Il Nome Della Rosa [Paperback]

Umberto Eco (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: Italian --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 539 pages
• Publisher: Distribooks Inc (October 1997)
• Language: Italian
• ISBN-10: 8845210669
• ISBN-13: 978-8845210662
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,730,896 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Umberto Eco (born 5 January 1932) is an Italian novelist, medievalist, semiotician, philosopher, and literary critic.

He is the author of several bestselling novels, The Name of The Rose, Foucault's Pendulum, The Island of The Day Before, and Baudolino. His collections of essays include Five Moral Pieces, Kant and the Platypus, Serendipities, Travels In Hyperreality, and How To Travel With a Salmon and Other Essays.

He has also written academic texts and children's books.


Photography (c) Università Reggio Calabria

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Notes on This Edition, July 20, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Il Nome Della Rosa (Paperback)

This isn't a critical review, but just a note to remind everyone that this edition is indeed in the original Italian (rare to find on Amazon.com), and includes a post-script appendix not included in the original releases.

P.S., just this once, don't rent the movie. Treat yourself and see how much more you get out of it.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Italians sometimes deserve more attention, October 12, 2000

By 

"phryne" (Bologna, Italy) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Il Nome Della Rosa (Paperback)

I am amazed that this novel - the most popular, the best-loved, the most imitated in Italy during the latest 20 years- is so little known abroad.
It is a very good historical novel, full of intense and fascinating characters, which can reliably belong to European Middle Age. Eco' s culture is immense: he can easily quote from Latin, ancient French or other languages. But the big mystery in this book is an ancient Greek manuscript, the book _On Comedy_ fom Aristotle's _Poetics_. It is very hard to believe that such a manuscript really existed, and, as a matter of fact, at the end of the novel it gets destroyed. A terrible loss for the main character, Guglielmo di Baskerville, but a dreadful victory for superstition and ignorance.
Tje plot is very intriguing (it is a detective story). Some friars are murdered, and nobody can understand the reason...nobody excepting Guglielmo. Who is nothing but Sherlock Holmes, while his young assistant, Adso, is nothing but Watson...

But the reference to Conan Doyle is not the real purpose of this splendid book, where you find such an enchanting gothic atmosphere as very rarely you can do. The real matter is the rescue of European culture, which nowadays seems to be overwhelmed by the so called 'globalization'.
I suggest this reading to everyone, American, Asian or African people.
The movie is not so bad...Jean-Jacques Annaud understood very well Eco's lesson. But the book is something very, very special.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars mispelling, April 19, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Washington, DC, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Il Nome Della Rosa (Paperback)

The word "name" in Italian is spelled "nome", not "noma". :) btw, I love this book.