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Felipe (17 KP) rated The Name of the Rose in Books

Dec 3, 2020

The Name of the Rose

Umberto Eco | 2008 | Fiction & Poetry

8.4

(5 Ratings)

Book Rating

A labyrinth of mystery with multiple dimensions, pitfalls, dead ends and revelations. (2 more)

The story and structure are brilliant.

The characters are genius and the narrative is written in way that you get sucked into and are part of the narrative.

Brilliant and entertaining introduction to semiotics.

I first read this book in my freshman or sophomore year in college after having seen the Sean Connery film adaptation. Like most novels that movies are based on, the book was far better than the movie. The movie was just a superficial touching on the themes of the book but the book was a multi dimensional journey through art, philosophy, literature and theology while captivating the reader in a very good murder mystery. The tragedy of the book is the revelation to the reader that our tendency to try to form connections between random events as and ideas is futile. The library is an allegory to the house of cards that comes crashing down when we create false narratives on tenuous connections between randomn events and ideas; connections that don't really exist.

Eco takes all of his academic experience that he has absorbed in the years and uses fiction to not only tell a good story but also to challenge us on how we see the world and interpret the signs and symbols we come into contact.

Kudos

BookInspector (124 KP) rated The Starless Sea in Books

Sep 24, 2020 (Updated Jan 26, 2021)

The Starless Sea

Erin Morgenstern | 2019 | Fiction & Poetry

7.0

(5 Ratings)

Book Rating

The protagonist of this book is Zachary, a university student, who finds a strange book in the library, which leads him to an underground world full of stories. I really liked Zachary, he is intelligent, nerdy and adventurous, and I really liked him as a protagonist of this story. All the characters in this book were mesmerizing, mystical and magical. The world that the author created was something unbelievably beautiful and surreal. 🙂 I really liked the relationships between the characters, it was interesting to watch their interactions. Another thing that I found great is the diversity of the characters, and I liked that the protagonist was gay. 🙂

The narrative of this book is what left me confused. The narrative is a mess of million stories. It is a story upon a story about a different story that is somehow connected with another story from a different story, and it should make absolute sense. For me sometimes it did and sometimes I had no clue what in a world is going on. 😀 There is so much information in this book, so many different stories that it was hard to grasp it all. This book raised many many questions in my head, and I do not have the answers to them. The book is pretty philosophical, but I liked the balance between the actual adventure that Zachary was on, and all those thoughts about time, space, existence etc.

I simply can not describe the writing style of this book. The author is truly gifted to deliver something like this. I can’t imagine what has been going on in her mind to write something like this. As I mentioned before, to create such a world, where all those stories mentioned in the book makes sense in one way or another, it is just WOW! The chapters have a decent length, and together with constant changes between different stories, this book did not leave me bored. The ending of this book was pretty weird to me, but I liked how this book finished.

So, to conclude, it is hard to describe this novel. It is a very strange book, that is filled to the brim with characters that are incredibly well-crafted and the plot that is truly something special. However, it was way too much stuff going on for my liking. I really would love to see a film based on this book, I think it would be quite amazing to see this world coming to life. 🙂 I think everyone should give this book a go, I can see why people love it so much. But I will remain on the less enthusiastic side for now.

Kudos

Ari Augustine (10 KP) rated Rust & Stardust in Books

May 4, 2020

Rust & Stardust

T. Greenwood | 2018 | Crime, Mystery, Thriller

8.8

(5 Ratings)

Book Rating

Rust & Stardust is based on the real-life kidnapping of 11-year-old Sally Horner in 1948. Desperate to appease her friends, Horner is pressured into stealing a notebook from a local shop. At this time, she has no idea she's being watched by Frank LaSalle, who abducts her after pretending to be an FBI agent.

This story is disturbing, heart-breaking, and such a mind-blowing historical novel. It really is the kind of book parents should NOT read because it's likely to send them over the edge (or maybe make them more vigilant? who knows.) Though it was not a happy book, I still enjoyed it's historical side and would definitely recommend to my friends.