Article: Even eggheads have fun: Umberto Eco spikes his esoteric intellectualism with pop culture.

Byline: Chauncey Mabe

_`Baudolino' by Umberto Eco; Harcourt ($27)

One of the great mysteries of modern world literature is the popularity of Italian semiotician-turned-novelist Umberto Eco. When his first attempt at fiction, ``The Name of the Rose,'' was published in this country in 1983, it proved a tonic to readers, who eventually bought up 9 million copies. An erudite murder mystery set in a 14th-century monastery, it was called "intellectual" and "demanding" and branded the most "unread best-seller" in history.

Eco's second novel, ``Foucault's Pendulum'' (1989), was deemed even more esoteric and obtuse, stuffed as it was with detailed ...

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