'The Name of the Rose' is a mystery/detective fiction by Umberto Eco is among the 'now reading' list along with 'Fantastic Voyage'
Book seems to contain a 'liberal dose' of questioning the spiritual/state-church setup in the ancient times with a regular mix of mystery. Sometimes, it leaves one gasping about the totally incomprehensible, distracting and senseless details and at other instances it makes you think deep about 'the spiritual question' and occasional deduction.
Very 'Da Vinci Code'ish (to the authors credit, this book has been around since 1980) but at the same time heavily inspired by the character of Sherlock Holmes (the king of all detectves IMHO.
The thing i liked best about the book so far, has been the dig at Agatha Christie. Hercule Poirot, her master detective, on every possible occasion, takes a potshot at sherlock holmes, by saying 'i don't run around like a hound dog looking for finger prints, different type of cigarette ashes, mon ami - i use my little grey cells'. To me that is quite unwarranted for all the hype about Poirot. As good as the 'detective' poirot is - his detective skills far far inferior as made out by Arthur Conan Doyle, nonetheless finishes far second.
In the preface, Umberto Eco, gives it back to Agatha, by saying, I dont invent some French detective, going about uttering unintelligible phrases. :-) As always, will follow up once the book is done (seems to be a long one)
We will talk about 'detectives in history' sometime later in another blog, in detail.
Till then, watch out !
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