Posted on 12/01/2021 7:46:10 AM PST by CheshireTheCat
On an unspecified date presumably around early December of 1327 — the timeframe is approximated by action’s story’s commencing on “a beautiful morning at the end of November” — the Inquisition burns the nameless peasant lover of the narrator in Umberto Eco’s novel The Name of the Rose.
Adso of Melk is apprenticed to the scientific-minded William of Baskerville — a deliberate allusion to Sherlock Holmes — when the monk is dispatched to an Italian monastery to sniff about for heresy.
The Name of the Rose unfolds a labyrinthine murder mystery around a literal labyrinth (a maze-like library) as William and Adso fight crime and the superstitious dogmatism of the Church. Well … William fights these things. Young Adso mostly comes along for the ride and keeps the action signposted for the reader with his cluelessness.
As a teenage boy, Adso has his own demons to confront.
During their short stay at the monastery, Adso has a chance, and scorching, sexual encounter with a peasant girl from the lands owned by the monks. This subplot intersects with a relentless Inquisitor — the real-life historical figure Bernard Gui* — in pursuit of refugee Dolcinians and other heretical types who were actually running around northern Italy at this time.
The long and short of it is that the girl is condemned to the stake as a sorceress on ridiculous circumstantial evidence that the reason-favoring duo is in no position to repel, and that Gui is eager to trump up further to politically muscling Dolcinian-friendly monks...
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
So fictional executions are included.
I read this book years ago in 1986 just before I say the movie. It is a good read. I might go to Bookmans in Phoenix and buy an old copy to read it again.
I like to mix it up for the book lover’s on FR.
Very sub-rosa.................
Me too, but I must say, the movie did a decent job of it, considering how many cuts and edits are required to turn a fat novel into an hour and a half film.
Was that in the movie?
No. Poetic license.
I read the book and saw the movie years ago. Iirc there is a newer miniseries. I think I saw it advertised on Amazon.
love these posts
To me The Name of the Rose is one of the greatest novel s of the 20th century
How sad. I never read the book but saw the movie when I was a teen. It bothered me that they didn’t take the “Rose” down the road to a better village and hopefully a better life at the end of the movie. Now I learn she was burned alive. Don’t think I want to watch it again.
I thought Adso was the name of Jamie Fraser’s mother’s cat, after whom he named the grey stray kitten he adopted.
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