The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Serendipities: Language and Lunacy by Umberto Eco
Gordon McAlpine

Umberto Eco. Serendipities: Language and Lunacy. Trans. William Weaver. Columbia Univ. Press, 1998. 130 pp. $19.95.

In Umberto Eco’s new collection of essays, the subtitle, “Language and Lunacy,” goes part of the way toward defining the book’s focus, but finally falls short—as any subtitle would—in view of the compelling vastness of Eco’s range of interests. Yes, the brief collection is about language. It is about a kind of lunacy as well. However, Eco’s insistent curiosity, his vital imagination and his almost overwhelming erudition work together like forces of nature to push and pull the book’s five essays in unpredictable directions.

In the opening essay Eco argues that just as “truth” can be said to exert a force on human thought and action, so too can “falsity.” His examples include misunderstandings of Ptolemy and Columbus, the Templars and the Rosicrucians. Some of these misunderstandings arose out of sincere miscalculations, while others were conscious deceptions motivated sometimes by politics and other times by mere whimsy. Regardless of motivation, these falsehoods proved culturally powerful. This notion of a “force of falsity” informs the subsequent essays in the collection, which include a detailed examination of Dante’s search for the “natural” language of Adam, further intellectual misunderstandings that range from Marco Polo to Leibniz, the efforts to create a “perfect” language, and the various modes by which one culture may encounter another.

Much of Eco’s particular talent lies in his ability to sort through the history of learning—bringing with him his novelist’s flair for narrative connections—and to lead his reader on a journey that eventually arrives at a stimulating, contemporary relevance. In this way his examination of “language and lunacy” resonates as a cautionary tale for our sometimes arrogant assumptions about our own proven truths. “After all,” he writes, “the cultivated person’s first duty is to be always prepared to rewrite the encyclopedia.” Who better to help us in this adventure than Eco himself? [Gordon McAlpine]


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The Review of Contemporary Fiction Serendipities: Language and Lunacy by Umberto Eco Gordon McAlpine Umberto Eco. Serendipities: Language and Lunacy. Trans. William Weaver. Columbia Univ. Press, 1998. 130 pp. $19.95. In Umberto Eco’s new collection of essays, the subtitle, “Language and Lunacy,” goes part of the way toward defining the book’s focus, but finally falls short—as any subtitle would—in view of the compelling vastness of Eco’s range of interests. Yes, the brief collection is about language. It is about a kind of lunacy as well. However, Eco’s insistent curiosity, his vital imagination and his almost overwhelming erudition work together like forces of nature to push and pull the book’s five essays in unpredictable directions. In the opening essay Eco argues that just as “truth” can be said to exert a force on human thought and action, so too can “falsity.” His examples include misunderstandings of Ptolemy and Columbus, the Templars and the Rosicrucians. Some of these misunderstandings arose out of sincere miscalculations, while others were conscious deceptions motivated sometimes by politics and other times by mere whimsy. Regardless of motivation, these falsehoods proved culturally powerful. This notion of a “force of falsity” informs the subsequent essays in the collection, which include a detailed examination of Dante’s search for the “natural” language of Adam, further intellectual misunderstandings that range from Marco Polo to Leibniz, the efforts to create a “perfect” language, and the various modes by which one culture may encounter another. Much of Eco’s particular talent lies in his ability to sort through the history of learning—bringing with him his novelist’s flair for narrative connections—and to lead his reader on a journey that eventually arrives at a stimulating, contemporary relevance. In this way his examination of “language and lunacy” resonates as a cautionary tale for our sometimes arrogant assumptions about our own proven truths. “After all,” he writes, “the cultivated person’s first duty is to be always prepared to rewrite the encyclopedia.” Who better to help us in this adventure than Eco himself? [Gordon McAlpine]

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