General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: What dramatic movies have been historically accurate? [View all]ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)author's intellectual hobbyhorses.
Eco, being a semiotician, is hailed by semiotics students who like to use his novel to explain their discipline. The techniques of telling stories within stories, partial fictionalization, and purposeful linguistic ambiguity are all apparent. The solution to the central murder mystery hinges on the contents of Aristotle's book on Comedy, of which no copy survives; Eco nevertheless plausibly describes it and has his characters react to it appropriately in their medieval setting which, though realistically described, is partly based on Eco's scholarly guesses and imagination. It is virtually impossible to untangle fact / history from fiction / conjecture in the novel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Name_of_the_Rose