Amazon.com
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but it also has a lot to do with the beholder's cultural standards. In History of Beauty, renowned author Umberto Eco sets out to demonstrate how every historical era has had its own ideas about eye-appeal. Pages of charts that track archetypes of beauty through the ages ("nude Venus," "nude Adonis," and so forth) may suggest that this book is a historical survey of beautiful people portrayed in art. But History of Beauty is really about the history of philosophical and perceptual notions of perfection and how they have been applied to ideas and objects, as well as to the human body. This survey ranges over such themes as the mathematics of ideal proportions, the problem of representing ugliness, the fascination of the exotic and art for art's sake. Along the way, the text examines the intersection of standards of beauty with Christian belief, notions of the Sublime, the philosophies of Kant and Hegel, and bourgeois culture. More than 300 illustrations trace the history of Western art as it relates, in the broadest sense, to the topic of beauty.

Customer Reviews (12)

Great
I don't know how to put it, but I found the book to be quite fascinating in terms of giving specific levels of the idea of beauty in culture, society, and especially in history. It adjusts the idea of beauty and how it affects everyone's perception of psychology versus the time periods of different eras and such. It is enlightening and informative, as well as a book that keeps the notion of beauty in a broad perspective so as to not lean to one side more then another. It is fascinating to know how intelligent Eco really is, and that he seems to have moved my artistic passion through notion of looking at beauty through the eyes of a person who has been able to grasp this concept thoroughly well.

Beauty Elevated
Eco's study of beauty and what constitutes it inspires an investigation into the nature of beauty itself, and in the process it also takes one on a tour of much of the most influential art of western history. An uplifting, thoughtful book by a great genius of modern times.

A guide to Transitions in Art
I have been a fan of Mr. Eco's work since I read 'The Name of the Rose'. This book is a great example of the devotion Mr. Eco has in the imagery he describes in all of his other work (fictional and Non-Fictional). The book is sincere and a great guide though work which exemplifies the Beauty in the transitions Art has evolved though. The hard cover version of this book is beautiful indeed.

Umberto Eco book
The panels in this book are wonderful.Umberto Eco is known for excelllent research.If studying cosmetic history is something you are interested in doing, I highly recommend this book.Excellent choice!

Excellent introduction to the Aesthetics of Beauty
Umberto Eco is one of the world's leading experts on aesthetics and art, as well as being an outstanding novelist in his own right.

This work on the history of beauty is aimed at a general audience rather than a specialised one, and as such it abounds more in beautiful works of art and illustrations rather than scholarly analysis of art itself.However, it still contains an excellent history of the idea of beauty, and how artists through the ages have tried to implement somewhat abstract ideas, while philosophers and theologians have abstracted from art to apply artistic and creative terms to entities such as Platonic Forms or God.

One of the most interesting developments in the history of beauty was the identification of beauty with reality as it was in itself.Platonists identified the beautiful with the Good or the One, and Christians planted these ideas onto God.The notion that God was the most beautiful entity that existed, that God could be represented in art, and also that the cosmos in many ways is God's work of Art, expressed itself in many great works of art, poetry and architecture in the medieval period.

With the Renaissance, the concept of beauty became more grounded in human and earthly realities, and one sees far more focus on the beauty of material objects, nature, and people, as they are rather than their ideal nature.Art becomes more and more focused on the material world until the 20th century when in the era of late capitalism, art itself has become a consumable commodity and the chief virtue of art seems to be to cause pleasant feelings to arise in the consumer (something Andy Warhol satirises a lot in his works of art).Yet even in this period, artists still manage to create works of creative beauty which capture both the beautiful and the ugly, as we now see them.

This work is essential reading for anyone curious about Art and its history, and its relation to abstract ideas. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (378)

on Fcoucault's Pendulum
I just finished this book and found it a fascinating and wholly satisfying read.I did not find the use of a dictionary necessary during its consumption, but the fact that I happened to be reading into alchemical history and lore at the time.Eco will, on occasion, throw in a phrase such as "Hermes Trismagistus' foreskin", or his numerous allusions to the affair of the diamond necklace, without further elaboration.And then yes... you do have to go research a bit, which is a good idea anyway when dealing with a novel so wrought with theoretical history.

Ultimately, it put me in mind of the extreme hullabaloo regarding Mr. Brown's 'The DaVinci Code'.A book which, in my opinion, is little more than an embroidered and poorly written art history textbook, containing no dearth of stolen and uncredited ideas.If you'd like a truly good, meaty, well-written foray into the world of alchemy and ancient conspiracy, try this book instead.

The Secret Meaning of the Universe
An investigative novel for the intellectual. Traces the West's search for the Holy Grail of Universal Truth via the post-modern exploits of a trio of editors in Italy searching for plot and narrative amongst the elusive histories of the alchemical and esoteric Templars. Secret societies whose absence proves their existence (or else they wouldn't be secret)! Secret knowledge, the inscrutability of which proves its depth! Unless you are an European intellectual yourself, you will need a dictionary... er.. several dictionaries! (English, French, Italian, Spanish, Hebrew,...) Great fun.

Great Novel
This is a marvelously playful conspiracy novel that ties together a multitude of disparate antagonists and occult systems, including the Knights Templar and Kabbalistic ideas.Not quite a classic novel for its genre - IMHO it needed some more comedic elements.

Incredible book, precedes DaVinci Code by a decade
THe writing is breath taking, the story compelling, and precedes THe DaVinci Code by years.The similarities are really only superficial anyway.This book is far more than a clever story.It could even be life changing.

Not everything needs to be tied up in a neat little package, okay!?
I liked this book a lot.I think that Eco touches on some intriguing themes and has a lot of insight into psychology, history, and culture.

Did I understand all of it?No.But that's not a problem for me, because I don't think that you're supposed to understand all of it.Unless you've done all of the research Eco has, there's no way that you could.This book covers a LOT of ground.

I think that the goal of this sort of writing is to leave you wanting more.The subject matter itself is amorphous and abstract.If you can't form a clear idea after reading the book, that's because there is none to be formed.Eco introduces a number of modes of thinking, and by placing yourself into these modes of thinking along with the characters, you're experiencing the book and its mysteries.Books like this create an atmosphere instead of telling a story, and if you don't find yourself caught up in the atmosphere, you just aren't going to enjoy it.

I will admit that Foucault's Pendulum has its flaws.There are about 100 pages or so in the middle of the book that read like complete gibberish.This is the part where they finally outline "The Plan."Now, I understand that Eco is trying to illustrate a mode of thinking here and play a sort of intellectual game with us.But it really just gets rather tiresome.Who are the Baconians again?What do they have to do with the Neo-Templars?Are the Masons the good guys or the bad guys?This flaw is compounded by the fact that Eco assumes that you already know a lot about these various parties.(Pynchon does the same thing, but it doesn't bother me because most of his obscure references are meant as in-jokes)

This is where I think a lot of people get frustrated and huffy and throw the book down and run to their computer terminal where they get on Amazon.com and decry Eco as being puffed-up and pretentious.I don't know why people feel the need to be so defensive.Could it be that maybe this is just the way that he writes?I just assumed that historical conspiracy theories were sort of a hobby of his, and he included an enormous amount of detail because he thought we would enjoy it.Fortunately, you can pretty much skip a lot of these parts.I think the important thing is to understand the whole mode of thinking that Eco's characters were operating in when they formulated "The Plan."

**SPOILER AHEAD**

Finally, the felt that ending is a bit unsatisfying, but only because it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.In the final chapters, Casaubon is being remarkably lucid.What makes him go from zero to paranoid in less than 60 seconds, assuming in the end that the TRES are about to capture him?I mean, putting aside my typically American desire for a happy ending, this just does not make sense.Perhaps Eco really does intend the book to be a cautionary tale - that by engaging in conspiracy theories, we tread dangerously close to insanity.It's a good point, but he could have made it better. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

A must have for students of literature!
Umberto Eco is most famous in this country for his bestselling novel The Name of the Rose (1980) that was subsequently made into a Hollywood film starring Sean Connery. He is the author of a number other of novels including Foucault's Pendulum (1988), Baudolino (2002), and most recently The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (2005). First and foremost, however, Eco is a literary theorist and professor of semiotics, the philosophical theory of signs and symbols.

On Literature is a collection of essays and addresses given over the course of his career. More general essays like "On Style" and "On Symbolism" are mixed with those focused on Dante, Wilde, and The Communist Manifesto. Other essays--most notably "Borges and My Anxiety of Influence," "How I Write," and "The Power of Falsehood"-- illuminate Eco's own literary work in different ways.

A quick look at the table of contents is enough to show that despite being a collection of essays, this is a serious work of literary criticism. The book is being billed as "illuminating, accessible, [and] stimulating" (back cover text). It is illuminating and stimulating, but in all honestly it is a bit dense for general consumption. The essays on specific authors and texts are brilliant, but they will be best enjoyed by people who have actually read the texts Eco is discussing.

Because I've spent a lot of time dealing with James Joyce lately, I appreciated "A Portrait of the Artist as Bachelor," an essay in which Eco shows the seeds of Joyce's later literary work in young Jim's undergraduate writings.

"The American Myth in Three Anti-American Generations" is another great find. Originally written as a paper for a conference at Columbia University, it discusses the roots of the Italian image of America beginning with the generation that came to age in the 1930s.

On Literature is not an easy read, but if you have time and interest you will find that Eco's latest collection of essays is full of passion and insight.

Armchair Interviews says: Although not recommended for the casual reader, On Literature is a must-have for students of literature.

A Semiotics Professor on Various Aspects of Literature
This collection of essays and lectures by Umberto Eco and translated by Martin McLaughlin contains Eco's reflections on several aspects of literature, from the (more or less) tangible influence of Borges on the author's own writing to different approaches to literary criticism to how he himself came to write his novels.Though the essays themselves range in subject matter, all contain the underlying currents of Eco's academic forte, semiotics, that difficult-to-define discipline that drives the author's intellect.

The eighteen essays/lectures concentrate on specific authors and works ("A Reading of the Paradiso", "Wilde: Paradox and Aphorism") as well as on more general topics ("On Symbolism", "Intertextual Irony and Levels of Reading").As you might gather from the titles, this book is not light reading and reflects not only the density of Eco's prose but also of his ideas.Some essays succeed better than others."Borges and My Anxiety of Influence" is a fascinating, almost conversational glimpse into the workings of Eco's literary mind while his more direct "How I Write" is deadened by self-analysis."The Power of Falsehood", perhaps more than any of these essays, exposes the obsessions that gave rise to The Name of the Rose, Foucault's Pendulum, and Baudolino; it delves into the marriage of history and false ideas.Unfortunately, the opening piece, "On Some Functions of Literature," seems almost elemental and not deep enough for someone of Eco's academic caliber.Readers of his novels will recognize in many of these essays the driving force behind the fiction.Intellectuals and literary critics especially will want to make their slow, careful way through much of what Eco has to say.

Although I don't agree with some of Eco's premises, I still found this book intriguing, both for its ideas and the way they are presented.Eco knows his material, and his passion for the subject matter can be infectious.Recommended for serious students of literature and semiotics, but not for the casual reader.

essays on why/what we write & think about books & history
This book is worth buying for Eco's essay on "The Power of Falsehood" in which he explores the history and impact of the myth of the flat earth, of Prester John's kingdom, and the long and complex background to the lies of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"
If you've read any Eco (or Dante or Borges or Wilde) there is a lot here for you. There is also a striking essay (originally presented at Columbia University in 1980)entitled "The American Myth in Three Anti-American Generations" that focuses on the generation that came of age in Mussolini's Italy in the 1930's and 1940's.The section on the journals on resistance fighter Giaime Pintor -- with extensive selections quoted-- is powerful.The background on origins of European left-wing attitudes toward aspects of America are quite insightful. ... Read more

Amazon.com
Describing Umberto Eco as a writer is like describing the platypus as an animal. What do readers expect when they see the author's name on a book jacket? It's a tricky question to answer, given his range and versatility: he has produced studies of semiotics, children's books, medieval history, essays on contemporary culture, and, of course, novels--most notably The Name of the Rose and The Island of the Day Before. So first, a word of warning. Anyone familiar with Eco the novelist or essayist might well be dismayed by Kant and the Platypus, for this new book returns to his preoccupations of the 1960s and 1970s--to semiotics and cognitive semantics. As such, it can be a daunting volume (the initial chapter, for example, riffs on the numerous philosophical concepts of being). And second, a word of encouragement: this is a wonderful engagement with the issues of language itself. Even as he beckons the reader into one linguistic thicket after another, Eco always keeps a commonsensical perspective, using stories to explicate the knottiest concepts.

Why did Marco Polo describe the rhinoceros as a type of unicorn? Why couldn't 18th-century observers figure out how to classify the duck-billed platypus? Given a dictionary or encyclopedia definition of a mouse, how easy would it be to identify one if we had never seen one before? These are some of the examples that Eco uses to explore the ways in which we see and describe the world--the ways, that is, in which cultures develop taxonomies. If you want to know "why we can tell an elephant from an armadillo," or why mirrors do not in fact reverse images, this book will tell you. In fact, it will also tell you why you know what I am talking about when I say "this book." Got it? No? Then get it. --Burhan TufailBook Description

Customer Reviews (16)

Emphatically *not* for the lay reader
Why only two stars?I'm fascinated by books about the origins and evolution of language, but this one definitely belongs on the "philosophy", rather than the "linguistics" shelf (I suppose the mention of Kant in the title should have been sufficient warning). And, though I have a decent enough training in logic and mathematics, my philosophical chops are non-existent. So that paragraphs like the following just stick in my craw, like an indigestible platypus-burger:

"First of all, so that these most partial notes may be understood, I must clarify what I mean by the term "referring". I intend to exclude a "broad" use of the term, and I think it would be appropriate to limit the notion of referring to what is perhaps more properly describable as cases of designation, that is to utterances that mention particular individuals, groups of individuals, specific facts or sequences of facts, in specific times and places. From now on I shall also be using the generic notion of "individual" for identifiable spatiotemporal segments, such as 25 April 1945, and I shall hold to the golden decision by which nominantur singularia sed universalia significantur."

So, here's the thing. I actually had five years of Latin in high school, so I can reasonably figure out that that last part means something along the lines of 'although the specific is named, the general is to be understood' (e.g. 'the platypus' can be taken to mean that particular platypus over there, but it can also mean 'platypuses in general').

So I can figure it out. But I RESENT HAVING TO. There seems to be no particular reason to lapse into Latin at the point where he does - it smacks of flaunting one's erudition (and, dear God, Umberto has erudition out the wazoo), at the price of potentially losing a significant fraction of one's readers.

So, only two stars from me. Readers with a stronger background in philosophy and a greater tolerance for gratuitous bursts of Latin may feel differently. But reviews which suggest that this book is accessible to the 'general reader' are severely misguided, in my opinion.

Verbose beyond Cuteness
Dont get me wrong, Im generally big on Eco, not only his novels, but also the other essay books and Travels in Hyperreality really was an eye opener in my intellectual development. But Kant and the Platypus was a real disappointment. First, the reference to Kant is rather misleading, for Kant's work is reviewed rather summerally and reduced to an absurdity. Kant's categories of cognition are not geared towards semiotics as such, but towards formal logical operations, the space time structure of thinking. To say that the Kantian categories fall short of an analysis of meaning is to suggest that the faucet was deficient in putting out the fire at Macy's. Second, to say the perceptual categories of every day meaning are negotiated contracts with a community of parlants, does not require almost 400 pages. The essays are like pastries oversaturated with sacharine. After the initial taste or two, u just feel like putting it down.It was a labor to honor the man by finishing the book.

Philosophy alive
I read the review of Simon Blackburn trashing the book: Eco made a few mistakes concerning the two dogmas of empiricism (he confused Davidson's work with Quine's first dogma). So I am sure many readers hesitated after a review by such a rigorous big gun thinker as Blackburn.
When I started reading the book I was taken aback by the combination of depth and the vividness of the style. Eco is sprightly and alive, something that cannot be said of many philosophers dealing with the subject of categories.
The notion of categories is not trivial: you need a simple conditional prior to identify an object; it is a simple mathematical fact. You need to know what a table is to see it in the background separated from its surroundings. You need to know what a face is so when it rotates you know it is still the same face. Computers have had a hard time with such pattern recognition. A PRIOR category is a necessity. This was Kant's intuition (the so-called "rationalism"). This is also the field of semiotics as initially conceived. Eco took it to greater levels with his notion of what I would call in scientific language a compression, a "simplifation". This leads to the major problem we face today: what if the act of compressing is arbitrary?
Not just very deep but it is a breath of fresh air to see such a philosophical discussion nondull, nondry, alive!

Akin to a TV show; a layman's view of semiotics
This is a layman's introduction to semiotics.These essays make me feel as if I were watching a TV show (probably the Roseanne show) on semiotics.Where is the intellectual substance I ask?When have semioticians given upthe pursuit of semiotic research merely to be branded as "semioticiansfor the masses"?

Well done Alastair McEwen (Translator)
Alastair McEwen (Translator) makes this book the gem that it is.If it weren't for Alastair McEwen (Translator) this book might suffer from a mundane translation.Yet you need not fear, Alastair McEwen (Translator)has done a superior job. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

Reading this will make your mind grow
It does not matter if you agree with everything Eco says - in fact I think that is impossible.The point of reading these articles is to grow your mind and awareness of other ways of thinking.

An intellectual's analysis of modern times
TURNING BACK THE CLOCK: HOT WARS AND MEDIA POPULISM provides an intellectual's analysis of modern times in a series of essays which originally appeared in the Italian newspapers La Republica and L'Espresso. Slogans and ideas of hot wars and media, progress and racism, changing technology and popular concerns are all analyzed in a lively series of discussions linked to everyday life and media reports, making this a pick not just for the usual college-level collections strong in social issues, but for general interest lending libraries, as well.

Turning Back To Reason
Nowadays, when most authors writing on social and politcal events or trends are motivated primarily by their partisan agendas, it is a refreshing and enlightening experience to read from someone like Umberto Eco.The acclaimed author of FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM and THE NAME Of The ROSE, who also happens to be the world's only famous medievalist and semiotician, is an endangered species: an original thinker, whose ideas and opinions derive not from organizational or ideological loyalties, but rather originate out of independent observation and evaluation.I may disagree with Eco on more than a few things inside this book (as, for example, his uncharacterically unfair treatment of both Mel Gibson and the PASSION Of The CHRIST in the essay "Hands Off My Son!"), but at least these thoughts are his own.

TURNING BACK The CLOCK: HOT WARS And MEDIA POPULISM is a collection of essays based on a number of Umberto Eco's articles and lectures between 2000-2005.The majority of these pieces originally appeared in the Italian newspapers L'espresso and La Repubblica, they are short, informal, even humorous.They are also, however, very serious in their intent, and are models as to what opinion pieces in journalism should be.

Eco's writing here takes on everything from what he terms paleowar vs. neowar (in the essay "Some Reflections on War and Peace), media monopolism and movies to HARRY POTTER and THE DA VINCI CODE (from "Those Who Don't Believe in God Believe in Everything), from Nigerian beauty pageants (in "Beauty Queens, Fundamentalists and Lepers") to political correctness and multiculturalism to Islamist terrorism and Islamophobia as well.

Within this book's 41 collected essays, instead of bullying or haranguing his readers, Eco offers the commonsense and moderation that was once the hallmark of classic humanism and liberalism:That we need not to abandon all values and all standards in order to achieve a tolerant and pluralistic society.



... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

Haute-Satire, not bedtime reading
This is a collection of short stories which are most definitely satire for the intelligentsia.Eco's mind is a database of cultural references, linguistic foolery and razor-sharp wit.

The stories include "Granita," a retelling of Nabokov's famous tale with a geriatric object of desire and "The Discovery of America" which chronicles Columbus' 1492 landing on terra firma via the newscasting techniques used for man's first walk on the moon.

Eco's creativity knows no bounds.As with his other works, an understanding of topics as diverse as Adorno's theories and a Who's Who in the Greek pantheon of classical philsophers is definitely helpful, but not required.Even if the reader does not recognize all the references, she will undoubtedly recognize the talents of one of the greatest authors of our time.If you like to think and read at the same time, try some Eco.

How boring the brilliant can be
I bought this book because I saw a chapter in which great classics of world- literature, the Bible, Homer, Quixote, Divine Comedy etc. are , as it were , critiqued by a reader at a publishing house who rejects them. I thought this might be interesting and amusing. There are some insights, but once one has the idea of the piece it is predictable and dull. Other pieces give the same kind of feeling. The Lolita parody in which the love- object is an old woman should have been confined to one- sentence.
Perhaps I am not being fair to Eco, but the kind of humor through parody and pastiche which makes up this book simply does not much appeal to me.
All of his great learning and knowledge seem to me here to be engaged in an exercise of 'playing with himself' which gives the reader little indeed.

An entertaining compilation of short stories
Eco, as is his form, provides a series of entertaining and poignant stories covering topics such as blue-jeans, media reports from the discovery of America and conversations with God.If you enjoy the rangeand depth of Travels in Hyperreality, then you will enjoy this book. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (8)

Interesting collection of essays
Many readers will probably be attracted to books like these after reading and enjoying Eco's novels, especially The Name of the Rose and Foucalt's Pendulum. If so, be warned. As I discovered, the Eco of the essay is NOT the Eco of the novels. Both Ecos are eccentric, clever and witty. However, the Eco of essays is a more radical and postmodern thinker. His topics can be seen by some as mundane. He's interested in pop culture and some of his theories are a tad obscure.

This collection is a series of loosely connected essays by Eco. It's an interesting book to read not cover-to-cover but to read an essay once in a while until the book is finished. That way the attitudes can sink in. The biggest fault I found with the book is certain essays to do with semiotics have arguments that are complex and hard to follow. This is understandable as they're taken from more specialised publications whereas in the novels, he strives to bring his ideas to the general public.

The essays I found to be most likeable are Travels in Hyperreality (about the proliferation of wax museums in the US and the general obsession with replicas in society), Reports from the Global Village (a series of essays on media), an analysis of Casablanca and In Praise of St Thomas (Eco's PhD was on Thomas so his views can be seen as fairly authoritative).

A good read but not brilliant.

Reader from Israel
Well this was my third book by Mr. Eco and dthe continue to get worse. The Rose was excellent and made me hungry for more but after the Pendulum and this Hyper-Realty bit I'm going to have to call it quits. The author has the ability t oput together a great novel such as the Rose, I wish it were mine, but the other stuff is just not happening.

Amorphous Lump o' Eco
Umberto Eco is clearly a genius - his fictional works testify to that.I assume his reputation as a semiologist is well earned (since I know little about the subject beyond what Walker Percy digested).

Unfortunately, I found "Travels in Hyperreality" to be a hastily pasted collection of observations and commentary that is not really worthy of Eco's growing portfolio.The book was sometimes interesting, but dry and tasteless.I thought the whole lot of it could be encapsulated in Eco's strange observations concerning "the wearing of blue jeans."That is, if you're really, really, really into Eco and want to soak up everything he says, then this book will not disappoint.If, on the other hand, you have limited time on your hands, then Eco's fictional works, or "Search for the Perfect Language," are far better temporal investments.

Perhaps I didn't get it, or perhaps it was a mistake reading much of it in a bar in Santa Clara, but I would assert that this is only a book for the Eco purist.

Does Disney Own The Planet?
A deliriously funny trip through the mad places the earth's inhabitants call home. Eco skewers like "kitsch-ka-bob" the artificial pseudo paradises we have created with all our so-called modern conveniences. What have we turned our cities into, by the way? Do we really understand art?

If you've ever driven through rural Arkansas or Texas and wanted to capture with words the seemingly inexplicable, paradoxical sights along the way, it's been done for you and can be enjoyed in these side-splitting pages.

Lots of fun.

on travels in hyperreality
i got this book because of the essay by which it is entitled. it is a great work, and a basic reading for those interested on the topics of hyperreality, simulated or thematized environments, and the like. quite contemporary tho Eco's work is Baudrillard's la precession des simulacres. so they are from the 70's and much more has been written on the topic, but these texts are, as i said, basic to understand all the rest. eco's work is quite openning ranging from xanaduswax museums, the theming of nature, etc. it is worthy. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (92)

Eco's Philosophical Bantering
This book is by far the most terrible of all of Eco's productions yet. The book is flooded, no grotesquely bursting with tangents and the usual philosophical rubbish. The reminisces of Roberto's childhood are entertaining and even the time on the ship, but few, if any readers I venture, will have patience for his constant philosophical bickering over first the Meridian and then irrelevantly the meridian line. Roberto's twin Ferrante as an alternate fantasy might be amusing except that it overall detracts from a part of the book that should be reaching its climax. I do not deny that even after 400 pages of this anthole after one chapter I could want to put it down and pick up something more interesting and more thought provoking!

A sea of irony holds no prisoners...
Marooned on a supposedly deserted ship within sight of an island photophobic nobleman Roberto della Griva must surive, and for a man to survive he must tell stories. So he writes a series of letters to his love from which this story is constructed by a 20th-century scholar some time later. Interesting as this sounds it soon gets bogged down in an ever-present sense of irony.

Don't get me wrong: I love irony as a story-telling device and use it myself in my poor attempts at fiction, but I think Eco should have kept about half the irony found in this book to himself. It is too much of a good thing, and the book drowns in it. At some point or other Eco ridicules practically every character he creates. Even those who generally hold his views do not remain unscathed, like the knight Saint-Savin, who is a secularist and humanist but who seems to believes coffee can cure pretty much anything. I can just imagine Eco snickering to himself behind his typewriter (though I'm not sure if he wrote it in longhand or on a PC in real-life - this is addressed to nitpickers). Even the final words of the book, an afterword where the author tells where he got the letters that inspired this book, have several ironic notes, which is good that it is the end, because by that time I've had enough of that. Ultimately this will alienate many readers, such as myself, though some might regard this element differently.

Otherwise this is a fascinating, haunting and formidable book, like the other books by Eco I've read. It covers a wide range of subjects, including my favourites: The Powder of Sympathy and the Longitude Pronlem. ISLAND OF THE DAY BEFORE is not as good as FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM or as devestating as THE NAME OF THE ROSE but it's not so boring or unreadable as some people claim it to be.

PS: If you want to read more on the Longitude Problem, there is an excellent non-fiction book by Dava Sobel on the subject, named LONGITUDE.

Bloated
I wanted to like this book, but ultimately it is just too long, too confusing, and too self-indulgent to like. It revolves around a marooned man (marooned on a ship--while looking at an unreachable island) who confuses his own imaginings with reality--and confuses us a bit along with him. It seems to me that Eco took every little sophist philosophical musing he ever had and tucked it somewhere in this book. Clever wordplay, clever ideas--marooned on a ship, e.g. Christ trapped on the Island and waiting to be freed, e.g., all are thrown in as if in a blender. In the end we're left with a bloated dead body of a book. Unfortunate, if better edited and with 150 pages taken out, it might have been great.

Roberto/Umberto's "forest of invented nature"; "island of solitude"
"This was his forest, where he went as unhappy lovers go into forests; here was his invented nature ..." (106).

Like most people, I fell in love with Umberto Eco's writings after the beautifully stimulating medieval novel, the Name of the Rose.Foucalt's Pendulum only added to my esteem with its esoteric, occult labyrinths of secret wisdom, Templar knights, conspiracies, detective-religious mystery, computers, philosophy and psychology.What next; where could the aging, but burgeoning author of novels possible go from there?The Island of the Day Before.It's a semiotic island-jungle; and good luck!

I'm still not quite sure how to reckon with this one:Is it really a "novel" at all?Some reviewers & Eco fans find it to be exotically, inter-galatic; others,simply a dry, humorless mess - one of Eco's least attractive novels (although it appears from a quick glance of reviews that the same split has occurred twice more with Baudolino & Queen Loana).I guess I'm in the middle on this one, slightly leaning towards giving Eco the benefit of the doubt.Although I read it a few months ago (too often with a glass of wine in hand) I still haven't come to terms with it; partially because having read a few, generally insipidly pedantic, but informative, essays from Rocco Capozzi's "Reading Eco" (1997) I learned a little bit more about semiotics, confirming my original thoughts while reading the Island of the Day Before that the book is a palimpsest; there are several layers - often to be reckoned with simultaneously - and the book must be re-read.

Ostensibly there's a story there.It's taken from the journal (each of Eco's previous novels derrive from mysterious manuscripts) of a 17th century Italian noble named Roberto who fights in the 30 Years War, ends up in Paris, hob-nobs with other noblemen, as well as the Cardinals Richlieu and Mazzarin and winds up shipwrecked on a ship at the international date-line.In fact, the whole story/stories is/are really his creations and/or Eco's wanderings in time.

There's lot's of interesting 17th century marginallia, characters, ideas, thoughts, art, and so on.Eco captures the spirit of the age, as far as I can tell, with his use of technologies & ventures of the day such as the search for longitude, medicines (although, I'm not sure about the wounding of the dog episodes), diving bells, telescopes, weapons, and so forth.He also incorporates an amazing amount of material from the literature of the period, expressing philosophy, poetry and science through various characters.On the flip side, Eco doesn't really capture 17th century speech patterns, in my opinion.Maybe I'm off here and people in the 17th century did speak like this, but the language sometimes comes across as pretty modern to me; I hear Eco more than his characters.It's as though he can't keep himself out of the novel.But maybe I'm on to something that's intended.I guess I'm becoming an Eco-apologist!The love story is somewhat romantic, but what captivated me more-so were insightful lines like: "Love makes us the enemy of ourselves" (117), or "Presence takes the edge off hunger, and distance sharpens it" (124).What would be really, really helpful would be a "key" in the vein of Haft & White's "The Key to the Name of the Rose" (1997) - there's plenty of potential here for Eco scholars.

Anyway, let me warn the masses here.The VERY heavy, covert doses of semiotics (signs & symbols) as well as overt verbosity (have a dictionary nearby, preferably the OED!) threaten to get in the way of the story and is going to be off-putting to most readers looking for a "good story" to delve into.You won't make it through.That said, if you're even remotely interested in semiotics, philosophy, the 17th century, or the post-modern novel, you'll find a gold mine here.And, as a bonus, you'll probably get (or at least appreciate) the symbolism of the mysterious orange dove.Something to let seep into your soul...

This is a book I simultaneously liked and disliked many times in the reading it.This is why 3-stars seems appropriate and honest here: the book was not always enjoyable to read, took some work, and came across as pedantic & even narcissistic at times.Eco's name, afterall, is larger than the title and that bugs.But Eco has a scholarly reputation which pre-dates his novel writing by decades, and whose ever met a PhD without an eco, I mean "EGO" :-) Overtime, I've found the book to be thought-provoking and rewarding in varying ways.I'm still trying to figure out how exactly, but I am glad I finished it.At the very least it was a unique adventure into the 17th century.

Eco will be read many, many years hence and will probably go down as one of the greats of our times.I'm looking forward to Baudolino and other Eco works.

"...he made the wounded city into the Land of his personal unsated Tenderness, an island of his solitude" (124).

The Blush is Off The Rose
"The Island of the Day Before" is a sad relic from a talented and brilliant author.Certainly people will go on praising Eco (as they should), but TIDB remains a flacid exercise in overplotting.Eco has become a sort of literary Andy Warhol - selling his name more than his work.In trying to achieve a Kafkaesque "portrait of an instant", Eco merely puts on display what was better left as a study or exercise to be burned after his demise.

The Island of the Day Before lacks virtually all of the elements that make a story worth reading.Indeed, Eco's inversion of the rules of good fiction is the main attraction for his works.But in The Island of the Day Before, the reader must trudge through all of Eco's autoerotic complexity solely for the sake of that complexity.Following is a parody of the sort of nonsense that permeates this book:

"Robert opened the door to the cabin, and was confronted with the object of his dread.From the planked ceiling hung a hemp rope, knotted every three inches with an inverted half-stitch, each pinned through by a tortoiseshell ladypoker scented with ambergris.At the end of the rope, approximately four feet from the floor, and thus fourteen hands from a point bisecting a line drawn between Robert's right elbow and the cleft of his chin, was a metal hoop.The rope was fastened to the metal hoop with an overwrapping style, which Robert immediately recognized as the "Bosun's Burgher" favoured by the Patagonian fishermen.The metal ring was welded to a torus, and the center of the torus circumscribed a small teak box with a brass hasp and seven lotus shaped inlays.Each of the inlays contained a tiny portrait of one of the seven sybils standing on one of the seven hills of Rome, but only five of the sybils were depicted with their hands upraised.The other two sybils hand their hands clasped behind their backs.The first of the sybils with upraised hands was holding a rod, which twisted along its own length, with radial spikes of hexagonal cross section, each of which was terminated by an inverted cusp which was in turn pierced by a crescent.The ends of the crescents spiralled back in upon themselves, but they alternated, with some facing right and some facing left, and still others, in a trick of the artist's skill, facing directly toward the viewer's navel, no matter where one stood..." ... Read more

Book Description
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

A spectacular best seller and now a classic, The Name of the Rose catapulted Umberto Eco, an Italian professor of semiotics turned novelist, to international prominence. An erudite murder mystery set in a fourteenth-century monastery, it is not only a gripping story but also a brilliant exploration of medieval philosophy, history, theology, and logic.

In 1327, Brother William of Baskerville is sent to investigate a wealthy Italian abbey whose monks are suspected of heresy. When his mission is overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths patterned on the book of Revelation, Brother William turns detective, following the trail of a conspiracy that brings him face-to-face with the abbey’s labyrinthine secrets, the subversive effects of laughter, and the medieval Inquisition. Caught in a power struggle between the emperor he serves and the pope who rules the Church, Brother William comes to see that what is at stake is larger than any mere political dispute–that his investigation is being blocked by those who fear imagination, curiosity, and the power of ideas.

The Name of the Rose offers the reader not only an ingeniously constructed mystery—complete with secret symbols and coded manuscripts—but also an unparalleled portrait of the medieval world on the brink of profound transformation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (264)

Symbol is Substance
In "The Name of the Rose," Umberto Eco describes monks' attempts in medieval monasteries to obtain and preserve knowledge in writing and signs. Knowledge was limited and those who hoarded it had power. The murder mystery develops around the possession of this precious commodity shattering the religious brotherhood. Knowledge became more available over time, and valuable old books and signs were lost. Eco takes the reader on a wonderful tour of a violent and mystical era, leaving arcane signposts for guidance. It is enjoyable and necessary to decipher all of the signs in order to experience the times and the character interaction. An erotic scene occurs in the story leading to a long-lasting priestly memory. It is a memory of regret for the priest, but not due to the sexual event. It is the regret of not knowing the name of the momentary beloved. And, though the rose grows, blooms, and ultimately withers to dust, it is the name of the rose that remains forever.

Works on several levels
After 263 reviews, what else can I say?

Don't let the poor film adaptation fool you. It works so well on so many levels.
* Detective story.Its a traditional (and very good) Sherlock Holmes-type murder mystery.The setting is colorful and unusual.

* Philosophical/theological/historical treatise.Eco is a world-class authority on Medievel theology.His academic book on Aquinas is a classic, for example.He knows his stuff and is able to give the readers all kinds of things to puzzle over: the poverty of Jesus; the history of the papacy; implications of William of Occam, etc.Eco's atheism shows through subtly, but is an interesting challenge to the believing reader.

An achievement in writing (and reading!)
MY RATING SYSTEM:

* - if you have to chose between torture and reading this book, then you might want to consider reading the book - although it depends on just how severe the torture would be.

** - if you've lost your job and have quite a bit of free time on your hands, and don't have anything else better to do, then you might want to consider reading this book; don't expect to learn much or really be entertained. It will however, help you pass the time until your death.

*** - meh...I'm indifferent. Reading this book will not alter your life in any significant way, yet it is not so horrendously dreadful that your taking the time to read it will be a complete waste of time.

**** - Good book to great book zone here. You should probably read this book if you have some spare time. This book could be interesting, entertaining, or informative.

***** - Outstanding book! Make time to read this book - you'll learn or be entertained or intrigued. The book might even be good enough to provide original or helpful insights into the world that we live in.

REVIEW:

The Name of the Rose is a murder mystery taking place within the confines of a 14th century northern Italian abbey.The main characters, William of Bakersville, and his assistant Adso (the narrator of the story) arrive at the abbey to investigate an unusual death, and find themselves immersed in a place with such a depth of bizarre and mysterious characters that one can only imagine how difficult such an investigation must have truly been.

The book can be a very slow read - I found that things didn't really start to move until about 100 pages in, and after that it moved as one travels across a series of mountain peaks.It is littered with Latin phrases varying from a few words to a few paragraphs that cause some frustration, but a lack of understanding of which will not detract from the enjoyment of the 'mystery story'.Finally, the history - oh my, there is so much history - can cause the progress of the 'mystery story' to stall out at times.

All that being said, having finished the book and read some of the reviews on Amazon, I've realized that, while at times the historical digressions of the author - his recounting of religious debates, heretics, the state of the Church, etc. - seem to be academic or literary grandstanding, they actually are strongly linked to the plot and the crimes at the abbey.

I don't imagine that Ecco set out to create a book that was widely accessible and simple to read (a John Grisham thriller this is not).Instead, he has crafted a story that is so thick with context, so rich in illustrating the world in which the abbey existed, and so thorough in explaining the various conflicts and agendas that motivate the behaviour of so many of the story's participants, that at many times throughout the novel progresses at a difficult pace.

Despite the effort required to finish this book, Ecco demonstrates in several instances that he is capable of producing gripping, fast-paced, accessible work.There were at least a few sections in the book where 50 to 100 pages would fly by with hardly any effort required at all.Those sections were a joy to read, and in retrospect, made all the more enjoyable by the context that Ecco sets elsewhere in the novel.

In summary, I did not find this book to be an easy read, but if you've got some significant time to dedicate to getting through this book, it can be quite rewarding.

Excellent Novel
This is an excellent mystery novel on par with the best of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories.Be ready for lots of Latin phrases, obscure vocabulary and some intriguing medieval politics.

Intriguing mystery that's hard to get into
"The Name of the Rose" has an interesting plot, lots of history, and some theological and philosophical questions for the reader to consider, but ultimately, it was too slow for me to ever really get into. The plot centers around two men trying to solve a string of murders in an abbey, and there are several suspenseful moments. However, there is also a lot of discussion between the two main characters and among the other monks in the abbey.

I noticed several other reviews here mention the Latin in the book. The Latin is untranslated, but even though I don't know the language, I was still able to follow the book. I'm sure having the companion book to "The Name of the Rose" would have enhanced my understanding of all the theological references and the Latin, but I was fine without it.

What it comes down to is how interesting you find theological debates, discussions of symbols, and religious history. There's only so much of those subjects I can take, which is why I didn't love "The Name of the Rose." It's worth getting to the end because there are some exciting moments, but it's not what I would call a page-turner. ... Read more

Book Description

Umberto Eco nos comenta la Historia de la Belleza, en un libro profusamente ilustrado, desde la noche de los tiempos hasta nuestros días.

¿Qué es la belleza? ¿cómo nació ese concepto? ¿cómo ha evolucionado a lo largo de los siglos? ¿quiénes fueron sus inventores?. A estas y otras muchas preguntas contesta Umberto Eco con su habitual erudición, pero también en un tono didáctico y ameno, asequible a todos los lectores. El libro, además, va acompañado de extraordinarias ilustraciones que dan luz a las palabras de Eco: reproducciones de pinturas y esculturas, el testimonio de la evolución de la belleza a través de los siglos. Eco escribe además según las teorías comparatistas y sugiere concomitancias entre los grandes maestros de distintas épocas, así Piero dell Francesca con Paul Klee. Este libro, de formato especial, es una verdadera joya, un texto imprescindible en cualquier biblioteca.

Customer Reviews (3)

Belleza
Como su título lo dice, el libro es una belleza. Excelentes ilustraciones. La revisión histórica de la belleza es de gran valor.

Está bien, dependiendo para qué lo quieres
Compré La Historia de la Belleza para mi tesis sobre estética. Estudio Filosofía y al momento de hacer una tesis sobre estética creo que ya tengo algo de información al respecto, por este motivo sólo por este no recomiendo el libro; es decir no lo recomiendo si lo buscas con fines académicos, al menos que quieras algo muy genérico y amplio. Sin embargo, si deseas hacer una aproximación a "la belleza" es libro es ua maravilla, tiene un lenguaje muy ameno, directo y simple que no complica su lectura. Además, se trata de un libro perfecto para mesita de café en la sala de casa, porque está lleno de láminas e imágenes y los textos son bastante cortos, por eso se trata del libro perfecto para pasar el tiempo mientras alguie te dejó solo esperando en la sala.La Historia de la Belleza

INDISPENSABLE
Estudiosos del arte, periodistas culturales o sencillamente lectores y amantes de la belleza en cualquiera de sus formas, encontrarán en este texto la información histórica y conceptual necesaria para comprender cómo nuestra cultura manipula con y es manipulada por las diferentes formas de la belleza.
La edición es impecable, papel esmaltado, full color y excelente calidad de impresión: el más bello libro sobre la belleza.
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BOOK ABOUT THE ESSENCE OF BEAUTY. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

A dialogue, not an argument
This is a wonderful compilation of letters, in which two obviously learned men with two obviously variant viewpoints discuss some fundamental issues regarding faith.Although the focus is on the occidental, Christian faith, most of the dialogue goes to the heart of religious nature.

I received this book as a Christmas present and left in on the coffee table when I was not reading it.Throughout the whole of the holiday season, with guests coming and going very frequently, the book was picked up and read by nearly every visitor.Each said the same thing: "This is really incredible."By way of disclosure, I studied religion (secularly) in school; nevertheless, I think the book appeals to a wide range of reader.

A word of warning: if you are a fan of Christopher Hitchens, Pat Robertson, Richard Dawkins, Gerry Falwell, or the like...do not expect this work to follow that style.As other reviewers have rightly pointed out, the confrontation is internal and thoughtful in this book, not a "confrontation," as is usually understood, between two men.This is a dialogue.Not an argument.If you are looking for an evangelical and an atheist screaming at one another, I suggest you look to the above-mentioned four names.You'll find plenty of that there.

Otherwise, you can read this book in an evening.And, for what it's worth, I highly suggest you do.

How a Dialogue should be!
This exchange between Umberto Eco, an expert philosopher and secularist and a Cardinal of the Catholic Church is nothing short of enlightening. The two have obvious disagreements, but the exchange, which covers topics such as the apocalypse, the right to life, and where morals come from, is nothing short of sincere and well meaning on both sides. This is how a dialogue between believers and non believers should be! It is much more worthwhile than some "Dawkins vs. random fundimetalist" type deal.

Eco and the Cardinal don't really answer any of the questions in as much detail as I would have hoped, but I guess that was the limit of only allowing one reply.

a beautiful book to comfort us all
In these beautifully crafted, philosophical yet clear letters, Cardinal Martini and Umberto Eco discuss the questions that have been raised by many peoples in many lands and in many cultures since philosophy began.They exchange views on the secular expectation of the apocalypse and our resultant consumer culture; on women in the church; on when life begins; and on how a secular man can ground his ethics.

The thorough Jesuit education these great minds received is as evident as their deep humanity.And, while a student of philosophy and ethics will no doubt be entranced by the clear and logical arguments Eco and Martini present, a less philosophically inclined mind may find comfort.

For in the end, Martini and Eco reassure us that, no matter whether you are secular or religious; no matter what your culture, there are universal values that are common to us all.It is a message well worth hearing in this relativistic and politically correct world.

A Confrontation Indeed
In a time when academia and scholarly religion seems terribly at odds with the living Catholic faith, two men open a dialogue which is indeed a confrontation. They confront however, not each other, but the issues of apocalyptic perspective, abortion, women in the Church, violence and much more. These two men recognize these issues not as polemics to be tossed back and forth for endless bantering, but as fundamental to outlining a definition of "humanity."Both men are scholars and people of faith, aware of the cultural and social millieu around them. Although the paperback version claims "A Dialogue" it is most definitely a confrontation that forces the reader to make some decisions or at least consider issues that are all to easily relegated to consideration in a distant sphere rather than our hearts.

Well-reasoned, civil dialogue
I loved this little book.Eco is one of my heroes, and I knew of Martini's reputation, since there's been much speculation that he is one of the favorites to become the next Pope.

What I liked most about the dialogue is that the two men clearly present their views and fully address the other's questions, without breaking down into the type of sensationalistic diatribe that passes for debate in the United States. Eco and Martini show respect for each other and each other's views, while clearly making a case for their own beliefs.

My sole complaint is that of several other reviewers - the book was too short. I would have enjoyed more Q&A from Eco and Martini. The reactions of other intellectuals that were apparently included in the Italian and Spanish versions would have also been interesting reading.

This book is well worth a purchase. ... Read more

Book Description
In the mold of his acclaimed History of Beauty, renowned cultural critic Umberto Eco’s On Ugliness is an exploration of the monstrous and the repellant in visual culture and the arts. What is the voyeuristic impulse behind our attraction to the gruesome and the horrible? Where does the magnetic appeal of the sordid and the scandalous come from? Is ugliness also in the eye of the beholder? Eco’s encyclopedic knowledge and captivating storytelling skills combine in this ingenious study of the Ugly, revealing that what we often shield ourselves from and shun in everyday life is what we’re most attracted to subliminally. Topics range from Milton’s Satan to Goethe’s Mephistopheles; from witchcraft and medieval torture tactics to martyrs, hermits, and penitents; from lunar births and disemboweled corpses to mythic monsters and sideshow freaks; and from Decadentism and picturesque ugliness to the tacky, kitsch, and camp, and the aesthetics of excess and vice.With abundant examples of painting and sculpture ranging from ancient Greek amphorae to Bosch, Brueghel, and Goya among others, and with quotations from the most celebrated writers and philosophers of each age, this provocative discussion explores in-depth the concepts of evil, depravity, and darkness in art and literature. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Ugliness Explored Through the Imaginative Eyes of Umberto Eco
'One man's trash is another man's treasure' might be a apt conclusion after spending the significant amount of time required to digest Umberto Eco's semiotic approach to 'ugly'.Eco's brilliance as an author is well accepted, yet his informed academic investigation (upon which many of his own novels are based) is only now being appreciated. It is difficult to read ON UGLINESS as a treatise, so lush and provocative is his prose style.Rizzoli International spared no expense on supplying Eco with images and design of this art treasure, and the result is a volume about art history and our manifold perceptions of the signs and symbols that through time have defined 'ugly' versus 'beauty.'

Eco wisely uses the chronological approach to his discourse on the semiotics of ugliness.After a superb Introduction in which he suggests the response of an alien visiting our planet, trying to determine what our civilization labeled beautiful (!), Eco launches into his presentation with gusto. He presents chapters on ugliness in the Classical World, religious use of ugliness (passion, death, martyrdom, apocalypse, hell), monsters, witchcraft, sadism, 'obscene pornography', the appearance of ugliness in architecture and industrial buildings, and finally the transition of the 'ugly' in the popular kitsch and camp.

Coupled with the fascinating written words by the author are copious reproductions of paintings, details of images (some of the details of Bosch's complex canvases are amazingly clear), by both well known painters and unknown painters, displayed with short excerpts from writers who wrote on the subject of the ugly versus the beautiful.Eco brings us to the absolute present (punk art, Cindy Sherman, current film, etc) and as his images emerge from the book's pages, so does his commentary quicken. And so we are left with a book on the subject of Ugliness, which as an art volume is quite the opposite: this is a very beautiful and informed new art book.Highly recommended reading and viewing. Grady Harp, November 07

A Wonderful Meditation on A Complex Subject...
I've enjoyed Eco's fiction (The Name of the Rose, Baudolino), but was never familiar with his work as a semiotician. This book gives a wonderful taste of his intellect outside of fiction. "On Ugliness" is Eco's companion volume to his excellent History of Beauty, and takes the same style: here you will find descriptions of the Western world's ideas about ugliness, from the classical era through the modern, discussing things such as the devil, monsters, death, age and decay, damnation, camp and kitsch, etc. Eco examines this subject broadly, and provides great insight. This book is essentially a collection of visual art related to the different subjects, juxtaposed with passages from literary works from a number of Western cultures.

What keeps this book from receiving my full 5 stars is the fact that none of the pieces (whether literature or visual art) include any kind of analysis or description. Eco simply writes bookending snippets for each chapter and then basically lets the works speak for themselves, which is largely unsatisfying. However, for anyone interested in conceptions of beauty or ugliness, or who would like a fascinating addition to their library, this book is for you.

A Very Unique Work
Since I am only a hundred-some pages into this book I hope you'll forgive the premature nature of this review, but thus far Eco's latest work has been so movingly fascinating that I wanted to step up and urge anyone who might be considering buying and reading it to go ahead and do so. Initially I had reservations about beginning it but have no regrets that I did. Although it should become apparent early on that this is honestly less a companion volume to History of Beauty than it has been touted to be, this study of perception, beauty, and above all beauty's often more charismatic twin, ugliness, takes on the entire sweep of history and makes an investigation of the output of some of the biggest names in western art and literature. Why are, say, Goya's more gruesome works his most enjoyable? What makes villains the best characters in fiction (and life)? Why does the repugnant occur so frequently as a theme in art, music, literature and even in everyday fashion? Most of all, why is one object or individual deemed "ugly" and another not? Less (at least thus far) an indictment of the cult of beauty which seems inextricably bound up in human affairs and more an exhaustive investigation that intelligently asks numerous questions from many angles, Eco's challenge here is to compel each of us to contemplate the nature of perception itself. I have loved what I've read so far and can't wait to read the rest. ... Read more

Book Description
'Eco's very erudite and provocative book draws on philosophy, linguistics, sociology, anthropology, and aesthetics and refers to a wide range of scholarship, both European and American. It raises many fascinating questions which merit considerable probing.'-Language in Society ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

never again will words be the same
I stepped off the edge of normal thinking and rose to new heights of awareness.I have appreciated Mr. Eco as an author of great books, but I see him now as Dr. Eco, the man who makes words speak new meaning.When I listen to people, friends, family, (yes and God forgive me, TV talking heads) I no longer hear what they say, I see they are trying to express ideas with words they do not control.I just wish I could control them, the words, as Dr. Eco does.An excellent read, and excellant study and a great way to build your mind. Thank you Dr. Eco, mille gracie, mille, mille gracie.

Symbols: Development of a Methodology of Communication
The Italian Umberto Eco is a towering figure. A literary critic, novelist, and semiotician (studying symbols and symbol systems), he gained international recognition with "The Name of the Rose" (1980) in which he brought the study of semiotics to fiction. In this book, "Theory of Semiotics", he makes his contribution to the theoretical study of signs encompassing all cultural phenomena. His focus is on the development of a methodology of communication.

Like Roland Barthes, Eco starts from the foundations of semioticsin Saussure (Course in General Linguistics: who developed the idea of sign-systems and the sign/signified distinction, as well as the distinction between langue/parole - language and speech) and Claude Levi-Strauss (Structural Anthropology). Yet Eco surpasses this tradition to move into new territory, recognizing the limits to structuralism and Saussure's ideas. He recognizes, for example, that meaning is not merely governed by structure, but also interactively constructed by the reader/interpreter, who often inserts or fills-in missing meaning to construct a coherent picture.

Those interested in an introductory work to this fascinating field should be pointed to Eco's work "Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language" which is easier to start with. ... Read more

Amazon.com
The most playful of historical novelists, Umberto Eco has absorbed the real lesson of history: that there is no such thing as the absolute truth. In Baudolino, he hands his narrative to an Italian peasant who has managed, through good luck and a clever tongue, to become the adopted son of the Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, and a minister of his court in the closing years of the 12th century.Baudolino's other gift is for spontaneous but convincing lies, and so his unfolding tale--as recounted in 1204 to a nobleman of Constantinople, while the fires of the Fourth Crusade rage around them--exemplifies the Cretan Liar's Paradox: He can't be believed.Why not, then, make his story as outrageous as possible?In the course of his picaresque tale, Baudolino manages to touch on nearly every major theme, conflict, and boondoggle of the Middle Ages: the Crusades; the troubadours; the legend of the Holy Grail; the rise of the cathedral cities; the position of Jews; the market in relics; the local rivalries that made Italy so vulnerable to outside attack; and the perennial power struggles between the pope and the emperor.With the help of alcohol and a mysterious Moorish concoction called "green honey," Baudolino and his ragtag friends engage in typical scholastic debates of the period, trying to determine the dimensions of Solomon's Temple and the location of the Earthly Paradise. And when the Emperor needs support in his claims for saintly lineage, who but Baudolino can craft the perfect letter of homage from the legendary Prester John, Holy (and wholly fictitious) Christian King of the East?A giddy and exasperating romp, Baudolino will draw you into its labyrinthine inventions and half-truths, even if you know better. --Regina Marler Book Description