Wednesday, June 08, 2005
From an interview with Umberto Eco here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml;sessionid=BWS0WKLDVC04ZQFIQMGSNAGAVCBQWJVC?xml=/arts/2005/05/24/boeco22.xml&sSheet=/arts/2005/05/25/ixartleft.html
"Though he has a paunch and unexpectedly small, geisha-like feet, Eco has an energetic stride - as I discover when he leads the way along a winding corridor and I try to keep up with him. We pass through a labyrinthine library containing 30,000 books - he has a further 20,000 at his 17th-century palazzo near Urbino - and into a drawing-room full of curiosities: a glass cabinet containing seashells, rare comics and illustrated children's books, a classical sculpture of a nude man with his arms missing, a jar containing a pair of dog's testicles, a lute, a banjo, a collection of recorders, and a collage of paintbrushes by his friend the Pop artist Arman. "
I'd expect, from his writing style, that Eco would have to be surrounded by a plethora of random information and oddities. He just goes into so much detail, one wonders where it all comes from. His head must buzz audibly from all the activity in there.
I was pleased to read that Eco's "second novel, Foucault's Pendulum, took eight years to write." He didn't write his first one until he was 50, after his children left home and he had no one to tell his stories to. The buzzing in his head was too much for him --so he wrote a book. The second one "was about three editors at a Milan publishing house trying to link every conspiracy theory in history, including that now famous one about the medieval Knights Templar and the secret of the Holy Grail. " Sounds like Da Vinci Code! And he admits to the interviewer: "'I know, I know,' he says with a laugh. 'My book included the plot for The Da Vinci Code. But I was not being a prophet. It was old occult material. It was already all there. I treated it in a more sceptical way than Dan Brown did. He had the excellent idea of treating it as if it were true. Millions of people believed him. They took it seriously, but it was all a hoax.' The Da Vinci Code is one of the few novels to have sold more than The Name of the Rose, I point out. Must be quite galling, that. He shrugs. Has he read it? 'Yes.' Did he like it? He shrugs again. 'It's a page-turner.' " I have not read the code. I just haven't got round to it. I have been told it is a good story. But all the ridiculous attention to the possibilities of truth in it have made me hesitant. I don't like reading what EVERYONE is reading. How good could it be? Although, Harry Potter is good and read by EVERYONE--maybe just young everyones. And the same stupidity goes on about the TRUTH in POTTER's world--oh, so confusing that make believe stuff!
I want to have 50,000 books. Like a dream come true. Like living IN a dream. All those books and so little reality.
"Though he has a paunch and unexpectedly small, geisha-like feet, Eco has an energetic stride - as I discover when he leads the way along a winding corridor and I try to keep up with him. We pass through a labyrinthine library containing 30,000 books - he has a further 20,000 at his 17th-century palazzo near Urbino - and into a drawing-room full of curiosities: a glass cabinet containing seashells, rare comics and illustrated children's books, a classical sculpture of a nude man with his arms missing, a jar containing a pair of dog's testicles, a lute, a banjo, a collection of recorders, and a collage of paintbrushes by his friend the Pop artist Arman. "
I'd expect, from his writing style, that Eco would have to be surrounded by a plethora of random information and oddities. He just goes into so much detail, one wonders where it all comes from. His head must buzz audibly from all the activity in there.
I was pleased to read that Eco's "second novel, Foucault's Pendulum, took eight years to write." He didn't write his first one until he was 50, after his children left home and he had no one to tell his stories to. The buzzing in his head was too much for him --so he wrote a book. The second one "was about three editors at a Milan publishing house trying to link every conspiracy theory in history, including that now famous one about the medieval Knights Templar and the secret of the Holy Grail. " Sounds like Da Vinci Code! And he admits to the interviewer: "'I know, I know,' he says with a laugh. 'My book included the plot for The Da Vinci Code. But I was not being a prophet. It was old occult material. It was already all there. I treated it in a more sceptical way than Dan Brown did. He had the excellent idea of treating it as if it were true. Millions of people believed him. They took it seriously, but it was all a hoax.' The Da Vinci Code is one of the few novels to have sold more than The Name of the Rose, I point out. Must be quite galling, that. He shrugs. Has he read it? 'Yes.' Did he like it? He shrugs again. 'It's a page-turner.' " I have not read the code. I just haven't got round to it. I have been told it is a good story. But all the ridiculous attention to the possibilities of truth in it have made me hesitant. I don't like reading what EVERYONE is reading. How good could it be? Although, Harry Potter is good and read by EVERYONE--maybe just young everyones. And the same stupidity goes on about the TRUTH in POTTER's world--oh, so confusing that make believe stuff!
I want to have 50,000 books. Like a dream come true. Like living IN a dream. All those books and so little reality.
