Il nome della rosa

© Photographed by A. Kev

It seems that there are always books waiting to be read. I'd just finished Michael D. Coe's Angkor (a very comprehensive book on Angkor written by a renown Mayanist) , Elaine Pagels' excellent The Gnostic Gospels and nearly finished Israel Regardie's marvelous A Garden of Pomegranates. There are still piles of English, Chinese and French books left unread, and yet yesterday in Kinokuniya I failed to resist buying Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose.

Originally I was thinking to buy Eco's Kant and the Platypus, but later I changed my mine and bought his The Name of the Rose instead (Vintage Classics edition, which is slightly cheaper than the Harvest Books edition). Actually, I already bought Eco's The Island of the Day Before, but only read a few pages of the book, and I know that I will certainly read his Foucault's Pendulum before moving back to The Island of the Day Before.

I love to read my favorite books while in a cozy environment, so this afternoon I brought a beg full of books to the nearest comfy coffeehouse . So, I sipped a glass of hot chai and enjoyed reading the books, a real indulgence. I managed to finish reading Anita Diamant's beautiful, moving The Red Tent, flipping through a few pages of Wheelock's Latin, another few pages of The Golden Dawn Journal : Book 1, Susan Sontag's On Photography, and not to forget Eco's The Name of the Rose. I decide that I love The Name of the Rose. And perhaps, it would be good to explore the world of semiotics as I read this book?

Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus ...