The Name of the Rose - 11/3/26
8.5/10
(by Umberto Eco)
Okay first of all I liked the setting a lot. Eco clearly has a deep interest in mediaevalism/ theological/philosophical history and I’m a sucker for anything set in that kind of world. The abbey moves slowly, with a lot of thoughtfulness and time for prayer and contemplation, yet at the same time has deep cracks and is filled with tension. I feel like the pacing of the story does a good job of showing both of these at once- scenes like Adso’s examination of the door take a great deal of time to explore their subject, but are also filled with the kind of excitement that monastery life creates for the monks.
Unfortunately despite really enjoying mediaeval settings I’m not knowledgeable or smart enough to understand all the theological and political aspects of the story- the debates, the political maneuvering by michael of cessena, the abbot, bernard gui etc. I feel like I only got a partial story, but I still enjoyed it a lot even without much of that layer of storytelling. I do need to reread at some point, because hopefully a second read through will let me pick up on a lot more.
William is funny as fuck sometimes… fav character probably! He’s obviously having a great time solving the mystery, even as everything falls apart around him. He also feels much more of a realist than the rest of the monks around him, which makes sense and makes me like him more. He represents the drive for knowledge and the freedom of knowledge, even when others are actively trying to conceal knowledge for material or ideological gain.
The monastery is an incubation chamber where monks have nothing to do but think and squabble and worry about their sins and lust and not have sex. They are plainly crazy. Their guilt oozes out of them in tragedies like the many deaths that play out over the course of the book, the arguments they have, the hysteria and secrecy in every aspect of abbey life. Everything has the Devil in it, everything is understood through spirituality and the teachings of the church. The Devil is a very literal figure that takes an active role in guiding events.
William is disillusioned with this worldview, having travelled widely and had some crisis of faith which led to him resigning as inquisitor. Where most of the monastery believe that heretical movements like the Dolcinians are inspired by the Devil, William instead takes the view that people join heretical movements because, to the simple, theological concerns are secondary to the upending of a system which keeps them marginalised. Whether or not Christ was poor becomes a secondary concern to the here-and-now fact that you are poor and starving while the men of the church wear jewelled rings while they feast. He looks for material explanations wherever possible, and it’s this that makes him such a good inquisitor and such a good teacher for Adso. He proves everyone else wrong and he does it serving face and high on drugs. I love him.
A quote from the book:
‘...” Who am I to express judgments on the plots of the Evil One, especially,” he added, and seemed to want to insist on this reason, “in cases where those who had initiated the inquisition, the bishop, the city magistrates, and the whole populace, perhaps the accused themselves, truly wanted to feel the presence of the Devil? There, perhaps the only real proof of the presence of the Devil was the intensity with which everyone at that moment desired to know he was at work…”
“Are you telling me, then,” the abbot said in a worried tone, “that in many trials the Devil does not act only within the guilty one but perhaps and above all in the judges?”
“Could I make such a statement?” William asked, and I noticed that the question was formulated in such a way that the abbot was unable to affirm that he could…’