A book is a wonderful thing, is a direct voice from the author to the lector.Carl Sagan said about the books: “Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time ― proof that humans can work magic.”
I also recall Carl Sagan in a Cosmos chapter, speaking about the limited time we have in life to read and he gave an approximated maximum number of books a person can read throughout his life. This comment made me,at the age of 14, to think deeply about not to read everything but to choose carefully what to read.
One of my first choices, I must admit that driven by the attractiveness of the argument about murders in a monastery, was “Il nome della rosa” by Umberto Eco. I think I couldn’t do better choice, soon I abandoned the plot of murder and mysteries and let myself trapped by the other two stories, which are, in my opinion, the real reason the book; on one hand, the kind of comprehensive and detailed history of the Middle Ages and in particular on the heresies that undermined the basis of a rich and powerful Church, on the other hand an entire lecture on semiotics, but as good semiotics, needed to be interpreted, uncover and discover all the signs of the topic.
“Il nome della rosa” is a book that I read several times, because as the author argues, a work of art aims to awaken in the reader a series of reactions, and leave it to the reader to interpret the work to its free will.
Eco and Sagan awakened in me the ability to amaze me while reading books, they spoke directly to me, even without knowing me personally, and they transformed me. I became more critical and more humble. I shall be eternally grateful for their legacy.
