Der Name der Rose: Roman (German Edition)

After reading many of the very insightful reviews this book already has, I will not try to add anything. Suffice it to say that I read The Name of the Rose years ago and my battered 1983 paperback still sits on my bookshelf. I read it again a few weeks ago on my Kindle and enjoyed it as much or more than the first time. A great book!

Elegant, complex, multi-level, wonderful details of the architecture, the illuminated manuscripts, the daily life of monks in a medieval monastery; sometimes wordy; evokes the feel, life, and historical background of a late medieval scholarly Italian monastery probably as well as a modern author could.

Novel detailing historical events and philosophical theory through the lens of multiple murders in a 14th century Italian abbey. The author offers extensive commentary at the conclusion of the book which discusses his writing process and thought behind various choices, such as including detailed historical interludes and passages in various languages, most often Latin. As the author’s primary language/ audience is Italian, Italian and European readers with better understandings/education about European and especially Catholic history may have more appreciation for this book. As an American reader with a very basic understanding of Catholic history, I feel that I missed many of the greater messages of the book because of poor historical and language context which made parts of the novel tedious.

Novel detailing historical events and philosophical theory through the lens of multiple murders in a 14th century Italian abbey. The author offers extensive commentary at the conclusion of the book which discusses his writing process and thought behind various choices, such as including detailed historical interludes and passages in various languages, most often Latin. As the author’s primary language/ audience is Italian, Italian and European readers with better understandings/education about European and especially Catholic history may have more appreciation for this book. As an American reader with a very basic understanding of Catholic history, I feel that I missed many of the greater messages of the book because of poor historical and language context which made parts of the novel tedious.

Beautifully written and consistently engaging, the book takes a complicated topic (the catholic church in the 1300’s) and turns it into a rousing murder mystery. Even though I had seen the movie long before reading the book, I still found myself glued to the book and unable to stop turning pages.

The author elaborated in detail on side stories which gave insight into the characters and events. Sometimes it was a bit too much description. His interpretation of the various factions within the catholic church and the power which the monarchs and Pope possessed was very interesting and I believe somewhat factual.
The murder mystery had me guessing until the very end.
He even had comic relief in the story telling of the young monk, Adso of Melk.
The story encompassed everything that you want in your 14th century murder mystery.
The correlation between William of Baskerville and Sherlock Holmes was also an unanticipated surprise.
I very much enjoyed reading this story for the 2nd time.

My husband loves this book. 4 murders at the abbey. The young monk who is recounting this story gets so flummoxed whenever any female is near or a young lady simply pops into his mind, he describes the thought or event in such an anguished, tortured way that my husband laughs so hard he actually has to hold his sides... I got this book to commemorate Umberto Eco's passing last month.. just couldn't stand his leaving and not taking the time to pass on his genius to at least one more person.

An interesting mystery. If you are looking for description of people and structure you will be disappointed. Nonetheless, Eco paints a picture of the characters that focuses on the inner person and not their appearance. This allows the reader to focus on the words and acts of the characters.

The characters were rich and compelling. Eco created an atmosphere that felt as historically accurate as it was engrossing. I even enjoyed the candid explanations of monastic life and the politics of the Roman Catholic Church.

I bought this because of the consistent references in other book reviews which referred to this book as a significant standard in historical mystery novels. It is pretty long, and I became tired of the constant ramblings about who should be pope/king, and arguments between various, obscure (to me), Catholic factions. Once I began to skip over all these asides, I enjoyed the actual parts about the murder mysteries and the main characters' work toward solving them.