I Met Umberto Eco

Last night, at la Feltrinelli in Milano, there was a reading/interview/book launch for Diego Marani's new book, which is in itself a brilliant look at where we are regarding language change and evolution. His "Europanto" is a new universal language that combines Italian, German, French, English and Spanish in order to sing nostalgic songs, for instance, about "My Romania" -- it was a very funny evening.

Eco was on hand to do the interviewing, not only because he is also a Bompiani author, but because Marani was barking up some of Eco's favorite trees. Eco, author of The Name of the Rose, Baudolino, Foucault's Pendulum, Travels In Hyperreality, The Island of the Day Before, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, among dozens of others (his most famous quip in online circles is perhaps the comment that PCs are Protestant while Macs are Catholic), was recently rated as number 2 on Prospect magazine's recent poll of the world's top 100 intellectuals. Noam Chomsky, another cunning linguist, was named number one, but admitted that his friends probably padded the online voting.


Here's a blurry picture of Eco signing a book for me. When I asked him if he could give a speech at Franklin College Switzerland, Eco said no and mumbled something about "not for the next two years" because he was in the midst of some "tragical" situation at present. I can only assume he meant that his rich-and-famous lifestyle keeps him busy, but who knows? My only other observation was that he seems to be quitting smoking, as the dangling white stick in his mouth was neither a cigarette nor lit during the entirety of the evening. But it looked cool, sort of like the thinking man's chewing tobacco, the intellectual's oral satisfier.

I like the way the photograph captures the blur of the book, with the relative static figures of signer and signee. It's like one of those stop-motion photographs of the artist working in his given medium, as though the camera has captured Jackson Pollock in mid-drip. It makes Eco look like he can sign books as fast as he can write them. Note the disinterested look on his face as he stares at me, clearly not needing to look down to see if he's writing his name correctly, and conveys the impression that he must write them as dispassionately and effortlessly as this, while looking elsewhere, chewing his stick, and thinking about something else entirely. Or at least that's what the Romantic in me likes to believe.

Meanwhile, I'm looking directly at the page thinking, "Oh my God, Umberto Eco is signing my book! I hope he spells his name right!" The guy lined up behind me is thinking the same thing in Italian, hoping Eco signs his book at least slightly slower than the camera's shutter can open and close...