Il nome della rosa - The Name of the Rose
Here is my English essay about my favorite book
The Name of the Rose radio play in Italian (Il nome della rosa - adattamento radiofonico in 35 puntate) http://www.radio.rai.it/radio2/sceneggiato/ilnomedellarosa/#
My favorite book review
Would you like to conquer all yours fears? Do you know that the best way to get over your fear is to laugh at it? Nowadays, psychologists would probably agree. Ancient sages knew it thousands of years before, the modern Italian philosopher Umberto Eco confirms it in his international best-seller The Name of the Rose. I recommend it to everybody.
Set in 1327, this story covers a week in a Benedictine abbey , situated somewhere in Northern Italy in the Appenines. English Brother William of Baskerville who is helped by his young German assistant, Adso of Melk, a Benectine novice , is asked to help solve a murder that happened there during the days when a meeting between delegations of Pope and dissident Franciscans was taking place. Other murders follow and the investigations lead them to the library, the greatest one in all of Christendom, that has the form of a labirynth, to which only the librarian is allowed access. The whole plot revolves around the mystery of a missing book hidden in a secret room (the Finis Africae).
Whoever manages to read this mysterious book consequently is found dead. The investigation led Friar William to suggest that the book must be an ancient manuscript of Poetica of Aristotle about laughter. He is involved in a serious discussion with the monks about the rightness of laughter. Aristotle considered comedy to be a great antidote to fear, and William argues that comedy and laughter can be good medicine and that it is a typically human characteristic. His main opponent, an eldery blind monk named Jorge on the contrary, says "Law is imposed by fear. This book would define laughter as the new art … for cancelling fear." He is afraid that even the fear of the Devil can be cancelled by laughter and the whole idea of salvation is in danger. He is afraid of the subversive power of laughter and the prospect of recovering from fear.
When asked by the young Adso, "But why doesn't the Gospel ever say that Christ laughed?" Friar William replied, "Legions of scholars have wondered whether Christ laughed. The question doesn't interest me much. I believe he never laughed, because, omniscient as the son of God had to be, he knew how we Christians would behave." Irony is omnipresent in the book. William says, "In the cathedral at Cologne, I saw the skull of John the Baptist at the age of twelve". Seized by doubt Adso exclaimed, amazed. "But the Baptist was executed at a more advanced age!". "The other skull must be in another treasury," William said, witrh a grave face.
The reader can sometimes feel lost in in the incredibly complex world of medieval imagery and theology, wordy and even tiresome, but the plot thickens constantly like a high-class detective story. Some critics accused the author simply transplanting Sherlock Holmes to a medieval monastery ( and his assistant Dr Watson, who left us the manuscript that tells the story). It is true that Adso's simple questions allow William to use his hypotheses and methodology in solving the crimes, mirroring the relationship between Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes in the stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Very similarly, a chance comment from Adso provides the key clue for William.
Everything depends on the level on which you can read the stories. In The Name of the Rose there is a certain detective mystery story. But there is a metaphysical detection also present, some great questions about truth and the order of the world.
I recommend this book to everybody, from philosophers to fans of detective stories . Everyone will surely find it attractive