Thursday, June 08, 2006

About Books

I started re-reading Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose. (see the previous post) I read it years ago and enjoyed it. I also like the movie version with Sean Connery. It’s a kind of medieval murder mystery. The first chapter contains a description of the book which I especially appreciate:

For it is a tale of books, not of everyday worries, and reading it can lead us to recite, with ‘a Kempis, the great imitator: “In omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam inveni nisi in angulo cum libro.”


It fits right in with my current kick of reading books about books.
Umberto Eco is one of my favorite authors, and one of the things I like about his writing is how he inserts Latin, Greek, Hebrew you name it into his text with no translation. My high school Latin is a bit rusty but I knew the quote had something to do with books (cum libro), so I googled it and here is the translation:
Everywhere I have sought rest and found it not except sitting apart in a nook with a little book.

A particularly apropos statement since lately all I want to do is get home and curl up on the couch or in bed with a good book.

1 comment:

Karie said...

I know what you mean. Well, I like the way Eco thinks, you might enjoy him, maybe when you finish your dissertation. I've been reading some of Eco's essays also,he has a book "On Literature" and another one I read called "Serendipity". Like I said, I like the way he thinks.