Book: Confessions of a Young Writer by Umberto Eco

By the end of this book I could only think that Eco has a "beautiful mind," and defines the adjective "erudite."

There are four chapters:
1. Writing from Left to Right (literally, he says with tongue in cheek). He also writes here of how he researches his books. For instance, he "went to the South Seas, to the precise geographic location where the book [The Island of the Day Before] is set, to see the colors of the water and sky at different hours of the day, and the tints of the fishes and corals....I also spent two to three years studying drawings and models of ships of the period, to find out how big a cabin or cubbyhole was, and how a person could move from one to the other." In other words, he does intensive thorough research before he writes a novel.

2. Author, Text, and Interpreters.

3. Some Remarks on Fictional Characters.

4. My Lists.

All are chapters in which Eco is revealed as a man who is thoughtful, inquisitive and forever learning. He explores the dimensions of fiction and characters, and it is obvious he loves writing about such. His knowledge is impressive. It is a small, rich book that allows a glimpse into the art of this brilliant man.

The chapter on Lists has passages like the following:

"Anaphora is the repetition of the same word at the beginning of every phrase or of every line of verse. This may not always constitute what we would call a list. There is a beautiful example of anaphora in the poem "Possibilities" by Wislawa Szymborska.

I prefer movies.
I refer cats.
I prefer the oaks along he Warta.
I prefer Dickens to Dostoyesky.
I prefer myself liking people to my myself loving mankind
I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.
I prefer the color green.

And so on for another 26 lines. "

Eco draws from his extensive mental library in this book, and would delight those who liked The Name of the Rose, Foucault's Pendulum or any of his other books. He also has a personal physical library of 50,000 volumes according to Wikipedia, obviously a man in love with the written word.

He, BTW, has a new book, The Prague Cemetery.