The Name of the pink

the Name of the pink ( It names beyond rosa ) is a Romance of the Italy N Umberto Eco, published in 1980 (translated into French in 1982). This novel can be qualified as being a medieval police officer . It receives the Prix Médicis in 1982.

The intrigue

In 1327, whereas the Chrétienté is divided between the authority of the Pape Jean XXII and that of the Empereur Louis IV of the Holy roman Empire, the ex- inquisitor Guillaume de Baskerville goes in a Abbaye bénédictine, located between Provence and Ligurie, accompanied by its Adso beginner. In a Theological climate of conflict between the Franciscains and the pontifical authority about the poverty of the Christ - being used above all of frontage for the political conflict between the pope and the emperor - the former inquisitor must include his load at the request of the abbot, following the suspect death of one of the monks. Quickly, which much seemed to regard as a suicide takes of the increasingly worrying paces. When the inquisitor Dominicain Bernardo GUI goes to the abbey at the request of the pope, and starts to mix with the investigation, that is far from arranging the things.

the name of the pink is a history in seven chapters, quantifies symbolic system which represents the number of days, murders and stages of the investigation. The history is limited by the history of discovered manuscript which the author claims to translate, and by the conclusions of the narrator become old man.

Characters

Guillaume de Baskerville

Guillaume de Baskerville is a monk Franciscain, in charge of a diplomatic mission but whose role in the intrigue will be to inquire into the crimes committed within the abbey. Former inquisitor, it is finally forced to take again his load temporarily, which will expose its weakness when it cannot act any more by only rational logic.

Consent even of Eco, it acts of a wink with Guillaume d' Occam (First day, Vêpres: “one should not multiply the explanations and the causes without one having a strict need of it”), like with Sherlock Holmes (in particular with the novel of Arthur Conan Doyle the Dog of Baskerville ). Guillaume de Baskerville is, in this novel, the disciple of Roger Bacon, erudite English of the 13th century, which still underlines its rationalist side.

Guillaume de Baskerville resembles much Lönnrot of the news death and the compass of Borgès. Lönnrot was also " a pure arguer, a Auguste Dupin, but there was in him a little the adventurer and even the joueur". Both imagine many assumptions, whereas the circumstances of the crimes are due randomly. The murderer discovers in the two stories, the assumption forged by the investigator, and decides to use it to bring it to him.

Adso de Melk

Adso is a Novice Bénédictin, (Franciscain in film) entrusted by his father, the baron of Melk, in Guillaume. He is the narrator, at the same time admiring in front of the Logique of his Master and respectful of the rule into force in his Monastic order. He thus appears the Doctor Watson of the duet.

The name of Adso de Melk comes from the Benedictine abbey of Melk which strongly inspired Eco for its book.

Jorge of Burgos

One of “worthy” the monks of the abbey (if he is the senior of the abbey in film, it is not the case in the novel, this role being reserved for Alinardo de Grottaferrata) with the encyclopedic knowledge. Eco refers here to Jorge Luis Borgès which as Burgos was librarian and finished his blind life. Eco explains on this subject in its Apostille in the name of the pink which he wanted blind a librarian and which Borgès naturally was essential.

The character of Jorge of Burgos is made caricatural in film drawn from the book. This last gives him a denser, complex personality. Jorge incarnates the library and proves to be the true Master of the abbey.

It develops a solid sales leaflet on the danger which the recourse to the laughter in the human attitudes can represent. It is not impossible only the example of the press of the inter-war period, where one scoffed much the adversary with the detriment at the comprehension of his position and the discussions in depth which could have followed, played a part in the choice of Eco.

Messor the Abbot (or Abbon)

Perhaps one of the characters who knows the greatest change between the novel and film. In the feature-length film, it seems only one to be weak, undecided and almost coward, only seeking to avoid a scandal which could sully its reputation and that of its abbey. In the novel, its motivations much more ambiguous and are packed, just as its personality. If he there too seeks to choke the businesses of murders which ensanglantent its Abbaye, it is before all opportunist which supports the Empereur because the latter is, in its eyes, the guarantor of a strict social order which ensures maintains it privileges of the Regular clergy (monastic orders, and in particular that of the Bénédictins from which the Abbot is resulting) vis-a-vis a Pape which supports the rights of the secular Clergé (bishops and priests, in particular). On several occasions, Abbon shows a conceited and almost covetous character. Attached to the terrestrial things, it is proud of its richness and of that of sound Abbaye and does not hesitate to be opposed to the ideas Franciscains (which made wish of poverty), recalling sometimes treacherously that some Hérésie S were born within this ordre.
It is suggested, in the novel, that the Abbot would be the Bâtard of a powerful Italian lord, owe its place only with its prestigious filiation. In the work, he dies in the library by asphyxiation, assassinated by Jorge of Burgos. In film, its fate is unknown.

Bernardo GUI

Only historical character to intervene directly and personally in the account, the Inquisiteur Bernado GUI (or Bernard GUI, or Bernardo Guidoni) is old a bishop Dominicain sent by Jean XXII to order the regiment of French archers charged to escort the representatives of Papacy. Supporting unconditionally Sovereign pontiff in the conflict which opposes it to the Emperor, Bernardo GUI uses of its rank of inquisitor to harm the reputation of the abbey and, by extension, the Abbot which supports the imperial camp. Former rival of Guillaume de Baskerville within the Enquiry, it formerly made it show heresy and will seek to confuse it again. In the novel, religious fanaticism that it poster seems to be only one cover for its political opportunism and its cynicism, less obvious detail in film where it is presented like authentic a hunter of witch ensured of the cogency of its inquisitorial mission. Its manner of carrying out the lawsuit of Salvatore and Rémigio de Varragine shows its excessive character not being encumbered charity or of pity, nor even of direction of justice.

In film, he dies impaled on his own instruments of torture. The novel, more faithful to historical reality, sees it setting out again with Avignon, once its mission of sabotage of the achieved meeting, accompanied by its prisoners and the representatives of Papacy.

Other characters

Monks of the abbey

Adelme of Otranto - Brother illuminator and first victim.
Venantius of Salvemec - Brother copyist and translator of Greek. Second victim.
Alinardo of Grottaferrata - Senior of the monks, gâteux.
Malachie of Hildesheim - Brother librarian, dark and severe. Fifth victim.
Berenger of Arundel - Assistant librarian. Third victim.
Bence of Upsala - Copyist. Assoiffé of knowing.
Aymaro of Alexandria - Copyist. Mocker and cynical.
Nicolas of Morimonde - glass Brother.
Severin of Sant' Emmerano - Brother herbalist. Fourth victim.
Rémigio of Varragine - Brother cellérier, former heretic Dolcinien.
Salvatore - Assistant of the cellérier, former heretic Dolcinien. Deformed, lout but crafty one.
Patrice of Clonmacnoise - Illuminator.
Rope of Tolède - Illuminator.
Magnus of Iona - Illuminator.
Walde of Hereford - Illuminator.

Franciscains

Ubertin of Casale - theologist in escape with the theses on the extatism in extreme cases of the heresy. Franciscain in film, but Benedictine in the novel.
Michel de Césène - theologist taken refuge at the court of Louis of Bavaria after his excommunication by the Pope. Chief of the delegation franciscaine.
Arnaud of Aquitanian - Brother franciscain.
Hugues of Newcastle - Brother franciscain.
Guillaume Anlwick - Brother franciscain.
Bonagrazia of Bergamo - Brother franciscain.
Berenger Talloni - Brother franciscain and theologist.
Jerome of Caffa - Bishop of Caffa.

Representatives of Papacy

Bertrand of Pogetto - Cardinal of Rome and chief of the papal delegation.
Laurent Décoalcon - graduate of Avignon
the bishop of Padoue - unknown exact identity
Jean d' Anneaux - Doctor of Divinity with Paris.
Jean of Baune (alias Giovanni Dalbena): former inquisitor of Narbonne.
the bishop of Alborea - unknown exact identity

The library

The library is one of the most important places of the novel. Its project is to represent the world, just like the library of Babel.

Theoretical origins of the library

Umberto Eco held a conference on March 10th, 1981 to celebrate the 25° birthday of the installation of the communal library of Milan in the Sormani palate. He proposed " to speak about the present and the future of the existing libraries by working out models purely futuristes" . This primitive project, transcribed in the booklet of biblioteca , in 1986, contains dialectical between the ideal library of Toronto and nightmarish which gave rise to the Nom of the pink .

Its topography, described by Eco, resembles in many points the “library of Babel” described by Borgès in Fictions , in particular by its labyrinthian structure and the object of search which it represents for all those which venture there. This library of Borgès had already been quoted before in the test of Umberto Eco: Of biblioteca . The topic of the labyrinth is also present in death and the compass . The residence of Sad-the-Roy where Red Scherlach leads Lönnrat resembles much that of the abbey, " increased by the half-light, the symmetry of the mirrors, the mirrors, the age, expatriation, the solitude".

Internal organization of the library

The criteria of classification associate the country of the author and the topic of the book. The letters registered in each whole of rooms form the name of the country concerned. The library is thus divided into zones corresponding to geographical spaces with the various intellectual connotations.
The first visited zone is the Fons Adae , the terrestrial paradise. It contains “quantities of bibles, and comments with the bible, only of the books of Scriptures”. Second is Hibernia , “one finds there the works of the authors of the Thulé last, and the grammairiens also and the rhéteurs”. The third Leones , Midday, i.e. Africa, gathers the texts of the Moslems. Fourth is Yspania , “populated collections of the Apocalypse”. Other units are still enumerated rapidement.
there is no attempt at fusion, of co-education. Geographical spaces are hermetic.

The library is not only one whole of books. It is also “the object which contains them”, in this case a physical labyrinth. Umberto Eco connects the labyrinth of the world, that of spirituality, of knowledge, with the material labyrinth which would be the perceptible sign. The geographical correspondence is retranscribed in the distribution of the rooms.

The library wants to have the totality of human knowledge.

The structure of the library translates the geographical but also cultural ethnocentrism of its manufacturers. Christianity is the central axis. The writings of the Moslems all are classified in the space of the lie, without will of under-classification.

A nightmarish library

The library of the Nom of the pink has several common points with the nightmarish library described in the booklet Of bibliotheca .

The register is made up so as to divert the reader and to force it to require the assistance of the librarian. It is classified by chronological order of acquisition.

The reproduction of the works is limited. Jorge prohibits any copy of the second tome cheese of poetic of Aristote. There thus exists one specimen, which without never being copied, is not destroyed either. The library wants to preserve a single specimen and to prevent any diffusion. The abbey is not completely refractory with the copy, because it is a means of importing books. The monks coming from the other abbeys can copy certain books, if they bring from there that the library does not have. The abbey does not allow these copies by preoccupation with a diffusion of the knowledge, but by will to extend and thus as well as possible to represent the world.

The nightmarish library of the Nom of the pink draws up a series of obstacles to dissuade the reader to consult a book. It is not Jorge which kills the monks, nor the book since certain crimes are committed between monks, but this intention of conservation which is the single base with all these murders, as precisely Guillaume at the end of the novel notices it.
The means of preserving the rarest books became an end in itself. Jorge does not wish any more to preserve but hide this work. It is this slip which causes the destruction of the library.

The fire

The end of the abbey in a fire represents this inversion of the values of the conservation into the destruction. Jorge eating the poisoned pages represents the gasoline " ogresque" of this library which eats its clean enfants.
Umberto Eco in its Apostille in the name of the pink writes that the fires were current at the time, and that he did not see other ends for his library.

Even mutilated, the library continues to live via Adso, which continues to consult it like an oracle and tells its history.

Analyzes

the Name of the pink is presented at the same time in the form of medieval mystery, a pastiche of the kind police, exposed medieval philosophy and moral reflection. Beyond this investigation, one can retain of this novel the combat of a man against the Obscurantisme, a plea for freedom and the knowledge. The author adds a series of reflections on the methods of an investigation, symbol romantic of the search of the truth. In parallel, the author gives free course to many reflections over this time, the role of the church and the brotherhoods, painting and art in general, scientific objectivity against the subjectivity of the religious faith. The heroes remember in particular the lessons of Roger Bacon, which is regarded as the father of the scientific method. Umberto Eco was then known like a medievist and it used its research as matter for its novel.

the Name of the pink makes also some allusion to the Sémiologie (profession of Eco) which wonders about the progressive release of symbols starting from signs, symbols which in their turn are interpreted by the company and structure it. The novel reveals tracks to be decoded for the reader but, as the reader is inserted in the major significances, the share of mystery becomes secondary.

In addition, the " professore" adore to multiply the references hidden to the last and current Western literature. It will be noted for example that the arrival of its hero and his fine deductions, worthy of Sherlock Holmes, made by seeing only some traces on the ground, are particularly copied on Zadig of Voltaire.

" The name of Rose" (title) is also a reference to a very great literary success of the Middle Ages whose beginning is esoteric and the satirical continuation , the Romance of the Rose .

Adaptations

Jean-Jacques Annaud realized, according to the novel éponyme, the Name of the pink , left on the screens in 1986.
Durée 131 min, with Sean Connery, Michael Lonsdale, Christian Slater, Valentina Vargas. The decorations are of Dante Ferretti.

A radiophonic part in two parts was diffused on Radio operator BBC 4 from Sunday, July 16, 2006 to Sunday, July 23, 2006.

A radiophonic parody of film was diffused in the series the cream of the crim by Hugh Dennis and Steve Punt on BBC Radio operator 4.

A Spanish video game, Abadía del Crimen (the abbey of the crime) was adapted in 1987 of the novel. A modern remake is in hand.

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