Book Club Guide

The Name of the Rose

by Umberto Eco · 1980 · Mystery & Thriller

Key themes

The forbidden book — and what institutions do to keep knowledge locked
Truth as something the powerful control by controlling what can be read
The detective who arrives with reason in a world run on faith

About this book

In a 14th-century Italian monastery, the English friar William of Baskerville investigates a series of murders whose resolution turns on a forbidden book. Eco's debut novel is simultaneously a medieval detective story, a meditation on heresy and textual interpretation, and a literary novel about the relationship between truth, authority and the books that preserve or destroy both.

Published in Italian in 1980, The Name of the Rose has sold over 50 million copies worldwide. Eco spent four years on the research. He said he wrote a historical novel because he wanted to kill a monk and needed a monastery.

Discussion questions

William of Baskerville names himself after the Holmesian tradition. What does Eco achieve through this detective framework — and what does reason discover in the medieval world that faith cannot?
The central mystery turns on a book by Aristotle. What is Eco saying through this premise — about the relationship between books, knowledge and power?
The monastery is a closed world with its own systems of authority. How does Eco develop it — as a historical reconstruction, as an allegory of institutions generally, or as something more specifically Italian?
Eco was a semiotician before he was a novelist. How does the theory show — and does the intellectual scaffolding enrich or occasionally burden the narrative?
The ending is devastating. How does Eco use the destruction of the library — and what is he saying about the fragility of knowledge?