The Name of the Rose

The Name of the Rose is a perfectly comprehensible book: a little semiotic murder mystery set in a 14th century monastery at the center of the most pressing issues of the time: the poverty of Jesus Christ.

What, you don’t have that section on your bookshelf?

More seriously, Eco does an incredibly good job getting inside the very alien minds of his monks, and the kinds of passions and secrets that would lead these sworn men of God to murder. The tensions and conflicts of the 14th century, on the edge between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance are on full display. I can’t say this is a perfect book (unevenly paced, a little too in love with its own erudition), but it is an undeniably impressive one.