The Name Of The Rose

In this age of digital communication when almost everyone is reading books online, there is still a huge market for printed books. There is something about opening a book for the first time (or the nth for that matter). The touch, the solid feeling your hand, the smell of the paper and printers' ink, the visual appeal of it - as you turn the pages of a good book, you are drawn into its world. It is a seduction in itself.

The Name Of the Rose is a book about books. It is also a thriller, a who-dun-it, a coming-of-age novel, a piece of historical fiction; it manages to be many things at once. And how!

I was literally unable to put it down once I started reading. And unlike many mystery novels, it doesn't lose it's charm and appeal at the second or even subsequent readings. Rather, nuances and subtleties which you may not have noticed in the grip of the crime solving become clearer and stand out in glory - a little like the myriad details in the background you begin to notice if you observe a Renaissance masterpiece closely after having a cursory first glance.

Umberto Eco transports the reader into a world where knowledge, and the possession of it in the shape of a book - is literally power. A book is not just a source of information and/or pleasure, it is an object of obsession and desire. Men - holy men, monks - kill, and are killed, over it. The climax is a scene out of the Arabian Nights, with a poisoned page and a burning building.

It is a gripping narrative whose story-line beats most routine pot-boilers - there's a body half-buried in a landslide, there's one dumped upside down in a barrel of blood, there's another drowned in a bath-tub and yet another one with the head bashed in.

Yet it's not all gore. Eco recreates medieval Europe, with it's power struggles between church and state, when the church is powerful enough to suppress scientific inquiry. It is a time and place where books are rare and secret; but also a world where a young boy on the threshold of manhood falls in love and explores his sexuality and what it means for the rest of his life as a monk.

The characters are human, with real failings and real strengths. There are echoes of Sherlock Holmes in both the name and characterization of the sleuth-monk William of Baskerville (ring any bells? hear any barks?)

The book is peppered with erudite philosophical discussions - these are learned monks, after all. Some very profound thoughts are expressed in beautiful words, and also in seeming nonsense garbled by an unfortunate inmate of the abbey.

Ok, reams have been written by many greater minds than mine about this book and it's appeal and impact. All I can really add to it is say how much I enjoyed it and how I would recommend it to anyone who wants a suggestion of what to read next (if they haven't read it already, that is).

So here you are, one of my all-time favourites.

Final words - If you want a murder mystery with real substance, here it is.