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Umberto Eco has died

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Re: Umberto Eco has died

#71

Post by anigbrowl »

PavlovsCat wrote: post #55

I didn't read any of his novels (yet), but this I consider one of the most important documents I'm aware of. http://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism.pdf If we still think of the totalitarian governments that ruled Europe before the Second World War we can easily say that it would be difficult for them to reappear in the same form in different historical circumstances. If Mussolini's fascism was based upon…

Normally I tell everyone to read The Name of the Rose first and be happy, but for you I think you should start with The Mysterious Flame of queen Loana, even though it's one of his less accessible works. Much of it is a fictionalized memoir on how fascism became embedded in the fabric of daily life during Mussolini's reign, although this concern with mass movements and the dangers they pose to thinking individuals is a consistent theme in his work.

Re: Umberto Eco has died

#72

Post by wobbleblob »

coliveira wrote: post #27
schoen wrote: post #13

One remarkable thing about The Name of the Rose is that the characters in it don't think and talk like modern people who happen to have been transported into the Middle Ages. They seem to think differently -- about what's possible, what people can expect from life, how you know things, what counts as an argument... Possibly my favorite part: "What you say is very fine, Adso, and I thank you. The order that our mind i…

Umber Eco was one of the greatest scholars of Middle Age's philosophy. It is a great delight for all of us that he decided to share his knowledge in the form of a Novel. I don't think you can find any other writer capable of translating the thinking of ordinary men from Middle Ages into a book like he did.

It's not medieval philosophy, with "years after that conversation was set", the poster you're replying to means 600 years. The book should not be seen as an historic work.

Re: Umberto Eco has died

#73

Post by wobbleblob »

mikeash wrote: post #38
Retric wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really doubt we know very much about how people thought back then. There are many filters between what was thought, who knew how to write it down, the form people used to express thought in written form, what happened to be copied or survive. Ex: People don't actually believe in Santa Clause, but if you randomly chose 10,000 pages to represent US thought from 1800 to now. Them handed them to scholars in the future…

Is it not true that Santa Claus is the major religion? Many don't believe, but nearly all worship just the same.

That reminds me of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode, on thanksgiving:

Anya: I love a ritual sacrifice.

Buffy: Not really a one of those.

Anya: To commemorate a past event, you kill and eat an animal. It's a ritual sacrifice. With pie.

Re: Umberto Eco has died

#74

Post by wobbleblob »

fenomas wrote: post #14

Foucault's Pendulum was maybe the most transformative book I've ever read - it changed how I think about literature (and of course the Knights Templar). Ah well, guess it's time to reread it. :(

That book made me feel stupid and uneducated. There was hardly a paragraph without a word I had to look up or a reference I couldn't get. The translator utterly defeated me. I never finished it.

Re: Umberto Eco has died

#75

Post by bambax »

wobbleblob wrote: post #74
fenomas wrote: post #14

Foucault's Pendulum was maybe the most transformative book I've ever read - it changed how I think about literature (and of course the Knights Templar). Ah well, guess it's time to reread it. :(

That book made me feel stupid and uneducated. There was hardly a paragraph without a word I had to look up or a reference I couldn't get. The translator utterly defeated me. I never finished it.

Which is the direst critique one can address to any book! It's the book's (and author's) failure, not your own, to be incomprehensible and pedantic.

Re: Umberto Eco has died

#76

Post by bambax »

zorpner wrote: post #10

Umberto Eco on operating systems and religion, in 1994: The fact is that the world is divided between users of the Macintosh computer and users of MS-DOS compatible computers. I am firmly of the opinion that the Macintosh is Catholic and that DOS is Protestant. Indeed, the Macintosh is counterreformist and has been influenced by the "ratio studiorum" of the Jesuits. It is cheerful, friendly, conciliatory, it tells th…

What an utterly gratuitous comparison; that kind of thing could be said about almost anything (beef meat is Catholic, horse meat is Protestant! Reddit is Catholic, HN is Protestant! etc.)

Re: Umberto Eco has died

#77

Post by riffraff »

coliveira wrote: post #43
fenomas wrote: post #14

Foucault's Pendulum was maybe the most transformative book I've ever read - it changed how I think about literature (and of course the Knights Templar). Ah well, guess it's time to reread it. :(

I also suggest Baudolino. It is a fantastic story exploring the world of war and religion in the Middle Ages.

I also suggest Baudolino. It is a fantastic story exploring the meaning of truth and lies in a timeless manner.

Re: Umberto Eco has died

#78

Post by [deleted] »

bambax wrote: post #75
wobbleblob wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That book made me feel stupid and uneducated. There was hardly a paragraph without a word I had to look up or a reference I couldn't get. The translator utterly defeated me. I never finished it.

Which is the direst critique one can address to any book! It's the book's (and author's) failure, not your own, to be incomprehensible and pedantic.

[deleted]

Re: Umberto Eco has died

#79

Post by msutherl »

bambax wrote: post #75
wobbleblob wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That book made me feel stupid and uneducated. There was hardly a paragraph without a word I had to look up or a reference I couldn't get. The translator utterly defeated me. I never finished it.

Which is the direst critique one can address to any book! It's the book's (and author's) failure, not your own, to be incomprehensible and pedantic.

God bless this way of thinking has come to its end place in the greatest work of American writing ever made: https://xkcd.com/thing-explainer/.

Re: Umberto Eco has died

#80

Post by riffraff »

mcguire wrote: post #52
pklausler wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still an astonishing near-coincidence and I'm glad that you mentioned it.

To paraphrase Borges, they should have died on the same day.

forgive my ignorance, but what is the Borges' sentence being rephrased?
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