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The Name of the Platypus: The Platypus Reads Part LXXXII

I finished reading Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose a few weeks ago and have found myself in the odd place of having very little to say about this highly acclaimed book.  Now, it's not that I didn't like it.  It was a highly enjoyable read and, like Eifelheim by Michael Flynn, did a wonderful job of envisioning the medieval past.  I did, however, feel a sense of being "under-whelmed," especially as I worked my way through Eco's afterword.  The point of the book is that it has no point except for what the reader and author create together, and Eco gets a chance to laugh at your bourgeois expectations.  I may not quite agree with that, but usually I'm at least open to it.  This time, for whatever reason, the usual postmodern/mannerist schpiel fell completely flat.

I thought of reading some Foucault to revive my waining interest, but then I remembered something a professor of mine said recently.  The context was a discussion about why there weren't more postmodern profs at the university.  This particular professor, as a professor of philosophy, asserted that while he could not speak for other disciplines, postmodernism simply isn't interesting to the vast majority of philosophers in American academia anymore.  Doing a little bit of thinking, I can see why.  Postmodernism (or Mannerism, to use Eco's preferred term) is a one-trick horse.  It jumps up and very cleverly asserts that we have no unmediated access to reality.  That is earth-shattering.  What happens next, however, is quite underwhelming.  Since we have no unmediated access to reality, and any mediation we do have hopelessly distorts our perspective so that coming at even workable approximations of the truth is impossible, we still have to get down to the business of thinking.  But what shall we think about?  The point of thinking for thousands of years has been to find truth, but if there is no truth to find, just an endless series of oppressive social constructs, then all we can really do is have a long (either completely academic or sinisterly Nietzschean) open-ended chat over coffee that either ends in amiable disagreement and an assurance of meeting at the same time next week, or in World War III.  That may sound appealing to some people, but for most I think the novelty quickly wears off and gives way to nausea.

So I think that's what I have to say right now about The Name of the Rose.  It's great fun, and well worth the read, but the "pointless point" falls flat on me.  After reading Eco's afterword, I don't think my assessment would particularly bother him.  So, *shrug*, I'll see you next week.  Same time, same place. Addio!
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