“Faith vs Knolwedge? It's a good question set up within the book, but I don't try to look into it too much, but rather to simply read and enjoy. I did, though it did make me think when I finished it. Faith is changed by knowledge, and knowledge is challenged by faith...in the end, no one won or lost, and the Knowledge of Good and Evil is broken down into too many gray areas for one to know who is ultimately to blame for it...but it's a great mystery that I wanted to figure out, and a wonderful read.”
“I am more than a little surprised that this is a reading people give to the book. Sure, that is a side note in the larger picture, but Eco is largely interested in the control of knowledge. This story could not be set in another age, as a couple hundred years in either direction fails to present such centralized control of knowledge.Of his novels, this is Eco's least favorite, and that may be because he was (almost idly) playing around with a number of threads. His interest in the history of Western thought comes through, though not as clearly as later in Foucault's Pendulum (his favorite among his novels). Similarly, he doesn't play as successfully with ideas drawn from his favorite authors, though he places a few in the novel.Finally, remember that Eco's fortunes in his native Italy have, in the past, been connected to the politics of his novels. The Name of the Rose is also social critique, which is something he managed to have supported until Berlusconi's administration and Baudolino.”
