The Name of the Rose : Overlapping of History and Fiction

The Name of the Rose opens avenues for re-looking at the conflict between two disciplines – history and literature  – as the reader after reading the book finds himself on a fragile ground to understand if he has read a history book or a postmodernist detective fiction. When we study The Name of the Rose in context of postmodernist theory of history and fiction, we find that Eco prioritizes concerns to present the changing social, political and religious spheres with the help of fiction. It also leads us back into the domain of detective fiction wherein the world of Conan Doyle emerges. Fiction grounds on imagination that helps in the construction of narrative picture and history gives the picture of past. Fiction infiltrates into the territory of facts with the presentation of verified data in the form of names, factions, dates, and incidents. This crossing of the boundary blurs the demarcation of history and fiction as the reader finds himself incapable to treat the content fact or imaginatively constructed. Linda Hutcheon argues that the

writing of postmodernists is best represented by those works of historiographic metafiction which self consciously distort history. This distortion of history could be accomplished through various means such as blending of “history and fantasy.”  Postmodern historical novels incorporate historical documents, events and historical personages into the fictional worlds of their works, drawing attention at the same time to this process. Linda Hutcheon in her Poetics of Postmodernism labels postmodern historical novels as “historiographic metafictions” since they thematize the theory of contemporary historiography and problematize the distinction between history and fiction. She explains her reason for such a label thus: “[historiographic metafiction] puts into question, at the same time as it exploits, the grounding of historical knowledge in the real past. This is why I have been calling this historiographic metafiction.” [1]

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[1] Linda Hutcheon, The Poetics of Postmodernism. London: Routledge. 1989 p. 92.

The Role of the Reader

Eco’s The Role of the Reader points to the construction of the reader in a closed text as well as the open text. This construction of the reader depends upon the intention of the author in the closed text while the role of the author is limited in an open text as it does not require a reader to read the text consciously. An open text has an open structure and invites the reader to examine it using multiple approaches for the production of a hosts of meanings. In contrast, the closed text impedes the reader from generating his own meanings since the text continuously reminds him that its relevance emerges from the time period in which it was produced. The reader finds himself stuck in the closed meanings deeply rooted in the life of author. Not only this, the text forces the reader to context it with the author’s politics. There is another dimension to it which Eco defines in the following words - ‘‘You cannot use the text as you want, but only as the text wants you to read it’’ (Eco, Role 9).  In order to construct a model reader with the help of text, the art of decoding the meaning from the structure of the novel has to be learned.

Foucault's Pendulum

Foucault's Pendulum is a story of three friends named Belbo, Diotallevi and Casaubon. The three work for a vanity publisher in Milan. In their job profile, they get many manuscripts about occult conspiracy theories to read. The three claim that they can write better occult conspiracy theories and decide to invent their own conspiracy for fun. They named this satirical intellectual game "The Plan".

The three friend - Belbo, Diotallevi and Casaubon – are obsessed with ‘The Plan’ and sometimes forget that it is just a game. The situation becomes even worse when other conspiracy theorists learn about ‘The Plan.’ Belbo realizes that the people of some secret organization believes in their plan and target him. The secret society believes that Belbo knows the key to the lost treasure of the Knights Templar. The famous Foucault pendulum of Musée des arts et métiers in Paris plays a major part in the novel…………………….continues

On Ugliness

As per the news published in Iran's Books New Agency, Umberto Eco gathered ideas and concepts of ugliness from different books written at different point of time in the past.  Umberto Eco published the book titled  ‘On Ugliness’ in 2007 to which he referred in an interview "If a novelist does not challenge his scientific character, his writing style remains consistent and unchanged." 

The book is unique in the sense that it deals with various several "several aspects of ugliness in the classical world, the concepts of fascination, death, martyrdom, resurrection, hell, demons, monsters and sinister signs, the ugly, ridiculous, shameful, ugliness of women from antiquity to baroque and the presence of evil in the modern world." (IBNA)

Umberto Eco Reappears in Detective Fiction "The 7th Function of Language"

Once again detective fiction writers could not avoid referring to the legendry author – Umberto Eco - and his provocative artistic skills of creating mysteries. This time Laurent Binet has experimented to write a postmodernist and post structuralist detective fiction based on the life famous critic – Roland Barthes. His new novel The 7th Function of Language stuns the reader when they find that Roland Barthes did not die in an accident rather it was a planned murder for a secret document possessed by him. This secret document has details about the potency of language to persuade people. This document could enable its possessor to be the master of the world.  

The story has characters known for their academic and intellectual works. Among them, Umberto Eco, Roman Jakobson and Julia Kristeva are the ones who Laurent Binet included to create such a wonderful postmodernist detective fiction. The Protagonist meets Umberto Eco in the city of Bolgna. 

New Spark to the Mystery of Templers and Holy Grail

As per a new report published on the website of History Channel, the mystery of Templers has sparked discussion with an English cave came into limelight. The cave is engraved with some mysterious images that remind people of eight hundred years old Templers and Holy Grail. 

The mystery is so intrigue that it has been dragging writers, historians and scholars to unearth the truth. Writers, historians and explorers are so much of obsessed with the mystery that in the first decade of twenty first century Dan Brown gave a new twist to it by fictionalize in his famous book – The Da Vinci Code. And who can forget the legendry Italian Writer Umbero Eco for his masterpiece – Foucault’s Pendulum that stunned the reader with its thrilling unraveling of truth in fiction -

“Generation after generation, from Walter Scott’s nineteenth-century romance ‘Ivanhoe’ to Umberto Eco’s 1988 novel ‘Foucault’s Pendulum’ to the video game franchise ‘Assassin’s Creed’, the Templars are portrayed as a strange, often shadowy and sometimes downright evil organization, deathless and self-interested, guarding secrets and treasure, and out to control the world.”[1]

 Foucault’s Pendulum drags readers interested in searching the truth of Holy Grail and Templers in fiction. Even more encouraging is the way academia responded to the popular historical fiction.

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[1] http://www.history.com/news/medieval-carvings-spark-new-templar-theories

Not Just Detective Story

On December 27, 2016, The New Indian Express published an opinion article titled "A detective story, not for the faint hearted" by Shom Biswas on Umberto Eco's famous postmodern novel - The Name of the Rose - to acquaint the reader with the queerness of the story situated in the fourteenth century and exploiting the modern detective techniques of inquiring into the mysterious death of monks. I agree with Biswas to a great extent with regard to the summary and unique plot but apparently the author fumbles on the issue of knowledge and philosophical debate in different spheres including the Roman Catholic Church, diverse opinion of Christians on poverty, division of Christians followers and most importantly, the threat to the church from Aristotle's philosophy. Even more surprising for the readers is the character Baskerville - not a new creation rather an imitation of Arthur Conan Doyle's short story - "The Hound of Baskerville"

The book is unique as it opens avenues for the interested readers to see it through a prism that enables them to realize its critical potential.

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