Eco of greatness

I have been browsing Umberto Eco's on literature (the lower case letters are deliberate, as this is how it appears on the cover).  This is a collection of incidental writings, some very short, some longer, on a whole variety of subjects.  The common theme, he says in his introduction,is that "they are concerned with the problem of literature". This is not a formulation I find sympathetic - I do not think there is such a thing - but I have so enjoyed Eco's novels, particularly The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum, and some of his critical writings, including the auto-reflective Reflections on "The Name of the Rose", that I pushed on regardless.

The essays are so different, both in quality, weight and content, that I shall read them over a long period, just noting one or two here if I feel moved.  The first is On Some Functions of Literature, which is a title to fall short of.  And although my respect for Eco is unbounded, I feel several of these essays do fall short, that they are unanchored, that they might have been wonderful essays or lectures in a particular context, but seem weaker standing naked in a book.  For example, I found this first essay interesting, but it didn't begin to live up to the title: indeed, he admits as much, ending with "... one of the principal functions of literature lies in ... lessons about fate and death.  Perhaps there are others, but for the moment none springs to mind" !

On Some Functions of Literature is more a discussion about how widely we can interpret a text; Eco (like every other reader) is interested in two things: how wide an interpretation is permissible or valuable - and how much of the detail in or implicit in the text is useful or relevant.  I have a fairly narrow view on the first, and rather a wide one on the second, and I think (though it is not easy to be sure) that I take the opposite view to Eco in both cases!  He gives us some wonderful examples - summed up in this paragraph:

"Literary works encourage freedom of interpretation, because they offer us a discourse that has many layers of reading and place before us the ambiguities of language and of real life.  But in order to play this game, which allows every generation to read literary works in a different way, we must be moved by a profound respect for the intention of the text."

So you can read Shakespeare as anti-colonial, or anti-Fascist, or analytically psychological - but you cannot say that Hamlet marries Ophelia.  So you can worry about some detail which the author makes the crux of the story - like the position of the letter rack in Poe's Purloined Letter, but you can't build theses on things which the author clearly regards as irrelevant - like the date on which d'Artagnan joins the other three musketeers.  Personally, I have always been fascinated by the minutiae of novels and stories - so I read with interest Sutherland's essays, such as who betrays Elizabeth Bennet?  How do the Cratchits cook Scrooge's turkey? What sex is Lady Bertram's pug?  Why are there no public toilets in Casterbridge? But I fear that Eco would regard this as all rather irrelevant!  But we share a horror of novels being rewritten so that Anna Karenina does not commit suicide - it might be fun, but it's not beautiful, it's not true, and it's not the text.  He quotes Victor Hugo tellingly:

"Was it possible for Napoleon to win at Waterloo?  We reply no.  Why?  Because of Wellington?  Because of Blucher?  No.  Because of God."

Comments

[Glo]

1. Eco's theories about interpretation are also developed in his essay about translation (original title is "Dire quasi la stessa cosa - esperienze di traduzione", Bompiani, 2003). It is about translation from original to foreign language, which is not only translation from word to word but also requires to go through some interpretation/negociation process according to Eco. This book also covers the ways and processes artists use to express a story or a feeling from the original media (words, music, movie, dance, painting...) to another of these media... I hope you understand what I mean....
2. No way you get me started about Napoleon!

[Lindsay]

I keep meaning to buy Hyperreality, but in this merely real world, both time and space are limited - though as a physicist, Dark Puss might not acept that!!!

I've lots of sympathy for Ann - the anguish of knowing that its all going wrong again is sometimes too much; the mark of a great writer that you carry on caring. My most intense feeling of this sort is at the end of Mansfield Park when I keep hoping Aunt Bertram will get a more thorough, a more exlicit comme-uppance!

[Ann Darnton]

My immediate thought here as of those bowdlerised versions of Shakespeare that were so popular in the nineteenth century - Edgar marrying Cordelia and the like and of course I wanted to say "Oh yes, how true!" and then I remembered that every time I see 'Romeo and Juliet' I sit there praying that this time it will all turn out OK!

[Jill]

I haven't tried any of his essays and these do sound intriguing.

[Peter the Flautist]

Have you read Eco's collection of essays "Travels in Hyperreality"; I enjoyed these greatly, although they have attracted mixed reviews. I also recommend his novel " The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana".

Dark Puss