Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Blood and bones and such

NOW READING: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

I love this book. But I've officially reached the point where occasionally I'm like, "Wait. Who's this guy again?" Furthermore, I've also officially reached the point where I don't always care enough to flip back a bunch of pages to find out, and instead just trust that William and Adso will drop enough tidbits into their conversation to remind me of this or that monk's prior apperance(s). And William and Adso are nothing if not conversation tidbit droppers.

But then there are characters like blind Jorge and especially my boy Salvatore who are just unforgettable. Damn, I love Salvatore. I get excited every time he appears, and especially when he starts his special language-blend of speech. This happens far too infrequently for my tastes. And p.s., just where has Salvatore got to now, with Benno having removed (or did he?) the Greek/Arabic manuscript from Severinus' ransacked laboratory? Benno, by the way, being a key example of the "Who's-this-Daisy-person?" phenomenon I mentioned above. (bonus points to the first person who can cite the "Who's-this-Daisy-person?" reference, no cheating)

I guess my point is - I so don't want Salvatore to be guilty! But he so totally might be. I really have no idea. And, I don't know if law school and the glacial pace at which I've been reading this are to blame for my utter lack of fingering a suspect, not to mention my not at all keeping good track of who the suspects are. Or is it just that convoluted of a book? Well, "convoluted" isn't really the right word. But I did get really happy when they finally just made page 321 a map of the freakin' library and the first letters. Throw a girl a bone, eh.

And speaking of tossing bones about, do sentences get more evocative than this...

"This side was the one brought down on Severinus's head, as was revealed by traces of blood and even tufts of hair and horrible gobbets of cerebral matter." - p. 359

How can you read a line like that and not think you have met your writerly match?

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