Sunday Matinee: Umberto Eco

Welcome to Medieval History's Sunday Afternoon with a Good Book. Today, we'll look at Foucault's Pendulum and The Name of the Rose. (spoilers ahead)

Before Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code came Umberto Eco's satire on pseudomedieval conspiracies, Foucault's Pendulum (1990). Before Foucault's Pendulum, Eco wrote a medieval murder mystery, The Name of the Rose (1983). Both books had a sizable effect on how people (including Dan Brown) wrote books on those subjects thereafter.

The basic plot of Foucault's Pendulum is simple; everything else is complicated to a literally insane degree. Three bored editors at an Italian publisher of occult books cook up a secret society based on their employer's book list. The editors have a good time throwing everything including the kitchen sink into their grand conspiracy theory. Of course, they include the Knights Templar as major players because "the definition of a madman", as one of them puts it, is believing that everything eventually connects to the Templars.

Unfortunately for them, their clientele believes it and a sinister plot to bring this half-baked conspiracy to true life forms a fatal noose around them. The final revelation of why Eco called the book "Foucault's Pendulum" is especially nasty, involving human sacrifice and a wire noose.

While the book was popular and inspired a series of pale imitations, including The Da Vinci Code, it's murky and grindingly dull in parts. Eco's research, particularly on Renaissance and Reformation-era conspiracy theories, is impressive, but he got a little lost in it.

Better written and more beloved by medievalists is his earlier book, The Name of the Rose, which is both sadder and less cynical than Foucault's Pendulum. Set in a 14th century Benedictine abbey, the book follows a tight format over a short period (seven days) in which visiting Franciscan William of Baskerville and his assistant Adso investigate a series of murders related to the abbey's famous and labyrinthine library?and to a lost book about comedy by Aristotle.

The book evokes medieval fascinations with labyrinths, riddles, mysteries and fears of the influence of Satan. Is laughter profane or divine? The book asks this question seriously, as would a medieval philosopher. William's lectures to Adso work better than the long exposition in Foucault's Pendulum because they tie directly into the plot and characterization.

Finally, and most profoundly, the book is a paean to lost knowledge over the centuries. At the climax, the library burns and is lost forever. For Eco, Paradise is always lost in the end.