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Over a decade and some shy years ago when I was serving my pre-degree penalty at Christ College Irinjalakuda, the saving grace were the language classes. I had opted for Hindi, but occasionally I'd sneak into the Malayalam classes of Sebastian Joseph, whose classes were infamously entertaining for their eclectic mix of wit and wisdom.
It was in one of his methodically anarchic lecturers that I heard the professor mention Umerto Eco. He was answering a question on philosophy in fiction. "Eco blends philosophy and fiction magically, black-magically if you ask me," I recall the professor, known for such aphoristic statements, telling a motley group of students. Of course, most of whatever he said of Umberto Eco was lost in the default cacophony of the suitably disinterested crowd, but I, a blessed backbencher during those years, figured out that this name was quite a big deal I could try negotiate sooner or later.
Soon, very soon, I had my tryst with Eco. In fact, I was a great, salivating fan of critic extraordinaire M. Krishnan Nair whose immensely popular literary column, Sahithyavaraphalam , in which the critic had made several remarks on Eco's work, reproduced in translation many illuminating examples of his writing. Professor Joseph's lecture reminded me of that.
Of course, I knew Eco was too big a deal for the tender minds of my ilk, still I decided to 'experience' him. I went to the college's library — a spacious, neatly laid-out abode for thousands of books, which despite its calmness and beauty reeked of Catholic discipline. There I met Mr. Vincent, the omnipresent librarian, and presented my case. He took a measured, vertical glance at my frail, short figure and smiled. " Ambada ! Quite an ambition you have. Well, I'd get you a lemon soda if you could crack Eco," said Mr. Vincent with some degree of nonchalance.
In minutes, a copy of Foucault's Pendulum ( Il pendolo di Foucault ) reached me. Placing myself in a comfortably remote and yet well-lit corner of the library I started negotiating the paperback volume, which smelled of some flowers I used to encounter inside the cemetery of our local parish. Slowly, I read it. And over fifty pages down (or up), I realised this was not a battle I was going to win easily. Eco's majestic prose, impeccably translated by William Weaver, flew around my humble hypothalamus, resonating in undecipherable beauty. I understood zip, but the experience was psychedelic to the core. At times I felt like I was trapped inside a giant, incessantly-tolling Church bell. And I knew I'd come back to this work over and over again like an explorer obsessed with terrains unconquered.
A few days later, I went to return the book and met Mr. Vincent again. He wore an affectionate grin over his middle-aged face and asked me how the experience was. I said I finished the book but I needed help understanding it and knew it was a great work. If you have read it, why don't you give me a few lines that you'd remember, he probed. I swiftly surfed racks of my memory and came up with a few lines. There is one passage where a mother talks to her son.
“...Just sticking with the body, you can get all the numbers you want. The orifices, for example.” “The orifices?”
“Yes. How many holes does the body have?” I counted. “Eyes, nostrils, ears, mouth, ass: eight.”
“You see? Another reason eight is a beautiful number. But I have nine! And with that ninth I bring you into the world, therefore nine is holier than eight!"
I quoted this verbatim (of course, with suitable pauses and stuttering) and Mr. Vincent could not hold his laughter. He guffawed like a happy hippo and patted my shoulder, and said, “You will go places, little man. And the part you quoted, of all the great lines in the book, just reflects your age. March on!”
I didn't get my lemon soda. But I felt happy.
Of course, I didn't go places. Life remains more or less the same even now. But I revisited Eco later, read his novels and essays — especially his insightful and stunningly beautiful take on the comic strip Peanuts and its creator, Charles M. Schulz, whom Eco called a "poet" — and experienced the dual pleasure of intellectual strain and entertainment.
I don't know where Mr. Vincent is now and whether he remembers me. But the little window he offered me into Eco’s world opened up a can of dreams… and as the great man himself said in The Name of the Rose : “A dream is a scripture, and many scriptures are nothing but dreams.”
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Umberto Eco is no more
Italian author Umberto Eco, who intrigued, puzzled and delighted readers worldwide with his best-selling historical novel “The Name of the Rose,” passes away.
