| The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco, 513 pages Steve Gadd Saturday, February 01, 1997 | The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, 611 pages Steven Krise Monday, March 25, 2002 That classic 14th murder mystery. It's not who you think...or is it? Anyway, I need to brush up on my Latin before reading it again. I have to admit, I think this is the first time I ever actually read it all the way to the end (no I didn't finish it when reading it for Persecepe). |
Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco, 533 pages Steven Krise Saturday, August 17, 2002 Umbilicus Mundi. Fez isn't in Tunisia, and the Assassins, anyway, were in Persia, but you can't split hairs when you live in the coils of Transcendental Time. If our hypothesis is correct...They hold for certain that they are in the light. |
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, 611 pages Steve Gadd Monday, September 02, 2002 Certainly one of the more esoteric murder mysteries out there. I benefitted from the notes at this site: http://www.csuohio.edu/english/earl/nr0index.html |
The search for the perfect language by Umberto Eco, 385 pages Steven Krise Tuesday, August 17, 2004 Here he is cranking away at the Lullian wheels, seemingly unaware of the difference between the real omnipotence of God and the potential omnipotence of a human combinatory language. |
Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco, 533 pages Steven Krise Saturday, March 24, 2007 Do you have the password? |
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (2006) by Umberto Eco, 449 pages James Donahue Saturday, May 26, 2007 Eco continues his musing on popular culture and semiotics in this story where a man loses all his individual memory after an accident, but retains his public memory (i.e., anything he ever read in a book.) In other words, he can recite poems and discourse on Napoleon, but has no idea about who his daughter is. So he spends most of the book launching a historical investigation into himself, going through old notes and books, schooltime essays written during the Fascist era, and trying to unravel who he really is. Good, but somehow the books loses itself along the way. Perhaps a better idea than an actual book. (Read overnight in one long evening sitting outside on a warm spring's night on the curb outside the Berlin airport, locked out, waiting for them to let me board my early morning flight.) |
Germans Jews in Germany by Uriel Tal , 321 pages James Donahue Thursday, October 30, 2003 Tal provdes an excellent backdrop to the Holocaust by examining German-Jewish relations in the Second Reich. Tal's unique strength in this all-too-commonly-poorly-done field is to treat ideas and people simultaneously instead of relying upon such bodiless abstractions as "Judaism," "anti-Semitism," or "Christian." |