Reviews

Il nome della rosa by Umberto Eco

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fred312's review against another edition

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adventurous informative reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

sidharthvardhan's review against another edition

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4.0

The only problem with Eco is that he gives too much of credit to his readers. If it wasn't for internet, all those Latin phrases and paragraphs would have been Latin to me. I wonder how people read such books in pre-internet days.

The story is a lot like a medieval Sherlock adventure in a monastery with a lot of theological discussion thrown in for good effect. William is the Sherlock and Adel, his disciple, watsonises for him.

There is a lot of hypocrisy, misanthropy and misogyny in Monks -with the only women who made it to the book, being brutally killed without being given a chance to defend herself.

The Rose of title is knowledge contained in library - which monks are keeping from the world while telling themselves world is not ready for it.

jacintaalmeida's review against another edition

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dark informative slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No

3.25

It's a dense book and the side stories do not add to the story. I felt the author wanted to flex that he knows 5 different languages just by adding Latin, German and French without any translation in the footnotes or even next to the passages.
After the climax of the book, I lost the feeling to read, as the story started to have more unnecessary side stories rather than the actual story. Despite that, the actual historical facts and explanations for the religious orders, the religious details and rivalries between them were really good.
The actual villain was really predictive.