Lentorama 2024: Clerical Crime Solvers

Day 1: William of Baskerville

Umberto Eco apparently wanted to leave no doubt as to the deductive powers of William of Baskerville, the main character of his 1980 novel The Name of the Rose. The name comes from both William of Ockham - whose Razor says the simplest answer to a problem that accounts for all the facts is likely the right answer - and Sherlock Holmes, as a refernce to The Hound of the Baskervilles.  And in case that wasn't enough, we also learn that William had Roger Bacon as a mentor, giving him plenty of opportunity to soak up his emphasis on empirical observation.

William gets the chance to apply his skills to an unexpected death at an Italian monastery, which the abbot asks him to investigate. When the body count begins to climb, William (with the help of the novice monk Aldo of Melk) has to figure out who is behind the deaths before the local inquisitor sends innocent people to their death (something William has experience with, having previously worked in that role).

This is likely Eco's best known novel, and certainly his best-selling (an estimated 50 million copies worldwide). If you've not read anything by Eco before, you should know going in that this is going to be much denser than your typical mystery novel. It's worth the work, even if you have to go back and re-read passages (which I recall doing more than once).

Or, if you'd rather watch the movie, cue up the 1986 film which stars Sean Connery as William and Christian Slater as Aldo.