Umberto Eco's Defense of Laughter

It is impossible to do justice to Umberto Eco's book, Name of the Rose in a blog. Still I can't resist writing about one of the most stirring of books I have read. I bought it while on a three-week's visit to Delhi in 2003 from my posting in Colombo and read it first in Delhi itself and a second time back in Colombo. I still remember coming across the book one morning in a shop in Delhi's South Extension and taking an instant liking for it after reading the blurb and a quick scanning through the pages.

Name of the Rose is not easy reading because of the complexity of its plot, range of issues discussed and, above all, a large number of passages in Latin. Still, for those willing to take the pains, it is an immensely rewarding reading experience. By risking oversimplification, the book can be called a plea by one of the greatest minds of our times for openness and against all bigotry.

The plot is an investigation into an incident of serial murders in a late medeival Italian Benedictine monastery which also housed one of the most famous libraries of Europe. The learned and no-so-learned bigots who controlled the library, saw it not as a source of learning, but an instrument for restricting and even preventing access to knowledge of all kinds except the most innocuous. An ingenious system of codes, walls and labyrinths was devised to keep it that way. Those who dared to negotiate these hurdles to gain access to books meant to be kept hidden, risked their lives.

One can get a feel of the narration by reading the discussion in one of the chapters on the licitness of laughter. A prevalent orthodoxy held humour an unchristian sentiment and laughter illicit. It was hotly debated whether the Incarnate Word Jesus, had ever laughed. Thomas Chrysostom, one of the fathers of early Church, is said to have taught that Jesus had never laughed. The custodians of orthodxy were willing to go any length to defend this grim and arid view of Christ and Christianity.

As Aristotle's writings had gained respect and authority following the teachings of Scholastic theologians like Thomas Aquinas, it was essential to maintain that Aristotle too was against humour. Only the first part of Aristotle's book, Poetics, dealing with tragedy has come to us while his having written a second book of Poetics dealing with Comedy is often speculated. The library had a copy of this book though its custodians maintained that such a book was never written. This was done to prevent making comedy and humour respectable by giving them the stamp of the recently christianised Aristotle.

The novel ends in a conflagration in which the entire monastery including the library and all its treasures were gutted. The chief instrument leading to this culmination is the blind, ultra-orthodx monk, Jorge who is a rare creation and the darkest character of the Novel.