Quote:
Originally Posted by Ransom
You've got a point there. I suppose it depends on what you're trying to convey and how important it is. I read fiction for the same reason I read non-fiction—to learn, not to be entertained. Of course learning can be entertaining of itself. But what I want to say is, that if you're trying to say something of great importance, and it's something that you believe would be good for the largest number of people possible to hear, then it's best to write as simply and clearly as possible. If you're not going to write something important, why write at all? When a guy like Eco goes on and on and on, and yet never says anything, it becomes pointless drivel dressed in obscurity to impress low-brows. How often has Harold Bloom done the same thing in his non-fiction? There are few people who talk so much and say so little as Bloom. But he knows lots of words.
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The problem of Eco is that he does not have a soul. As a writer, because as linguist/philosopher he is good and worth of being studied and followed (at least according to a friend that graduated with him). And as an individual I do not have the faintest idea.
There is a lot of research behind his novels, research performed by a team. There is a lot of work behind the putting in words, wording done by a team of editors. He does not exist. He is an enterprise, a machine to make money. There is nothing human inside Eco, everything is cold, distant. It is not a question of language with Eco but of intergalactic vacuum.