Product Description

From the early Dark Ages to the Renaissance it was widely believed that the language spoken in the Garden of Eden was a perfect language, expressing all possible things, and that all current languages were its decadent descendants. This is an investigation into the history of this idea.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #197771 in Books
• Published on: 1997-07-10
• Original language: Italian
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

About the Author
Umberto Eco was born in Alessandria in 1932 and has been Professor of Semiotics at the University of Bologna since 1975 and President of the International Centre for Semiotic and Cognitive Studies since 1988. His books include 'The Name of the Rose' (1980) and Foucault's Pendulum' (1988). His most recent works include 'Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language' (1984), 'The Limits of Interpretation' (1990), 'Apocalyspe Postponed' (1994) and 'The Island of the Day Before' (1995).

Customer Reviews

Something to dip into time and again
I was thinking of writing a review for this book as I was dipping into it again for the umpteenth time the other day after watching the two episodes on Champollion. After reading the one existing review, there is no way that I can let that pass. Anyone who has read Eco extensively knows that he sprinkles his technical books and even his fiction with a variety of languages and terms from the various types of language studies, including semiotics. For all this his books are accessible compared to his academic peers, conversational in tone and extremely readable. They make you want to understand them. This book has an overall narrative that takes the reader on some detours, and in some depth, without ever losing the overarching feeling that Eco is in control of the subject. Having said that, I can pick it up at any page and start to read. Eco provides some left-over material from this book in "Serendipities", so any prospective readers left confused by the two reviews of "Search" so far should perhaps first try this much shorter book.

Beware unless you are a student of semiotics
The title promised much, the synopsis added to the appeal and when I received the book, the reviewer comments on the cover added further encouragement. This is supposedly a book with wide appeal beyond the student of semiotics. Well I am not a student of semiotics, but read very widely and was interested in both the subject matter and the author. Unfortunately, the book is full of technical language and I found it to be unreadable and eventually gave up. This makes it only the second book I have ever given up and left me feeling pretty disappointed. I'm sure it will have great appeal to those with a more formal grounding in the subject matter but to an intested novice, it is pretty impenetrable.

A good history of an interesting idea
This is a history of the idea that there has been, or is possible to create, a language which is able to perfectly and unambiguously express all that can be expressed. Alleged examples are the language of Eden as spoken by Adam and different philosophical languages, eg. the projects of Raymond Lull and G. W. Leibniz. Eco's study is detailed, well written and fairly complete. My main objection is Eco's too heavy emphasis on 16th and 17th century theories (probably unable to abstain from his own impressive library of literature from the period), which makes the middle part of the book too detailed and slightly tedious. The book uses a few simple concepts from semiotic theory, but is completely readable for readers with a general interest in the philosophy of language and the history of ideas.