the 14th Century