Four years later, Eco responded to readers of his novel in an eclectic text called Postscript to The Name of the Rose. An eighty-page mixture of short, fragmentary chapters, photographs, and illustrations of medieval architecture and manuscripts, the Postscript is partly a poetics designed to "help us understand how to solve the technical problem which is the production of a work." (Eco, 1984)

Eco explains how the historical fiction writer must become immersed in historical evidence: to tell a story, "you must first of all construct a world, furnished as much as possible, down to the slightest detail." In his case, this required committing

Besides offering readers a richly nuanced introduction to the trials of both Muslims and Jews in the fifteenth century (without idealizing the position of Jews in the Islamic world). Maalouf's work is praiseworthy in its portrayal of the fate of the individual's identity in the vast tapestry of Muslim and Christian empires and its speculations on the historical origins of our contemporary fascination with cultural hybridity.

Adso's experiences of linguistic confusion in the abbey remind him of the biblical story of the building of the tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1-9; Rose 30, 47), in which the Lord "confused" human language lest man continue to overreach himself. In Borges's Babel, confusion extends beyond linguistic systems into the nature of truth itself. In reading either Borges or Eco, the Anglophone reader is one step further away from perfect understanding in being dependent upon a translation.

The book's characters are from the late 1400s, but you would think Maalouf interviewed and/or lived with each of them. His character development is fantastic. His book gives the reader a different perspective on Islamic life than one tends to get from today's media. You will hear Muslims described in appropriate human terms (good and bad) as opposed to the stereotypical and fanatical terms we often hear today. It reads like a history lesson, a travel essay, and a novel wrapped up into one. Hearing the Alhambra Palace described as a place of life, commerce and government instead of ruin is a treat. Being able to visualize the rooms, fountains and greenery with each line in the book is even better.

The late-fourteenth-century manuscript in The Name of the Rose is a model of simple and straightforward organization. Its author, the elderly monk Adso, divides his text into seven parts, spanning seven days; each part or day is further ordered into "periods corresponding to the liturgical hours" of the monastic day (7). Eco, however, in a prologue, sketches the complicated transmission of Adso's narrative down to the twentieth century and through several translations. The Name of the Rose is an early fourteenth-century historical narrative framed by the contemporary author's opening description of the manuscript and Adso's end-of-the-century epilogue.

Even those territorial spaces of dwelling - villages and cities - Leo encounters in Maalouf's novel are shaped fundamentally by traveling cultures: as one tribal spokesman says to Leo," We alone are privileged: we see passing through our villages the people of Fez, of Numidia, of the land of the Blacks, merchants, notables, students or ulama; they each bring us a piece of gold, or a garment, a book to read or copy, or perhaps only a story, an anecdote, a word; thus, with the passing of the caravans we accumulate riches and knowledge in the shelter of these inaccessible mountains which we share with the eagles, the crows and the lions, our companions in dignity" (Maalouf, 1992, p. 156-57).

Some topics in this essay:
Name Rose, Leo Africanus, Aedificium Adso, Castle Kent, Rose William's, Pilgrims Paupers, Africanus Africa, Amin Maalouf, Eco Anglophone, Madelenna Mariam, eco 1983, leo africanus, name rose, maalouf 1992, st gall, maalouf leo, site plan, historical fiction, maalouf's novel, amin maalouf, eco 1983 adso, castle eco 1983, specified selective values, abbey st gall, novel leo africanus,