Ouroboros Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 Umberto Eco has died. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35620368 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sologdin Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 i give up. fuck this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard II Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 Seriously. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sologdin Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 everyone needs to read his ur-fascism essay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Arryn Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 My favourite author. wow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard II Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 You know, I was just thinking when I was last at the bookstore, "Hey, I've never read any Eco, I need to get on that". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mashiara Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 And people just keep dying. May he rest in peace. It's been a long time since I read his books. I ought to check out the most recent ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unJon Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 Siiigh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard II Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 So what would you guys recommend as a first Eco novel? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mashiara Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 The Name of the Rose, one should always start with that. I thought Foucault's Pendulum was brilliant too, but a harder read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard II Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 Well, I've read a lot of Gene Wolfe, so I'm used to not understanding anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polishgenius Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 I have yet to read Focault's Pendulum, but I'm reliably informed that it manages the neat trick of taking the piss out of Da Vinci Code years and years before the latter was ever written, and have always liked it for that. Name of the Rose is a work of brilliance. I'll have to read it again soon, and then some more Eco. RIP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lykos Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 No one had yet told him that the Grail is a chalice but also a spear, and his trumpet raised like a chalice was at the same time a weapon, an instrument of the sweetest dominion, which shot toward the sky and linked the earth with the Mystic Pole. With the only Fixed Point in the universe. With what he created, for that one instant, with his breath. ... You spend a life seeking the Opportunity, without realizing that the decisive moment, the moment that justifies birth and death, has already passed. It will not return, but it was—full, dazzling, generous as every revelation. That day, Jacopo Belbo stared into the eyes of Truth. The only truth that was to be granted him. Because—he would learn— truth is brief (afterward, it is all commentary). So he tried to arrest the rush of time. He didn’t understand. Not as a child. Not as an adolescent when he was writing about it. Not as a man who decided to give up writing about it. I understood it this evening: the author has to die in order for the reader to become aware of his truth. … I believe, I hope, I pray that as he was dying, swaying with the Pendulum, Jacopo Belbo finally understood this, and found peace. … “Bravo, young fellow. Run along now. Handsome trumpet.” Yesed, Foucault's Pendulum. No on Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seli Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 So many hours of enjoyment, and luckily some still to go since I still haven't read anything post Baudolino. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jo498 Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 I have not read anything post-pendulum. I started one of them (with the shipwrecked guy) but didn't like it. Foucault's pendulum can be fun but he is already showing too much of his smarts and erudition there and the narrative suffers from that. Still, I would give a qualified recommendation if you like conspiracies, history and/or postmodernism. The Name of the Rose is much better in my recollection (I read it at least twice but the last time is more than 20 years ago); despite some lengthy excurses it all fits together very well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lummel Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 How lucky we are that he lived and wrote! More than a fistful of decent books (unless you have expectionally big hands) Not an exciting obituary, quite like the one from the Torygraph, amused to see how his personal history made it in to the novels in different ways. Also I read something about the publishing business in France which was uncannily similar to the publishing set up in Foucault's Pendulum with the fake prizes as part of its marketing mix. So little love here for Baudolino, all of you too honest to enjoy a lie? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buckwheat Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 I love Baudolino! It is one of the funniest books I have read. The Name of the Rose was the first book of his I read, then Baudolino, then The Island of the Previous Day (or what the English title is), but I thought that one dragged. Yet to read the rest. Sad news. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gasp of Many Reeds Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 13 hours ago, Lummel said: So little love here for Baudolino, all of you too honest to enjoy a lie? Baudolino was actually what introduced me to Eco. Read when was relatively young so didn't get everything but its a wonderful book. Plus loved all the monsters shouting "Bogomil!" at each other. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maarsen Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 Another fine writer gone. The debt that the last 25 years of literature owes him is immeasureable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antonius Pius Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 Loved The Name of the Rose, I've got Baudolino lined up next since January. But still sorry to hear that Eco has passed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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