Satirical essays in which Eco pokes fun at the oversophisticated, the overacademic, and the overintellectual and makes penetrating comments about our modern mass culture and the elitist avant-garde. “A scintillating collection of writings” (Los Angeles Times). Translated by William Weaver. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
Playful parodies by the author of The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum. Here, Eco pokes fun at the oversophisticated, overacademic, and overintellectual, and along the way makes penetrating comments about our modern mass culture and the elitist avant-garde in art in criticism.
Most readers, however, had never heard of him before the 1980 publication of The Name of the Rose, a mystery novel set in medieval Italy. Dense with historical and literary allusions, the book was a surprise international hit, selling millions of copies in dozens of languages. Its popularity got an additional boost when it was made into a Hollywood movie starring Sean Connery. Eco followed his first bestseller with another, Foucault's Pendulum, an intellectual thriller that interweaves semiotic theory with a twisty tale of occult texts and world conspiracy.
Since then, Eco has shifted topics and genres with protean agility, producing fiction, academic texts, criticism, humor columns and children's books. As a culture critic, his interests encompass everything from comic books to computer operating systems, and he punctures avant-garde elitism and mass-media vacuity with equal glee.
More recently, Eco has ventured into a new field: ethics. Belief or Nonbelief? is a thoughtful exchange of letters on religion and ethics between Eco and Carlo Maria Martini, the Roman Catholic cardinal of Milan; Five Moral Pieces is a timely exploration of the concept of justice in an increasingly borderless world.
Eco also continues to write books on language, literature and semiotics for both popular and academic audiences. His efforts have netted him a pile of honorary degrees, the French Legion of Honor, and a place among the most widely read and discussed thinkers of our time.
Pressured by his father to become a lawyer, Eco studied law at the University of Turn before abandoning that course (against his father's wishes) and pursuing medieval philosophy and literature.
His studies led naturally to the setting of The Name of the Rose in the medieval period. The original tentative title was Murder in the Abbey.
| Preface | 1 | |
| Granita | 7 | |
| Fragments | 15 | |
| The Socratic Strip | 27 | |
| Regretfully, We Are Returning Your... | 33 | |
| Esquisse d'un nouveau chat | 47 | |
| The Latest from Heaven | 53 | |
| The Thing | 62 | |
| Industry and Sexual Repression in a Po Valley Society | 69 | |
| The End Is at Hand | 94 | |
| Letter to My Son | 117 | |
| Three Eccentric Reviews | 126 | |
| The Discovery of America | 135 | |
| Make Your Own Movie | 145 | |
| The Phenomenology of Mike Bongiorno | 156 | |
| My Exagmination | 165 |
Overview
Satirical essays in which Eco pokes fun at the oversophisticated, the overacademic, and the overintellectual and makes penetrating comments about our modern mass culture and the elitist avant-garde. “A scintillating collection of writings” (Los Angeles Times). Translated by William Weaver. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
Playful parodies by the author of The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum. Here, Eco pokes fun at the oversophisticated, overacademic, and ...