The Name of the Rose

A dark, twisted story of intrigue within the walls of an abbey in the fourteenth century.

Every character has some dark past that they are hiding, and everyone is part of the ever-deepening mystery, riddles piling upon riddles, as bodies pile upon bodies. The further into the abbey’s maze of secrets you become entangled, the more you’ll love it. The characters are deep and complicated, the world in which they live is richly imagined, and the final denouement will leave you breathless.

A book whose mysteries and philosophical dialogues will stay with you long after you close the final page. 

As detailed as Virga, as teeming with real intellectual life as Yourcenar, Eco stunned the world in 1980 with this dark murder mystery set in a remote Italian Abbey in 1327.

The intricate architecture of the abbey hides enigmas and anomalies – historical, philosophical, doctrinal – and a cast of bizarre and idiosyncratic monks murdered one by one in symbolic ways by an unseen and seemingly all-powerful hand. Only a mind as encyclopedic and facile as Friar William of Baskerville can follow the thread to the demonic abbot hellbent on punishing humanity for laughing.

Unique on so many levels, The… show more.

Eco’s mystery masterpiece weaves together intrigue and humanity in a way that is absolutely compelling, especially if you love medieval illuminations and monastic communities like I do. The book is a literary beauty as well as a compelling mystery that will keep you guessing and turning the pages with furious curiosity. Not a casual read but one that will urge you forward and deeper into a dark but beautiful world. 

Set in an Italian monastery in the 14th century, the book, by renowned philosopher Umberto Eco, is full of monkish esoterica. I loved the philosophical riffs that fill this novel, and loved the movie as well, starring Sean Connery, as the British monk sleuth. This is Eco’s only good novel, in my opinion. After writing this, he should have stuck with philosophy.

This is one of the most enjoyable and satisfying historical novels out there, not least because it is centered on a mysterious library in a mediaeval monastery, and involves a series of unexplained murders. I think this was probably one of the earliest works I read as a teenager that revolved around libraries. It is a fascinating book, and one of the finest written by Umberto Eco, a master of the genre (this was his debut novel!). While this might be fiction, Eco was always extremely careful to frame the historical context accurately, so you will learn a great deal… show more.

This stand-out historical mystery features serial murders occurring in a 14th-century Benedictine monastery in a remote area of northern Italy. I love a murder mystery with a Ten Little Indians set-up: a small group of people stranded together, unable to get outside help when a killer sets to work. Who’s next? is the fear that drives the story. 

How, wonders the monk investigating the murders, can a crime be solved when there is no pattern? The writing is so wonderful it lands me right there among the monks – and the murderer. Eco has written a story towering in its… show more.

The inaccessible Secretum at the centre of the novel is not simply a repository for the most important manuscripts in Christendom. It is a maze shaped in the order of creation and an argument for how the world should be by controlling what people know. Knowledge has always been curated and does not require banning books or even book burnings to do the work of shaping minds, cultures, and empires towards a desired end. People at every level of society—not just elite scholarly, religious, and political powers—make direct but also unintentional decisions about what may be considered worthy resources for… show more.

I picked up Eco’s novel in the campus bookstore one afternoon while I was in college and finished it as the sun came up the next morning… even though I had a half-written paper due in a few hours. It’s that good. The murder mystery cracks along, but the real magic comes from the way Eco vividly recreates the medieval mindset. This isn’t just Sherlock Holmes in a medieval monastery, although William of Baskerville could definitely give Sherlock a run for his money. William and the other characters think like medieval people. It’s strange, compelling, and baked into the plot… show more.

The Name of the Rose is one of the cleverest detective novels I’ve read. Set in the Middle Ages, this story follows Brother William and his Benedictine novice, Adso, as they follow up on heresy allegations at an Italian Abbey. Soon a series of murders ensues, raising the stakes for the two investigators as Brother William and Adso race to find the serial killer. Adso is Watson to Brother William’s Sherlock. Set in an era long before forensic science, Brother William relies on logic and the philosophies of Aquinas and Aristotle for insight into the bizarre and ghastly murders. This… show more.

As rich, dense, and dark as a chocolate fudge layer cake, this is a novel to luxuriate in. With great precision and grim historical detail, Eco escorts you into the heart of a murderous medieval conspiracy involving the printing, reading, hoarding, and control of books and manuscripts at a 14th-century Benedictine abbey, in an era when some of the world's most enticing knowledge was jealously kept under wraps, making it dangerous enough to kill for.