Product Description
A paso de cangrejo -es decir, hacia atras- es como parece caminar la historia en este nuevo milenio. Todos los avances cientificos y los progresos democraticos que auguraban un esplendido futuro se han convertido en conflictos e insatisfacciones. El mundo no va bien. Contra esta inquietante situacion lanza Umberto Eco sus afilados dardos, sus reflexiones. Tras el 11 de septiembre, la humanidad ha entrado en una peligrosa regresion. Vuelven los viejos conflictos territoriales, las guerras medievales con denominacion de ""cruzada"", la nostalgia por los totalitarismos, el antisemitismo y otras formas multiples de racismo. En muchos lugares del mundo, algunos siguen empenados en combatir las tesis evolutivas de Darwin. Partiendo de la actitud del gran jurista y politologo italiano Norberto Bobbio, que enuncio los deberes del sabio -""El deber de los hombres de cultura es hoy mas que nunca sembrar dudas, no ya recoger certezas""-, Eco arremete, entre otros asuntos, contra la forma de vida contemporanea, las guerras, la politica internacional y el consumo en las grandes superficies como unico espacio de ocio posible, sin olvidar el nefasto papel de los medios de comunicacion, empenados en construir una imagen del mundo basada en el espectaculo y la manipulacion. El resultado es un libro intenso y combativo cargado de lucidos analisis sobre el escenario que nos rodea. Una invitacion de Eco a pensar sobre el presente y el futuro. ... Read more

Product Description
Umberto Eco is popularly known for his best-selling novel, The Name of the Rose. This was a quintessential postmodernist fiction devised by an Italian professor of semiotics, an academic versed in medieval philosophy and linguistics but equally at ease with writing mass media journalism. Eco, football fan and Sherlock Holmes of semiotics, blurs the boundaries between ‘low’ and ‘high’ cultures.

Eco is a public intellectual engaged in reading the practices of everyday life. Football for him is a metaphor, a motif and a vehicle for interpreting the nuances and excesses of our human fascination with ideals – ideals that are mobilised by culture into obsessions with sports celebrities. Football is more than a game – it is a sign system that codes experience and gives it meaning on a number of levels. It allows the spectator to read life with the help of the media apparatuses that direct and control our viewing experiences.

"Umberto Eco and Football" engages with Eco the cultural critic as he meanders through the signs of culture with a keen and witty eye for the forgotten details of life’s great text, its serendipities, its misreadings. ... Read more

Product Description
By the author of "The Name of the Rose", these essays, written over the last 20 years and culled from newspapers and magazines, explore the rag-bag of modern consciousness. Eco considers a wide range of topics, from "Superman" and "Casablanca", Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni, Jim Jones and mass suicide, and Woody Allen, to holography and waxworks, pop festivals and football, and not least the social and personal implications of tight jeans. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

From blue jeans and theme parks to ideologies and semiotics in this superb set of essays
Faith In Fakes by Umberto Eco is a superbly entertaining beginner's guide to semiotics. To what? Semiotics is the study and interpretation of symbols. In our increasingly iconic age, the discipline has much to say, and to do so must delve deeper and wider, into sociology, philosophy and psychology. In this superb selection of essays, Umberto Eco discusses topics as widely spaced as blue jeans, the film Casablanca, ancient monuments and theme parks. Throughout, he manages to communicate intensely difficult ideas with ease, making Faith In Fakes a truly enlightening read that both informs on theory and entertains via the mundane.

The reader must be prepared to go part-way into the discipline, however, especially in relation to specific authors and rarefied vocabulary. While names such as McLuhan, Foucault and Barthes might not deter most readers, words such as oneiric, corybantism, synecdoche, mytonymy, eversive and anthopophagy could prove to be stumbling blocks. There aren't many of these specialist words, however, because overall Umberto Eco's style is beautifully communicative and easy to read.

A particularly pleasing piece was Eco's analysis of the film Casablanca and its cult status. He contrasts Casablanca with other films, ones that might be cited as "works of art". He then makes a distinction not because these other films are intrinsically "better", but because they aim higher in that they are better focused and constructed, intellectually.

Basically they have potential meaning or significance, have been well written, well acted and well characterised, though most of them might not achieve any of their targets. Hence they are not necessarily better films.

Casablanca, on the other hand, Eco describes as a hodgepodge (bricolage) of ideas, badly characterised, poorly written and ultimately incredible, either as a film or as a reflection of any kind of reality. (Eco, I am sure, would also argue here that this latter point is wholly valid since the film employs realism both in its style and in its definite historical setting.)

But the point is that a near random juxtaposition of elements eventually becomes an art form of its own, able to make statements in its own terms. Copying from one learned text is called plagiarism, Copy from fifty and it's called research. Use one cliché and it's culpable. Use a hundred and it's called Gaudi. It's a brilliant point.

As a film, Casablanca, he argues, never inhabits a single genre, never communicates merely a single message. It is presented almost as a series of unrelated tableaux, where the characters do as required by the passing scenario. It thus becomes a pastiche where there's something for everyone, where it can become more entertaining to spot, categorise, recognise and then discuss the loosely-related vignettes than to appreciate the whole, because there is no whole to appreciate.

McLuhan advised us that the medium had become the message. Eco takes us further, illustrating how mass media are no longer conduits for ideology because they themselves have become the ideology. So now, when we watch television news that concentrates on celebrity and the entertainment industry, we ought to be rendered keenly aware of the motives and interests at play. When, come to think of it, did you last hear a wholly negative film review? So where lies the line between reviewer and promoter?

We seem, according to Eco's logic, to confuse three similar, related, but different concepts - popular, populist and demotic. What we call popular culture should really be labelled populist culture. Popularity is its aim, not yet its achievement. In a row over music downloaded via the internet, reports in July 2008 claim that over eighty per cent of musicians earn less than five thousand British pounds a year in royalties. And remember that they are the ones that actually have the recording contracts!

So what should we call this not so popular popular music? I argue we should refer to populist music and populist culture, because it aims to achieve popularity, though little of it ever will. But what happens if or when it does? At that point its very success becomes its prime platform for further promotion.Now it carries the illusion of being demotic, that it both stemmed from and is the property of ordinary people, rather than, obviously, a marketed commodity aiming to achieve a status that will foster that illusion. Its adherents to date can now be trotted out as evidence of its potential to attract and as proof of its worthiness to do so. The medium has thus become the ideology, the mechanism by which a commercial enterprise that aspires to popularity from a narrow sectional origin might achieve popularity and then use its achievement to seek more of the same.

Finally, it is the demotic currency provided by success that then suggests we should make aesthetic judgments on that basis. Success becomes proof of worth, almost as if the winner has run for election to that office. Success then becomes the only basis for aesthetic judgments, thus denying the validity of those made an any other basis, because they lack demotic legitimacy and must therefore be based on snobbery or elitism or both. The ideology thus rejects any basis for aesthetic judgment except that which its own ideology defines. Aesthetics, incidentally, tend to resurface when the advocate is reminded of the success, and hence aesthetic worth, of The Bridies' Song or Remember You're A Womble!

The essays in Faith In Fakes by Umberto Eco are stimulating, eye-opening and enlightening. They provoke thought rather than the desire to write a simple review. For that, I apologise.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Italians sometimes deserve more attention
I am amazed that this novel - the most popular, the best-loved, the most imitated in Italy duringthe latest 20 years- is so little known abroad.
It is a very good historical novel, full of intense and fascinating characters, which can reliably belong to European Middle Age. Eco' s culture is immense: he can easily quote from Latin, ancient French or other languages. But the big mystery in this book is an ancient Greek manuscript, the book _On Comedy_ fom Aristotle's _Poetics_. It is very hard to believe that such a manuscript really existed, and, as a matter of fact, at the end of the novel it gets destroyed. A terrible loss for the main character, Guglielmo di Baskerville, but a dreadful victory for superstition and ignorance.
Tje plot is very intriguing (it is a detective story). Some friars are murdered, and nobody can understand the reason...nobody excepting Guglielmo. Whois nothing but Sherlock Holmes, while his young assistant, Adso, is nothing but Watson...

But the referenceto Conan Doyle is not the real purpose of thissplendid book, where youfind such an enchanting gothic atmosphere as very rarely you can do. The real matter is the rescue of European culture, which nowadays seems to beoverwhelmed by the so called 'globalization'.
I suggest this reading to everyone, American, Asian or African people.
The movie is not so bad...Jean-Jacques Annaud understood very well Eco's lesson. But the book is something very, very special.

Notes on This Edition
This isn't a critical review, but just a note to remind everyone that this edition is indeed in the original Italian (rare to find on Amazon.com), and includes a post-script appendix not included in the originalreleases.

P.S., just this once, don't rent the movie. Treat yourself andsee how much more you get out of it.

mispelling
The word "name" in Italian is spelled "nome", not "noma". :) btw, I love this book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A breath of fresh air
Dare I say that I enjoyed this slim paperback more than I did the novel itself! Perhaps I am one of the unsophisticated readers the author alludes to at one point. A must for any student of the novel form. Thank youProfessor Eco for a chance to peek into the pathways of yourmind.Incidentally the edition I've read goes by the title "Reflectionson The name of..." Also read "Six walks in the fictionalwoods."

How to put a middle ages murder mystery together.
This slim book, of only 80 pages, takes you behind the scenes and into the mind of an author.It shows that a "real world" was created in "The name of the rose" with all of the history, geography and even weather in the proper place for the story to happen.The style is light and playful talking about how many steps are needed for some dialog to take place rather than explaining what each character's motivation is.It gives a glimpse of how much enjoyment must come from actually creating a novel ... Read more

Product Description
Umberto Eco is a famous scholar-novelist, and Cardinal Martini is a famous scholar-bishop. Eco is an urbane ex-Catholic. Cardinal Martini is an urbane prince of the Church. Belief or Nonbelief?, a little book of eight chapters, is a dialogue between them, first published by an Italian newspaper. Each author writes four alternating chapters addressing the hopes of humanity at the dawn of a new millennium, the question of the beginning of human life, the role of the Church, and how we can know Truth. One is the beloved author of The Name of the Rose, a celebrated scholar, philosopher, and self-declared secularist; the other is a preeminent clergyman and a respected expert on the New Testament. In this intellectually stimulating dialogue, these two great men, who stand on opposite sides of the church door, discuss some of the most controversial issues of our day: the apocalypse, abortion, women in the clergy, and ethics. Their enlightened, spirited exchange will resonate with believers and nonbelievers alike. ... Read more

Product Description
This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the work and thought of Umberto Eco - one of the most important writers in Europe today. ... Read more

Product Description
Inspired by a work by Edvard Munch, Shadow of Reason presents over 100 works by the leading protagonists of modern contemporary art, from Edvard Munch to Rachel Whiteread, as well as Francis Bacon, Joseph Beuys, Christian Boltanski, Tony Cragg, Girogo de Chirico, Tacita Dean, Marcel Duchamp, Marlene Dumas, Lucio Fontana, Alberto Giacometti, Gilbert & George, Anselm Kiefer, Yves Klein, Wolfgang Laib, Richard Long, Mario Merz, Piet Mondrian, Sigmar Polke, Sean Scully, Susana Solano, Antoni Tapies, and Gilberto Zorio, along with several others. The aim of this exhibit and its accompanying catalogue is to explore a specific European identity in the artistic landscape of the twentieth century. To this end, the works covered are organized thematically as opposed to historically, breaking out of the rigid parameters of traditional museum exhibits-and thereby subverting the continued rule of reason in the name of poetry and transcendence. The accompanying volume features essays-by authors like Umberto Eco-that oppose the role of traditional rationalist discourse in art. ... Read more

Product Description
Hilarious and provocative, fanciful and wise, offering answers to questions we never thought to ask and questions to the answers we always thought we knew, these essays range over subjects marginally useful and fabulously unexpected. ... Read more

Product Description
Une certaine idee de l'Europe nait avec Charlemagne et depuis ce neuvieme siecle medieval jusqu'a nos jours, la pensee italienne a faconne la culture europeenne de facon profonde et decisive. La pensee italienne, comme elle s'est deployee au cours de l'histoire dans les sciences, la philosophie et les arts, a ete largement assimilee, amendee et transposee dans la plupart des pays de l'Europe. C'est en Italie que naissent les universites, que la vie monastique a ete inventee par Saint Benoit, que la civilisation communale jusqu'a l'invention des banques a pris son essor. Depuis Florence, Venise et Rome, la Renaissance et l'Humanisme conquierent la France, l'Angleterre et les pays du Nord. La nouvelle vision du monde et de la societe, de Machiavel a Giurdano Bruno, de Galileo a Vico, s'implantera dans l'esprit europeen. Au vingtieme siecle, des penseurs et des mouvements politiques italiens ont eu un impact considerable sur l'histoire de la gauche et de la droite europeenne, tandis que l'eclosion des arts (cinema, theatre, musique, architecture) n'ont cesse de fasciner l'Europe entiere. Le present volume contient les Actes du colloque La contribution de la pensee italienne a la culture europeenne, qui s'est deroule du 6 au 8 novembre 2003 au Palais des Beaux-Arts dans le cadre d'Europalia-Italia. Preside par Umberto Eco, le colloque a fait appel a une serie de conferenciers de renommee internationale (Claudio Leonardi, Costantino Marmo, Maria Teresa Fumagalli, Rudi Imbach, Gilbert Tournoy, Jean-Jacques Marchand, Lina Bolzoni, Andrea Battistini, Pietro Corsi, Jean Weisgerber, David Forgacs). ... Read more

Product Description
En el universo de Umberto Eco (intertextos y semiosis ilimitada) es un homenaje a al gran semiólogo italiano, a la vez que un recorrido por los mundos posibles del humanismo. ... Read more