On Literature [Paperback]

In this collection of essays and addresses delivered over the course of his illustrious career, Umberto Eco seeks to understand the chemistry of [his] passion for the word. From musings on Ptolemy and the force of the false to reflections on the experimental writing of Borges and Joyce, Eco's luminous intelligence and encyclopedic knowledge are on dazzling display throughout. And when he reveals his own ambitions and superstitions, his authorial anxieties and fears, one feels like a secret sharer in the garden of literature to which he so often alludes.

Remarkably accessible and unfailingly stimulating, this collection exhibits the diversity of interests and the depth of knowledge that have made Eco one of the world's leading writers.

PRAISE FOR UMBERTO ECO

One of the most influential thinkers of our time. --Los Angeles Times

Eco combines scholarship with a love of paradox and a quirky, sometimes outrageous, sense of humor. --The Atlantic Monthly

ON SOME FUNCTIONS OF LITERATURE

Legend has it, and if it is not true it is still a good story, that Stalin once asked how many divisions the Pope had. Subsequent events have proved to us that while divisions are indeed important in certain circumstances, they are not everything. There are nonmaterial forces, which cannot be measured precisely, but which nonetheless carry weight.

We are surrounded by intangible powers, and not just those spiritual values explored by the world's great religions. The power of square roots is also an intangible power: their rigid laws have survived for centuries, outliving not just Stalin's decrees but even the Pope's. And among these powers I would include that of the literary tradition; that is to say, the power of that network of texts which humanity has produced and still produces not for practical ends (such as records, commentaries on laws and scientific formulae, minutes of meetings or train scheduleslƒN