Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

Numele trandafirului by Umberto Eco

27 reviews

cjm1701's review against another edition

adventurous dark inspiring mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Homophobia, Misogyny, and Islamophobia

jayisreading's review against another edition

challenging informative mysterious slow-paced

3.0

I’ll admit that it never crossed my mind to pick up this novel, partially because of my slight aversion to semiotics (which Eco is well-known for). However, knowing that it was a huge influence on a video game I absolutely loved (i.e., Pentiment), I thought I’d give his novel a try.

Not entirely to my surprise, The Name of the Rose was quite dense in its themes, writing style, and theoretical frameworks. I would even go so far as to say that Eco’s philosophical interests overshadowed the story itself. As a result of this, I felt a bit frustrated by the novel, because I wasn’t particularly interested in the erudite discussions that somewhat strayed from the main story, which I wanted more of. Ultimately, I think I would have liked the novel far more if there was a better balance of creative storytelling and scholarly writing. To me, at least, I felt that Eco had a very particular group of people in mind while writing this novel; I was definitely not a member of this audience, which might be why a fair bit of what he wrote flew over my head (for example, I know very little about Catholicism, which is central to the story).

That being said, I will say that this is a novel that demands the reader’s full attention, as well as their willingness to take the time to digest Eco’s ideas. Unfortunately, I didn’t have either of these due to my schedule and having borrowed the book from the library (i.e., I had limited time), so these definitely played into why I struggled to fully appreciate this novel. I guess this is to say take this review with a grain of salt, because it’s clear that a fair number of readers found the book quite rich and engaging (e.g., the developers of Pentiment, haha), and that’s likely because they had the time to sit with Eco’s words. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Religious bigotry, and Murder

Moderate: Homophobia, Misogyny, and Suicide

Minor: Torture and Cannibalism

astrangewind's review against another edition

mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

I'm not really sure if I liked The Name of the Rose.

The book was incredibly slow-moving, and written very densely, full of philosophical and literary references and tirades that I'm not well-read enough to understand. In general, I feel like philosophers (and their work) have a smugness about them that I find distasteful, which was true for the portions of this book that devolved into arguments or monologues about whether or not Jesus Christ laughed.

That said, I did find the plot compelling enough to finish the book. At times, it lulled, but the mystery was sufficiently mysterious to keep me reading. There was humor to be had, too; a 14th century monk talking about a perpetual motion machine made me chuckle. The ending was fascinating, and I genuinely couldn't put the book down at the last 70 pages or so. I'm sure there's some kind of allegory there, or other kind of metaphor or lesson, but even without the background to be able to understand it, I still enjoyed the plot for what it was.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Religious bigotry, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Homophobia, Sexual content, Blood, and Islamophobia

Minor: Confinement and Torture

deparme's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Suicide, and Murder

Moderate: Homophobia, Religious bigotry, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Animal death, Misogyny, and Torture

lief_'s review against another edition

challenging mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexism, Torture, Violence, Religious bigotry, and Murder

Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Confinement, Suicide, Xenophobia, Grief, and War

Minor: Animal cruelty, Incest, Infidelity, Sexual assault, and Vomit

dannyclarke's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Minor: Ableism, Gore, Homophobia, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Violence, Religious bigotry, and Classism

All of the -isms and bigotry in the book stem from its setting in a medieval monastery. Eco does not modernize the views of any of the characters, who are primarily monks from nobility with the standard prejudices of their day.

marxxx's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Confinement, Death, Homophobia, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicide, Torture, Blood, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Excrement and Cannibalism

saintmaud's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Homophobia, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Animal death, Gore, and Misogyny

Minor: Incest

esztertth's review against another edition

mysterious slow-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

I liked it better the last time I've read it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia

iirreeaadd's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

This book is long and overwritten. I found myself skimming or simply skipping chunks of this book that were basically long lists of things that were not relevant to the plot of the book at all. Despite this, I found the core murder mystery plot of the book to be engrossing, as well as the reasons for it. I was able to finish the book fairly quickly and felt engaged throughout as I wanted to know what happens next. It's definitely a bit dense at points but overall I found it a good read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Sexism, Torture, Violence, Blood, Religious bigotry, Murder, and Classism

Moderate: Homophobia, Sexual content, Suicide, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and Colonisation