The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity.
Umberto EcoRead
A novel is a machine for generating interpretations.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A novel stimulates a variety of interpretations and meanings from readers.
Umberto Eco's quote suggests that a novel is not just a story but a complex construct that encourages readers to derive their own meanings and interpretations. Each reader brings their experiences and perspectives, resulting in a diverse array of understandings, highlighting the interactive relationship between text and reader.
Themes
NovelInterpretationReadingLiteratureMeaning
In practice
Example use cases
Use this quote in a book club discussion about the different interpretations of a novel.
More from Umberto Eco
All quotes →I think that at a certain age, say fifteen or sixteen, poetry is like masturbation. But later in life good poets burn their early poetry, and bad poets publish it. Thankfully I gave up rather quickly.
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But why do some people support [the heretics]?" "Because it serves their purposes, which concern the faith rarely, and more often the conquest of power." "Is that why the church of Rome accuses all its adversaries of heresy?" "That is why, and that is also why it recognizes as orthodoxy any heresy it can bring back under its own control or must accept because the heresy has become too strong.
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You die, but most of what you have accumulated will not be lost; you are leaving a message in a bottle.
Umberto EcoRead
"Then we are living in a place abandoned by God," I said, disheartened. "Have you found any places where God would have felt at home?" William asked me, looking down from his great height.
Umberto EcoRead
The lunatic is all idée fixe, and whatever he comes across confirms his lunacy. You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars.
Umberto EcoRead
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When I am experiencing a complex story or novel, the broader planes, and also details, tend to fall away.
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When I read interviews with people like Kevin Barry or Colin Barrett, who I hugely admire, they don't really seem to come up against the question of likeability even though their characters, in some instances, are really horrible.
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Listen closely. There’s a remote possibility that you might learn something: First, I don’t give a damn if my work is commercial or not…I’m the writer. If what I write is good, then people will read it. That’s why literature exists. An author puts his heart and guts on the page. For your information, a good novel can change the world. Keep that in mind before you attempt to sit down at a typewriter. Never waste time on something you don’t believe in yourself.
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What I've always tried to find in my books are points at which the private lives of the characters, and also my own, intersect with the public life of the culture.
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I am trying to make clear through my writing something which I believe: that biography- history in general- can be literature in the deepest and highest sense of that term.
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Death of the Father would deprive literature of many of its pleasures. If there is no longer a Father, why tell stories? Doesn't every narrative lead back to Oedipus? Isn't storytelling always a way of searching for one's origin, speaking one's conflicts with the Law, entering into the dialectic of tenderness and hatred?
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