Subject/Objective Reality/Illusion

[Dave Monroe]

>From Umberto Eco, Postscript to The Name of the Rose,
trans. William Weaver (New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1984) ...

"Nothing is of greater consolation to the author of a
novel than the discovery of readings he had not
conceived but which are then prompted by his
readers....  I am not saying taht the author may not
find a discovered reading perverse; but even if he
does, he must remain silent, allow others to challenge
it, text in hand.  For that matter, the large majority
of readings reveal effects of sense that one had not
thought of.  But what does not having thought of them
mean?" (pp. 3-4)

"Did I know that I was playing with paragrams?  It is
of no importnace to reply now: the text is there and
produces its own effects of sense." (p. 4)

"'What terrifies you most in purity?' Adso asks.  And
William answers: 'Haste.'  I loved, and still love,
those two lines very much.  But then a reader pointed
out to me that on the same page, Bernard Gui,
threatening the cellarer with torture, says: 'Justice
is not inspired by haste, as the Pseudo Apostles
believe, and the justice of God has centuries at its
disposal.'  And the reader rightly asked me what
connection I had meant to establish between the haste
feared by William and the absence of hast extolled by
Bernard.  At that point I realized a disturbing thing
had ahppened.  The exchange between Adso and William
does not exist in the manuscript.  I added ths brief
dialogue in the galleys, for reasons of concinnity
....  I completely forgot that, a little later,
Bernard speaks of haste....  Alas, when juxtaposed
with teh haste mentioned by William, the haste
mentioned by Bernard literally creates an effect of
sense; and the reader is justified in wondering if the
two men are saying the same thing .... The text is
there, and produces its own effects.  Whetehr I wanted
it this way or not, we are now faces with a question,
an ambiguous provocation ..." (pp. 4, 7)

   "The author should die once he has finished
writing.  So as not to trouble the path of the text."
(p. 7)

   "The author must not interpret.  But he may tell
why and how he wrote his book." (p. 8)

"We could say that, strangely, the most ingenious
readings were the most 'structural': the ingenious
redaer entered into direct contact, beyond any
mediation of content, with teh fact that it is
impossible for there to be A story." (p. 58)

"'The ideal postmodernist novel will somehow rise
above the quarrel between realism and irrealism,
formalism and "contentism," pure and junk fiction.... 
My own analogy would be with good jazz or classical
music: one finds much on successive listenings or
close examination of the score that one didn't catch
the first time through; but the first time through
should be so ravishing--and not just to
specialists--that one delights in the replay.'" (p. 7)

That last excerpt is, of course, Eco quoting ...

Barth, John.  "The Literature of Exhaustion."
   The Literature of Exhaustion.  Northridge, CA:
   Lord John Press, 1982 [1967].

Which is the source Eco cites, at least.  Just thought
this was some timely reading here, is all ...

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