On Literature
Friday, November 17th, 2006 @ 23:45
by Umberto Eco (2005)
A collection of mostly reworked lectures and conference papers, sometimes introductions, On Literature discusses Eco’s influences (Borges, Joyce), canon names of literature (Cervantes, Wilde, Holmes, Marx, Thomas Aquinas (whom he wrote his doctorate thesis on, published as The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas)), and personal experiences and opinions of his writing career (How I Write, Intertextual Irony and Levels of Reading), while in The Power of Falsehood, readers of Baudalino will find the author’s short comment on Prester John (among other discussion on the engineering force of ‘falsehood’).
With his background in semiotics and ’scholarly’ non-fiction (Eco didn’t start writing fiction until he turned 46, having regarded fiction writers as “prisoners of their own lives), Eco dissects his subjects with the critical “scientific attitude”, understandably, as much as he realised this dilemma, resulting in contradictions. However, it is in On Some Functions of Literature (the first essay) that Eco displays the most incredulous short-sightedness, stating that “wretches” are those who are “excluded from the universe of literature”.
As stated above, most of the ones discussed are well-known authors in the Western literature (except for maybe Nerval and Camporesi). He does discuss the American Myth in Three Anti-American Generations of Italian writers (among others, Pavese, Moravia), but otherwise there is a lack of specific attention on Italian writers.
Additionally, since there is a common demographic cross-over of Eco’s and Calvino’s fans, those interested in On Literature might also try Calvino’s Literature Machine (which also highlights the conflict between science and literature, discussing, among others, Oulipo, the power of movies in comparison to books, sources of inspirations, and many more that my failing brains unfortunately can’t recall anymore).
