I like Foucault's Pendulum too. It's the first Eco book I read! My friend Mike Tracy, then a CBOE trader, turned me onto it when I was in high school; gave me the impression it would be a difficult read. Mike needs to read more Pynchon. I'll tell him tomorrow (I've hired him at 4 different companies, including this one).
Rose is still my favorite; it resonates with my career, for obvious reasons.
Have you read many of his essays? He can get stuffy and pompous. Maybe I just don't understand him.
I think you have a good idea what I think of Umberto Eco at this point. Now, you really think I'm "damning him with faint praise"? Of course I'm not. Could I have written The Name of The Rose, or even Cognitive Types and Nuclear Content? No.
But he wrote a shitty article. It makes banal and, in at least one case, stupid points. It reads as beneath him; less an attempt to cast a lense on the mass-leaking phenomenon and more a chance for him to holler "I'm here! This is my milieu! Include me in the conversation!" I've heard more trenchant analysis of Assange's effort from blog posts, hell, from Megan McArdle.
You are, as always, welcome to disagree with me. But as I am not (in this instance) casting aspersions on your arguments, the "ad hom" label seems lazy. Hominus Eci conpetendus est.
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By the way: Jack Schafer did a fine job sticking up for Wikileaks. And I'm normally inclined to think of him as a curmudgeonly contrarian. There's one.
And, oh, look! Here's Clay Shirky, an acquaintance of Assange's, sticking up for the "short run" value of WL as a corrective. I have a hard time finding anything to disagree with in this article:
I liked Foucault's Pendulum too, but didn't see it as anything more than an elaborate metaphor for kabbalism as intellectual cancer, although he was clearly having fun with the Holy Blood, Holy Grail stuff.
In contrast, Name of the Rose is brilliant on so many different levels, not the least being the way he pulls off the actual mystery. We can read it as a straight detective story, as a parable about faith versus reason, or on books-speaking-of-books (I remember him comparing the burning library to the burning bush as one point).
That said, have you read this essay of his on Casablanca? I've seen Passage to Marseille (the unofficial sequel to the film) and think this is one of the most fun things he has written. Not sure if it has been anthologized elsewhere:
Comments
What's your favorite Eco book, Jacques? I listed mine at the top of the thread.
Foucaults pendulum
I like Foucault's Pendulum too. It's the first Eco book I read! My friend Mike Tracy, then a CBOE trader, turned me onto it when I was in high school; gave me the impression it would be a difficult read. Mike needs to read more Pynchon. I'll tell him tomorrow (I've hired him at 4 different companies, including this one).
Rose is still my favorite; it resonates with my career, for obvious reasons.
Have you read many of his essays? He can get stuffy and pompous. Maybe I just don't understand him.
I think you have a good idea what I think of Umberto Eco at this point. Now, you really think I'm "damning him with faint praise"? Of course I'm not. Could I have written The Name of The Rose, or even Cognitive Types and Nuclear Content? No.
But he wrote a shitty article. It makes banal and, in at least one case, stupid points. It reads as beneath him; less an attempt to cast a lense on the mass-leaking phenomenon and more a chance for him to holler "I'm here! This is my milieu! Include me in the conversation!" I've heard more trenchant analysis of Assange's effort from blog posts, hell, from Megan McArdle.
You are, as always, welcome to disagree with me. But as I am not (in this instance) casting aspersions on your arguments, the "ad hom" label seems lazy. Hominus Eci conpetendus est.
˚ ˚ ˚ ˚ ˚ ˚ ˚
By the way: Jack Schafer did a fine job sticking up for Wikileaks. And I'm normally inclined to think of him as a curmudgeonly contrarian. There's one.
And, oh, look! Here's Clay Shirky, an acquaintance of Assange's, sticking up for the "short run" value of WL as a corrective. I have a hard time finding anything to disagree with in this article:
http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2010/12/wikileaks-and-the-long-...
Feel free to post that article to HN and collect the karma. I'd rather not add more fuel to the fire.
I liked Foucault's Pendulum too, but didn't see it as anything more than an elaborate metaphor for kabbalism as intellectual cancer, although he was clearly having fun with the Holy Blood, Holy Grail stuff.
In contrast, Name of the Rose is brilliant on so many different levels, not the least being the way he pulls off the actual mystery. We can read it as a straight detective story, as a parable about faith versus reason, or on books-speaking-of-books (I remember him comparing the burning library to the burning bush as one point).
That said, have you read this essay of his on Casablanca? I've seen Passage to Marseille (the unofficial sequel to the film) and think this is one of the most fun things he has written. Not sure if it has been anthologized elsewhere:
http://andrewswebsite.net/books/eco_casablanca.html