It’s only publishers and some journalists who believe that people want simple things. Then I wrote a novel that is not erudite at all, that is written in plain language, ‘The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana,’ and among my novels it is the one that has sold the least. I was always defined as too erudite and philosophical, too difficult. It is more than 600 pages long, and a Times critic marveled that it ranged in subject matter “over what at times seems like the whole of Western culture, from Jewish cabala, the medieval Knights Templar, Shakespeare and Celtic legend to Karl Marx, Afro-Brazilian voodoo, computer theory and Mickey Mouse.”ĭiscussing the legacy of “The Name of the Rose,” Eco told the Guardian in 2011, “I think a book should be judged 10 years later, after reading and rereading it. “Foucault’s Pendulum” is also a murder mystery that intersects with semiotics. The fervor that ensued was dubbed “Ecomania” in his homeland. We live in a new reality after we’ve read it.”Įco’s readers’ long wait for a second novel was rewarded in 1988 when “Foucault’s Pendulum” was published in Italian and translated into English a year later. When the book’s English translation was released, a Times critic enthused that it “is a kind of novel that changes our mind, replaces our reality with its own. The novel has been called a parable of modern life that explores broader tensions between secular power and faith - especially in Italy. The story revolves on a series of intellectual riddles, and a forbidden book that may hold the key to the murder. Full obituaryīut Eco’s scholarship set this mystery apart. The attorney and almond farmer was known for his battle to stop the $68-billion California bullet train project from slicing up his almond orchards - part of a deeply emotional land war that has drawn in hundreds of farming families from Merced to Bakersfield.

O Nome da Rosa by Umberto Eco