The Name of the Rose

“Perhaps the mission of those who love mankind is to make people laugh at the truth, to make truth laugh, because the only truth lies in learning to free ourselves from insane passion for the truth.”  So says the protagonist Brother William to his young pupil Adso as they survey the monastery and its great library burned and in ruins.

I recently reread The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco.  Published in 1980 this historical novel and murder mystery is a difficult read, but worth the effort.  The story takes place in the early 14^th century within the walls of an Italian Benedictine monastery.  It was a turbulent time in the history of Christianity.  There was contested leadership within the church and a direct challenge to established church authority with the rise of monastic orders.

The protagonist, Brother William, is a Franciscan monk called upon to investigate a series of murders that occur within the walls of the monastery.  William, once an inquisitor, no longer relies upon the inquisition’s harsh methods. Instead, his tools of investigation are logic and philosophic inquiry.  William is mentor to a young Benedictine novice, Adso, in whose voice the story is narrated.

Woven into the story's multiple mysterious murders are a series of theological debates, told as they would have taken place in the 14^th century.  Religious ‘truths’ were passionately argued. One man’s truth was another’s heresy.  To be on the wrong side of an issue could mean death.  To be on the right side, especially if martyred, could mean sainthood.

One debated ‘truth’ concerned monastic vows of poverty.  For those taking such a vow, this was their measure of faith and piety.  Not so according to established church leadership, believing that ascetic vows posed a threat to church wealth, power and authority.

Within the monastery was a great library.  There was debate about the purpose and usefulness of the library. Some saw the library as a great repository of knowledge.  Others argued that God’s words, as revealed in the Bible, stood alone.  Books were extraneous, the product of man’s arrogance, man’s sinful pride in cleverness and knowledge.

Laughter itself was cause for dispute, one side seeing laughter as a joyous acknowledgement of God’s goodness, the other side arguing that laughter was derisive and frivolous, making light of man’s sinful state, working in service of the devil.

In the novel, religious ‘truths’ were argued with fatal results  The murders and motives solved, William warns his young pupil, “Fear prophets, Adso, and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them.”

Umberto Eco, writing with imagination, scholarship and eloquence crafted a story that reminds us of the dangers and cruelty of dogma, that "insane passion for the truth.”  And he reminds us of the necessary corrective power of laughter and humor.

In another time and another place philosopher Isaiah Berlin warned, “It is a terrible and dangerous arrogance to believe that you alone are right . . .”   I couldn’t have said it better.  Umberto Eco did.