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Umberto Eco has died

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111–120 of 137 posts

Re: Umberto Eco has died

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Mind recommending someone else we ought to read instead?

I always recommend Italo Calvino. An underrated Italian writer IMHO. The Baron In The Trees or the Invisible Cities are a good start.

I remember that my teacher of Italian in high school asked us to read: "The Path to the Nest of Spiders".

Re: Umberto Eco has died

#112
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…

This reminds me of the philosopher whose name I can't recall now who claimed that consciousness came into being some 3,000 years ago

Probably Julian Jaynes/Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of thr Bicameral Mind?

Re: Umberto Eco has died

#113
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…

This reminds me of the philosopher whose name I can't recall now who claimed that consciousness came into being some 3,000 years ago

Probably Julian Jaynes/Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of thr Bicameral Mind?

Re: Umberto Eco has died

#114
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…

This reminds me of the philosopher whose name I can't recall now who claimed that consciousness came into being some 3,000 years ago

Probably Julian Jaynes/Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of thr Bicameral Mind?

Re: Umberto Eco has died

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Mind recommending someone else we ought to read instead?

I always recommend Italo Calvino. An underrated Italian writer IMHO. The Baron In The Trees or the Invisible Cities are a good start.

Calvino is one of the most well know Italian writer abroad. Not underrated at all.

Re: Umberto Eco has died

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Mind recommending someone else we ought to read instead?

I always recommend Italo Calvino. An underrated Italian writer IMHO. The Baron In The Trees or the Invisible Cities are a good start.

While Calvino is great, I wouldn't call someone who won a Nobel prize for literature underrated.

Re: Umberto Eco has died

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always recommend Italo Calvino. An underrated Italian writer IMHO. The Baron In The Trees or the Invisible Cities are a good start.

I remember that my teacher of Italian in high school asked us to read: "The Path to the Nest of Spiders".

That's Calvino's first novel, and it has a completely different style - and is much more boring as far as I remember- from everything he wrote afterwards. I think it was often chosen in Italian high schools for political reasons - it's a story about the Italian resistenza, the fight of partisans against fascists from which the modern Italian republic was born.

His subsequent novels and collections of short stories depart completely from that neo-realistic style. The way to describe them is possibly "a literary Bach" - his stories seem to develop fantastic themes in an endlessly imaginative way, exploring all the possibilities afforded by the theme, (loose) internal consistency and language. My favourites are "Cosmicomics" and "The invisible cities" .

Re: Umberto Eco has died

#118
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's funny how we consider certain cultural behaviors to be wildly different when they're "ours" versus "theirs" even if they're pretty similar if you can step back and observe them objectively.

"If you used historical techniques on us, you'd get completely the wrong idea!" Maybe. Or maybe you'd finally get the right idea.

I'd love to write more, but I've finished ingesting the stimulants that allow me to tolerate my oppressive culture (drinking coffee), and I'm going to take a short trip to worship the revered dead (visit the National Mall).

Re: Umberto Eco has died

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of the philosopher whose name I can't recall now who claimed that consciousness came into being some 3,000 years ago

Probably Julian Jaynes/Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of thr Bicameral Mind?

Neal Stephenson also picked up that idea in Snow Crash

Re: Umberto Eco has died

#120
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always recommend Italo Calvino. An underrated Italian writer IMHO. The Baron In The Trees or the Invisible Cities are a good start.

Calvino is one of the most well know Italian writer abroad. Not underrated at all.

Incidentally translated into English by the same man that translated most of Umberto Eco's work, the late great William Weaver.
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