Wildly inaccurate. As melambra pointed out, it misportrays Italy in a lot of ways. As some Harvard friends pointed out, it misrepresents Harvard. There were no Illuminati like the ones he describes (he invented the story, in other words). The old word for assassin is "hashishim" not "hassassin" and every time I saw the latter word I hated it.

I knew it!
I noticed the hashishim-thing too, but I figured I might be mistaken.

It is a reprint of the book made in the late 1980s. It's hard to find but a guy I know has about twelve copies he was unable to sell. If you're really interested I can find out if he still has some and you could pay via PayPal or something. They weren't that expensive. The book is very, very weird, though.

depends how much it costs, though. But I would definitely be interested. it sounds fun.

Remember how I said I stopped reading "halfway through" ? Well, it wasn't really halfway through; it was when he was in Brazil with Amparo.

ah

I appreciate your point and can see why people feel that way. However, I felt let down because it was almost as if he was trying to say that looking for a subtext in things is pointless because it isn't really there, and if it is there it's because you're crazy like the cultists. There WAS something weird going on in Europe with the Rosicrucians on the eve of the Thirty Years' War. There HAVE been books written with the express idea of hiding real meanings through gematria, temura and notariqon. Yet, after finishing the book, Eco seemed to say that it was all just a pile of crap. I don't like that. Nothing means anything. There is no point to any of it...

weren't he rather saying that it is useless trying to revive something which is now long gone?




Magnus Alexander corpore parvus erat
Dissenting voice of wotmania
Frightfully stubborn pacifist

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent