Briefly, the story goes thus. We are in year 1327 AD, in an Italian monastery. A body of a monk is found. Two guests who are visiting the monastery start investigating. Meanwhile, more monks are found dead in suspicious circumstances around the monastery. Finally, on page 500 or so, the mystery is solved. So why is The Name of the Rose (Il nome della rosa) different than say an Agatha Christie mystery? As you start reading the book, the differences become apparent and in the end, the gap is so large that questions like who killed the monks or why seem less relevant. The Name of the Rose is not a straightforward mystery, rather the genre of mystery has been been used to convey something else. What does the author, Umberto Eco, wants to convey? This question is more important than the murder mystery. Various interpretations were put forth after the book was published. Eco himself wrote another book called The Key to the Name of the Rose, detailing his interpretations of the mystery. The Name of the Rose was made into a movie starring Sean Connery and Christian Slater.
Umberto Eco was not a full time writer. He was a professor of medieval philosophy and semiotics in universities of Torino, Milan, Florence and finally Bologna. The Name of the Rose was his first and most famous novel. He came upon a description of some events that happened in an Italian monastery written by a monk in fourteenth century. This was translated from Latin by a French author and formed the basis for the novel.
To say the Eco was erudite is an understatement. The famous library at his house in Milan contains over 50,000 books. This scholarship clearly reflects in his writing. His critics argue that he gives too much information to impress his readers. Eco disagrees and says that he provides only necessary information and that the readers are free to use it in any way they wish.
The location of the monastery is on the border between Italy and France. The two guests to the monastery are Franciscan friar William of Baskerville and Adso of Melk, a Benedictine novice. These two characters are clearly based on Sherlock Holmes and Watson. William hails from the town of Baskerville, the same place where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of Baskervilles takes place. William very much resembles Holmes, in his description and character. In the beginning, a horse goes missing from the monastery and William predicts his location based on its footprints and that is where the horse is found. As the story progresses however, differences appear between Holmes and William. One may even think that Eco is using Holmes analogy to comment on the nature of mystery genre. The story is narrated by Adso when he is at the end of his life, and feels that this memorable tale should be recorded.
Fourteenth century, the period of the story, saw great upheaval and complex developments in Europe. In Rome, the Pope was fighting for maintaining his dominance over Christianity. He was being opposed by Franciscan and Dominican orders from Florence and Bologna. Most notable Franciscans at that time consisted of Roger Bacon and William of Occam who is credited with ‘Occam’s razor.’ The Franciscan group said that Jesus was poor and remained poor his whole life, so his followers should also follow his example. The Pope of course, disagreed because the wealth gave the Catholic Church unlimited power. To resolve this issue, there were many meetings between these two groups. William and Adso have come to the monastery to attend one such meeting.
The story happens when the Renaissance was still in future and the printing machine had not yet been invented. It is difficult to imagine today the importance of the printing machine. The lack of availability of books to everyone made knowledge a private property of the upper class. There is a large library in the monastery. Valuable books copied from all over the world are kept here but not everyone is allowed to read these books, without the permission of the head of the monastery. The library building is a maze of pathways and hidden doors. Some monks who disobey the head and read in the library at night see mysterious figures in the darkness of the night. All the monks who have been killed were trying to read one book : Aristotle’s philosophy of humour. No copy of the book exists today.
Like Watson, Adso keeps on asking questions to William. There are many arguments between William and other monks that allows us a glimpse of rules and regulations in that period. We also get the answer as to why the Church is opposed to humour. If common people had access to humour, they will not fear the Church and the God. They will be unmanageable.
Unlike stories of Sherlock Holmes, the book does not have a perfect ending. Holmes solves everything neatly at the end but Williams gets more confused after figuring out the answer. He says, “There was no definite mystery and it was solved accidentally.”
What is the meaning of Rose here? The lost book of Aristotle? Or the countless valuable books that were burned along with the library? Or a play of words on Shakespeare’s “A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.” Unlike The Da Vinci Code, The Name of the Rose does not provide easy solutions to any of the mysteries. What you do get is a vivid picture of the medieval Europe, full of dogmas and rules that made life quite difficult.
Availability of books is something that we take for granted today. A fascinating revelation of the story is showing us a period when knowledge was a private property of the elites. A peasant was not allowed to read. He remained ignorant and the elites took advantage of that ignorance. This neat exploitation system came crashing down when Gutenberg invented the press. Suddenly, knowledge could be copied and distributed easily.
That was enough to change the world.
