In this small volume two of the best-known minds of Italy exchange letters trying to find a common ground and to clarify differences between the secular and religious worldviews. On the one hand we have Umberto Eco, an academic philosopher best known for his novel "The Name of the Rose", and on the other hand Cardinal Martini, one of the most intellectually gifted princes of the Catholic church. The format is questions and answers; Eco gets the first three questions, Martini the last one. In general I found the questions illuminating; they are clearly stated and challenge the other party to clarify its position. Neither Eco nor Martini give resounding answers though, and reading between the lines one feels a certain unease in both.

Eco's first question is not really a question but rather a commentary on the secular and religious ideas about history and the end of history. Both agree that history has meaning and direction and that the fears about a disastrous end can be vanquished by hope.

The other three questions are ethical and are much more interesting. After a short and delightful investigation about what human life is, Eco asks about abortion, and specifically about when human life begins. Martini explains that there are different kinds of human life and that the kind that counts is not physical life but rather spiritual life which is part of God's life. Being a cardinal, he cannot but answer Eco's question with the Church's official position, which is that human life begins at inception. He reasons that this is so because at the inception a person's genetic identity is fixed. To me this argument sounds rather superficial. After all a seed fixes the identity of the tree that may grow out of it, but that does not mean that the seed is a living tree. Surely, if, while eating an apple, I inadvertently swallow a seed, nobody will claim that I have just eaten an apple tree. To be fair, Martini is only stating that human life starts at inception, not that a fertilized human egg is a human being. But in this case then we get the equally strange claim that human life is present in something that is not a human being.

The third of Eco's questions is about the ordination of women. He argues that there are not really any dogmatic impediments for women becoming priests and, also, that common sense dictates that half of humanity should not be excluded from serving God in any capacity. Martini's answer here is very problematic. He starts on a fine note stating that we should not impose our morality on others: "Any external imposition of principles or religious behavior on the nonconsenting violates freedom of conscience." Exactly two paragraphs later he contradicts himself writing that "religious bodies can try to democratically influence the tenor of laws they find do not correspond to an ethical standard that might indeed derive from religious practice". He concedes that ultimately there are no good arguments for denying the priesthood to women, but that nevertheless this must be denied them because it is God's will, according to the opinion of those "who by Episcopal succession have received the power of truth".

The fourth and final question is Martini's, and now I think it is Eco's answer that sounds strained. Martini asks what the foundation is for an atheist's moral principles, up to documented extremes where atheists gave up their lives trying to do what they thought right. Implicitly in this question one reads the presumption that the foundation of morality can only be a transcendent religious awareness. Eco starts, interestingly enough, explaining that there can be no true atheists because even though nobody has found a convincing proof for the existence of God, neither has anybody found a convincing proof for the nonexistence of God. He responds to Martini's question explaining that moral ideology is a result of the requirements of our cohabitation in close proximity. He recognizes that this standard explanation for morality does not explain the phenomenon of secular people offering a personal sacrifice comparable to that of Christ, so he ventures that the reason here is that people have a deep need to give a good example, to leave a message to others, sometimes even if it costs their life. He does not explain how this instinctive need to communicate good has evolved with human life and culture, so he is merely transforming the original question into a different one.

Ultimately, Eco and Martini do not really connect, and it would be too much to expect such a miracle. I think that the religious and secular world views can only touch and derive worth from each other if each side abandons beliefs that are deeply felt but not really central to the respective world views. Secular people should stop talking about "meaningful life", "universal harmony", a "higher power", or "the other" and simply give it a name and call it God. Religious people should recognize that the origin of truth is not in books of revelations or leaders who "have received the power of truth" but God alone with no intermediaries. When secular people accept that truth comes from somewhere, and religious people accept that where truth comes from we can go ourselves, then the foundations of a very meaningful dialectic will have been set.

One star less than the deserving five, because the English edition omits the commentaries by several other authors which were included in the original edition.

While I appreciate the sentiments of the two participants, and I enjoyed the dialog, the problem with these kinds of interactions is that almost nobody will be swayed but the other side. Each side has its own beliefs, and the conversation amounts to explaining to each other what that entails. I do think that this is important, but the recent spate of books trying to get everyone to see each others side is a little tiresome. This is especially true in the science world. The last chapter was the only one that had any real confrontation, and unfortunately it was the last correspondence. The plesant tone that each side took however was refreshing. It was a very cordial discourse, it only needed to last a few hundred more pages before it got really interesting.

EN QUE CREEN LOS QUE NO CREEN

UMBERTO ECO Y CARLO MARIA MARTINI

Este pequeño intercambio de ideas entre estas dos grandes figuras es un excelente ejercicio literario, filosófico e ideológico de carácter muy profundo y ha sido un libro de un gran impacto en mi vida. Tenia tiempo que no leía una obra que me pusiera a pensar y repensar en los valores de la sociedad moderna y el papel de la iglesia y los laicos. Debo decir que después de este libro veo las instituciones religiosas y sus creyentes con mucho mas respeto que antes. Los veo a la luz de los errores pasados, pero también los veo en su función de reformar y reformarse, en una constante búsqueda de la verdad que parece eludirnos pero veo que lentamente el germen de la tolerancia, la comprensión y el amor hacia ese otro que es un alter ego esta ganando terreno. Respecto a la pregunta de Martini en la que no se explica sobre que basa la certeza y la imperatividad de su actuar moral quien, para fundar la cualidad de absoluto de una ética, no pretende hacer un llamado a principios metafísicos, es decir no busca de Dios a la hora de hacer el bien, encuentra en Eco una respuesta contundente y posmodernista en que los individuos dependemos de la aceptación del otro para poder vivir y es esa cohesión de hechos la que nos hace no lastimar a los demás y es también la razón que lleva a los filósofos a filosofar, a los escritores a escribir; dejar un mensaje para los otros en un futuro para que sepan y vean lo que consideramos bello en nuestro tiempo y un poco de nosostos en esas cosas. Dios existe porque necesitamos que exista ese padre, esa figura que significa protección en un mundo donde hasta el momento estamos solos. Los no creyentes y los creyentes debemos respetarnos y aprender a encontrar puntos de consenso, para conservar nuestra raza y mantener viva a nuestra madre, Gea.

Luis Mendez

Surely, we can't talk and think enough
about the state of mankind!
But these are hazardous waters! Where should we begin
and where do we want to go from there? So, Having
Gould and Eco as guides seems like a clever start!

According to the book, the hebrew language has
no exact present tense?? The infinitely brief, the
very essense of the present, is not to be found - it
can be neither fixed, nor measured. It is therefore
completely justifiable, grammaticale speaking,
to leave out the present?

Yet, obviously, it is from the present we look at the
past and towards the future.
Stephen Jay Gould is always a pleasure to listen to -
and the right one to put time into perspective.
For a palaeontologist, like Gould, 7000 years
(timespand of human culture) is really no more than
the twinkling of an eye. So all we know is really in
the present - which hardly exist!

From this position we look out into concepts like
the eternity - which we obviously really can't grasp.
And into ourselfes were e.g. DNA was discovered as recently
as 1953. Mystery upon mystery.
So, we struggle to discover instances of regularity and
to fit them together with the help of stories. We throw
in a little religion "were religions do not
ask questions, they answer them". Still we are far
removed from any real "understanding".

And that is what these conversations are about.
With Umberto Eco and Stephen Jay Gould - it is
of course an ok read. But only an appetizer.

-Simon

Conversations About the End of Time is a a discussion of questions and answers given by four thinkers. Stephen Jay Gould, Umberto Eco, Jean-Claude Carriere and Jean Delumeau all answer questions and are given a chapter in this book to espouse their respective answers.

Just think of a coffee table discussion, of a one on one discussion and you get to read the answers on questions of import. Each answering these questions with their respective insights and down-to-earth style. Each having their respective life experiences to draw from to unravel perplexing questions.

With fascination you read the thought-provoking answers. The answers will suprise some, others may be right inline with what you'd expect, but nerver boring... challenging, educational, lucid and erudite are more what you'd expect and you are not dissapointed.

This book reads fast and the questions are cogent with the general topic. Each respective thinker answers in a style of their own and the reader does not feel irrelevant. This is an interesting book in that questions asked make the reader think as well.

I found the book to be highly interesting and it has a fascination woven throughout the text captivating the reader.

---------- ----------

I'm talking about that Darwinian theory of Natural Selection you keep telling as if it were true. It is "differential reproductive success". So then that means I need at least 2 different things to call some event NS. So then I ask myself what do these 2 different things have to do with each other? So then I say well either they influence each other's reproduction some way, or they could as well be in different environments. So they must influence each other's reproduction some way. So then I ask, what ways can the one influence the reproduction of the other?

+/- increase reproduction at cost of the other +/+ mutual increase of each other's reproduction -/- mutual decrease of each other's reproduction +/0 and so on -/0 0/0

but what you do, is pretend like there are only +/- relationships. You ignore all other type of relationships with NS. Your natural selection theory is false, for being unsystematic in describing the relationships between living beings. You make teachers into liars by it.

When reading a text, how much does what the author intended count for, if anything? Is there any way to tell what a text "really" means, or can it be read however you like for whatever purpose you like? Simple as they seem, these are the fundamental questions this book is concerned with, and it is Eco's task to explain why he thinks there should be limits to interpretation - against the prevailing opinions of many modern critics and thinkers.

The book is laid out in eight sections. The first is the Introduction, which is substantial. If you're in the habit of skipping the introduction I would advise against it here, unless you consider yourself thoroughly familiar with the subject - it's helpful.

The next three sections consist of a series of lectures Eco gave on this subject, where he establishes his main points. It's quite accessible to the layman, and in the few places where the terms get a bit obscure you can usually figure out what he's talking about from the context. He uses several historical examples which keep things interesting, and his arguments are interesting whether you find them convincing or not.

Essays by Rorty, Culler and Brooke-Rose in response to these lectures make up the next part. Rorty, a self-described "pragmatist", makes the argument that we shouldn't concern ourselves with what makes a "valid" interpretation, and instead just use texts as they come before us for whatever purpose suits us best. Culler, coming from the side of the deconstructionists, argues that what Eco calls "overinterpretation" has a value of its own and reacts strongly to the implication that there should be any limits whatsoever imposed upon the critic. Brooke-Rose's piece on "palimpsest history" is not uninteresting but somewhat tangential, and you really have to stretch things to relate it to the argument going on between Eco, Rorty and Culler.

The wrap-up section is a response from Eco, mostly addressing Rorty's points though dealing somewhat with Culler's objections. There is no clear "winner", and you may not be swayed to Eco's point of view if you found one of the others more compelling, but there is ample food for thought.

I don't have much background in literary theory, but I still found Eco's writing very accessible and very enjoyable. I think the topic would interest anyone that has ever tried to appreciate literature: up to what point can we take events in a book/play/poem to be significant to the idea the writer is trying to get across?

This book constructs its arguments from the ground up, although at times the approach to interpretation taken by Eco is radically different from how one would be accustumed to reading a book.

I believe that eventually one gets used to the different approaches suggested -- or better, exemplified -- by Eco, and the initial difficulties in understanding his point of view are overcome to open a great new horizon of ideas and literary enjoyment.

This is a book of parodies Eco originally wrote for a magazine in the sixties. They are great fun, with lots of jokes about literature; Nabokov ("my name is Umberto Umberto", says the hero in "Granita"), Kafka (a publisher's rejection letter for "The Trial": "..And why is the protagonist is being put to trial? If we clarify these points and make the setting more concrete..."), Joyce & Co are parodied or alluded to in the articles.

This is probably the most lighthearted book of Eco. Even if you are not interested in his work, if you like literature and humour, you will enjoy this book a lot.

Eco, as is his form, provides a series of entertaining and poignant stories covering topics such as blue-jeans, media reports from the discovery of America and conversations with God. If you enjoy the range and depth of Travels in Hyperreality, then you will enjoy this book.

This slim book, of only 80 pages, takes you behind the scenes and into the mind of an author. It shows that a "real world" was created in "The name of the rose" with all of the history, geography and even weather in the proper place for the story to happen. The style is light and playful talking about how many steps are needed for some dialog to take place rather than explaining what each character's motivation is. It gives a glimpse of how much enjoyment must come from actually creating a novel

Dare I say that I enjoyed this slim paperback more than I did the novel itself! Perhaps I am one of the unsophisticated readers the author alludes to at one point. A must for any student of the novel form. Thank you Professor Eco for a chance to peek into the pathways of your mind.Incidentally the edition I've read goes by the title "Reflections on The name of..." Also read "Six walks in the fictional woods."

I bought this book used in Berkeley hoping for a tutorial from one of my heroes on how to write and what the narrative form can be. I finished by cursing myself for not having read Nerval but examining the relationship between the author, the text and the reader. My lasting impression is that this book caused me to examine the way in which the author imposes his own views over the text - and for that I am grateful.

Eco's "Six Walks in the Fictional Woods" smells like Italo Calvino's "Six Memos for the Next Millenium". Each essay, or walk, is an extended musing, in an informally scholastic tone of voice, of the author's preferred elements of fiction reading and composition. Most of the comparative material is taken from Nerval's, Joyce's and his own works, and given splashes of splendour with the special touch of brilliance to which we all know Eco has easy access. The essays lack the intensified beauty of his fiction ("Foucault's Pendulum," or "The Name of the Rose"), but demand consideration standing out as interesting thought material from the legendary linguist. --Alejandro Arevalo

Six Walks is more accessible than I had expected (my copy is now heavily highlighted, marked up, and loaded with the little plastic stickies I use to flag ideas and references). Eco is speaking to readers and, thereby, equally to writers. The six Charles Elliot Norton lectures begin with the role time plays in fiction and end with the importance (to our perception of reality) of accuracy in writing fiction. This is weighty stuff made accessible by Eco's illustration by example: Yes, Dante, Shakespeare, and Kafka, but the writers who give us Hercule Poirot, Agent 007 and Little Red Riding Hood as well. If you read fiction or write fiction, the material will be useful and the book will please.

Umberto Eco is clearly a genius - his fictional works testify to that. I assume his reputation as a semiologist is well earned (since I know little about the subject beyond what Walker Percy digested).

Unfortunately, I found "Travels in Hyperreality" to be a hastily pasted collection of observations and commentary that is not really worthy of Eco's growing portfolio. The book was sometimes interesting, but dry and tasteless. I thought the whole lot of it could be encapsulated in Eco's strange observations concerning "the wearing of blue jeans." That is, if you're really, really, really into Eco and want to soak up everything he says, then this book will not disappoint. If, on the other hand, you have limited time on your hands, then Eco's fictional works, or "Search for the Perfect Language," are far better temporal investments.

Perhaps I didn't get it, or perhaps it was a mistake reading much of it in a bar in Santa Clara, but I would assert that this is only a book for the Eco purist.

A deliriously funny trip through the mad places the earth's inhabitants call home. Eco skewers like "kitsch-ka-bob" the artificial pseudo paradises we have created with all our so-called modern conveniences. What have we turned our cities into, by the way? Do we really understand art?

If you've ever driven through rural Arkansas or Texas and wanted to capture with words the seemingly inexplicable, paradoxical sights along the way, it's been done for you and can be enjoyed in these side-splitting pages.

Lots of fun.

i got this book because of the essay by which it is entitled. it is a great work, and a basic reading for those interested on the topics of hyperreality, simulated or thematized environments, and the like. quite contemporary tho Eco's work is Baudrillard's la precession des simulacres. so they are from the 70's and much more has been written on the topic, but these texts are, as i said, basic to understand all the rest. eco's work is quite openning ranging from xanaduswax museums, the theming of nature, etc. it is worthy.

I enjoyed "The Name of the Rose" so much that I thought I would try Foucault's Pendulum. After all, it sounded like a fascinating read. I slugged my way through page after page of the book thinking that surely soon I would get hooked. Finally, when about 2/3 of the way through the book, I came to the brilliant conclusion that it just wasn't going to happen and that there was no need to bore myself to tears any more. I took the book back to the library. The librarian saw me turning it in and asked if I had read it, and did I enjoy it? I reluctantly admitted that I had given up more than halfway through it. She laughed and said that she was foolish and stubborn enough to have read the whole #$(*&@ thing and still had no idea what was going on! For several years now, Foucault's Pendulum has been our family joke--a book for people who like to trumpet their intelligence by claiming to understand something completely unintelligible.

Umberto Eco's 'Foucault's Pendulum' is a book that inspires strong emotions. Readers either love it or loathe it. Count me in the latter category. Nothing against the author. I'm sure he achieved his objectives with flying colors. And the subject matter is, at times, pretty darn interesting. But Eco's style -- fraught with arcane references and interminable diatribes -- is not my cup of tea. To boot, the explanation of the causes of the holocaust, albeit fictionalized, is disturbing, to put it mildly. Here's a snippet of what I'm talking about: 'Hitler was searching the Jews for the clue that would allow him to determine, with the Pendulum, the exact point under the earth's concave vault where the telluric currents converged.' (See pp. 422-3, et al.)

I regret that I plowed through the whole book, but I have an irrational habit of always finishing the books that I begin reading. To the more rational reader, I suggest the following: read the first six pages. If it tickles your shorts, keep reading. There's plenty more where that came from. If not, cut bait and find something else to read. Granted, there are many people for whom 'Foucault's Pendulum' is a brilliant piece of literature. But for others, the book will only disappoint for many, many hours.

Overall, I enjoyed the experience of reading this book, particularly getting sucked in to the unfolding connections between secret societies, history, and religion. I wish, however, that I would have read about the book's esoteric content without having to put up with the boring, one-dimensional characters' personal relationships and political interests. A nonfiction version of this (for the portions that actually are nonfiction -- by the end you don't know what's based on fact and what's a creation of the author's imagnation) would be a more worthwhile read. The message or "moral" of the ending, at least the way I interpretted it, was a kind of an interesting and unexpected one from a refreshing outsider perspective. But in the end, unless you're a particularly avid reader, or don't mind skimming some really dull parts, I would recommend the point of this novel, but not the novel itself.

There is no doubt that both of them are well-educated gentlemen. This destory the whole purpose of the book - they are too polite to have any confrontation. Throughout the whole book, they are just presenting each other their own views. They actually haven't met each other to have a discussion and in fact, the title of the book misled me. It should be called "Belief or Non-Belief: Some Correspondences"

I loved this little book. Eco is one of my heroes, and I knew of Martini's reputation, since there's been much speculation that he is one of the favorites to become the next Pope.

What I liked most about the dialogue is that the two men clearly present their views and fully address the other's questions, without breaking down into the type of sensationalistic diatribe that passes for debate in the United States. Eco and Martini show respect for each other and each other's views, while clearly making a case for their own beliefs.

My sole complaint is that of several other reviewers - the book was too short. I would have enjoyed more Q&A from Eco and Martini. The reactions of other intellectuals that were apparently included in the Italian and Spanish versions would have also been interesting reading.

This book is well worth a purchase.

In a time when academia and scholarly religion seems terribly at odds with the living Catholic faith, two men open a dialogue which is indeed a confrontation. They confront however, not each other, but the issues of apocalyptic perspective, abortion, women in the Church, violence and much more. These two men recognize these issues not as polemics to be tossed back and forth for endless bantering, but as fundamental to outlining a definition of "humanity." Both men are scholars and people of faith, aware of the cultural and social millieu around them. Although the paperback version claims "A Dialogue" it is most definitely a confrontation that forces the reader to make some decisions or at least consider issues that are all to easily relegated to consideration in a distant sphere rather than our hearts.

I adored Eco's THE NAME OF THE ROSE and FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM - and hated THE ISLAND OF THE DAY BEFORE. Umberto Eco's newest novel, BAUDOLINO, lies somewhere in between. In it, Eco returns to familiar territory: the Middle Ages and the theological philosophies that shaped the times. He begins his story during the Fourth Crusade when Constantinople is under attack. A Greek priest Niketas is rescued by a mysterious man named Baudolino who amazingly knows the languages of both attackers and defenders. While the two are in hiding, Baudolino tells Niketas his life story, from his peasant beginnings to his adoption by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick to his quest to discover the kingdom of the legendary priest Prestor John. Baudolino is a self-professed liar, so his story unfolds with the authority of his voice but also with underlying uncertainty. Baudolino believes with passion many of his own lies, lending yet another layer to his tale.

Parts of this novel are brilliant, but Eco does not seem to know what he wants this novel to be. For example, he spends a portion of the book documenting the rise of the Italian city-states, finally focusing on one city and its inhabitants with convincing detail and conflict, only to discard it - just when the situation gets interesting - in favor of a lackluster quest to return the Holy Grail to Prestor John's kingdom. The books covers events that occurred throughout Europe, and somehow (is it his liar's tongue?) Baudolino is always there with his hand stirring up history. Eco devotes huge sections to war, mythological beings, and long treatises on the theological questions of the times. He seems to want to cram everything he knows about the Middle Ages into this novel: myths, misconceptions, historical figures, theological debates, politics. Unfortunately, by not building his story around one or two of these elements, he has ended up with a scattered novel that can be compelling one minute and excruciatingly dull the next. The motivations of the characters are often weak, although sometimes the characters spring up with unexpected vividness, only to fade away once again. I wish Eco had spent more time with the human moments of the Middle Ages to give this era life.

Despite the unmoored aspect to BAUDOLINO, Eco is at his humorous best when inventing, with details that made me laugh, the origin of several Middle Ages "discoveries": the shroud of Turin, the widely circulated letters of Prestor John, the conflicting relics that appeared in various early churches, to name only a few. Several real figures of the times - Zosimos the alchemist, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick and his son, and Niketas himself - have human foibles that make them rise off the page. Baudolino's relationship with both his real and his adoptive fathers are poignant in two separate scenes, and his love for his stepmother is convincingly told.

This is a sinuously told tale with no constant conflict or other driving force, but one which will please readers who love philosophy, intellectual history, and theological debates. I recommend this for patient readers who have a bonafide interest in Eco's work as well as in medieval times. You will be wholly dissatisfied if you are looking for the mystery or conspiracy of Eco's previously successful novels.

Historical fiction is where Umberto Eco found narrative success in The Name of the Rose, and it's where he finds success in Baudolino. The Europe of centuries past provides Eco with room for both flights of fancy and detail-rich history buff trivia. This book divides nearly in half along those lines: the first half is straight -- albeit fanciful and amusing -- historical fiction, told by a narrator with a talent for embellishment. But the second half of the book drops the reader into pure fantasy-land as the character Baudolino and his archetypal ragtag group of adventurers go on a quest to the edges of the medieval maps -- into the region of the margins, where fantastical creatures and perils limited only by imagination await the traveler. There are nods to Gulliver here, and all the utterly invented history of travelers eager to entertain and impress the folks back home with their feats of daring, turning the exotic into the ever more exotic. Of course, Professor Eco's observations on human nature, politics, and philosophy shape his story as much as his desire to entertain. In the last chapters of the book, philosophy threatens to overwhelm narrative, and there are moments of new-age corn that challenge all but the most sympathetic reader. Of course, long, nerdy descriptions of European micro-politics occasionally swamp narrative too, as they did in Foucault's Pendulum. But the book's sheer joy in telling its fabulous yarn makes those missteps moot.

Baudolino : A Novel written by Umberto Eco is a novel, from which Eco does his best writting, that of historical fiction. Set in April of 1204 in the bustling capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople. Eco is known for the "Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum" both of these novels have an all engrossing narrative... well "Baudolino" has that plus is superbly entertaining.

Mixing historical fact with writing a good historical fiction is Eco's main forte. The Middle Ages written with a flair wonder and a dash of provocativity, spicing a beguiling tale Eco works his mastery of the storytelling art in this book. There is even a sprinkling of humor in this twelfth century tale making for an engaging story that keeps the readers interest.

This is a tale about the Fourth Crusade and a simple peasant boy made good (Baudolino), though he has the gift of speaking and learning different languages and a skill for telling tales to deceive. Baudolino is befriended by a commanding officer of an invading force, little did Baudolino know that this was Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.

Barbarossa was smitten with the boy and sends him to the university in Paris. There Baudolino makes friends, not just ordinary friends, but those of a fearless and adventurous kind. This rather merry band of lads getting all high on their own reveries decides to set out and search for none other than Prester John. Prester John is a legendary priest-king and is known to rule a vast empire to the East. This empire is not just your ordinary empire, no, this empire through all of the legend has some really strange creatures and lovely maidens

Trust me on this one, Eco has worked the storytelling art to its very best, you will not want to put the book down until the end. Myths, fables, ingenious humor,and romance are all present along with history making for an entertaining book. This book ranks right up along his "Name of the Rose and Foucalt's Pendulum" for intricate and absorbing reading.

So, get the book and enjoy a novel that is in every instance equal to the author's hallmark, this is an intellectual adventure story seeking the truth.