|
|
Article: Brilliantly becalmed The fictive and scholarly voyages of Umberto Eco
- Article from:
- The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
- Article date:
- November 5, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1995 The Boston Globe. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
|
THE ISLAND OF THE DAY BEFORE
By Umberto Eco. Translated, from the Italian, by William
Weaver. Harcourt Brace. 513 pp. $25.
THE SEARCH FOR THE PERFECT LANGUAGE
By Umberto Eco. Translated, from the Italian, by James
Fentress. Blackwell. 400 pp. $24.95.
Robert Taylor is the retired chief book critic of the
Globe.
The novels of Umberto Eco drift on a Sargasso Sea of narrative,
barnacled by arcane ideas and going nowhere. But his essays about
the Middle Ages or the nature and origin of language are provocative
and lively. As a scholar Eco is stimulating. Did the Serpent
tempt Eve by speaking French? Can a marginal nation produce a great
poet? As a storyteller, ...