Eco, perhaps uncharitably, dismissed Brown as “one of my creatures.”Įco’s books feature danger and death and mayhem, but generally they are light on plot and heavy on atmosphere, making them unlikely sources for film adaptations. It’s demanding reading Dan Brown’s savvy twist on Eco’s medieval thriller format was to make it accessible to a broader audience, but this came at the cost of Eco’s incredible specificity. Beginning in the 1980s he took “weird fiction” and added footnotes, turning it into a respectable art form. An Italian semiotician (someone who studies symbols), Eco carries in his balding, bearded, bespectacled head an encyclopedic knowledge of Kabbalah, metaphysics, the Knights Templar, 19 th century occultists – every esoteric spiritualist movement and every weird avenue to enlightenment ever dreamed up in an opium den. And if you haven’t seen the meticulous film adaptation of his best-selling work Il nome della rosa ( The Name of the Rose), you’re missing what may be Sean Connery‘s most mature and underappreciated performance.īefore there was Dan Brown and The Da Vinci Code, there was Eco. If you’ve never read a novel by Umberto Eco, take it from me: you’re missing out on one of life’s most bizarre but rewarding experiences.
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