Using both intelligence and flexibility, [Mr. Eco] has become the spokesman of a philosophical trend that could be labeled as a kind of "neo-enlightenment." His approach entails methodological doubting versus dogmatism, and the use of parody and irony against sectarian thought; his idea of culture is that it is mainly a channel of interdisciplinary exchange rather than a provider of certainties or a chapel for hermetic and initiatory rites.

But that description is already a beginning of an interpretation of Mr. Eco's novel. "The Name of the Rose" takes place in the 14th century. In some of his essays Mr. Eco has linked that century with our age, with all of its certainties weakened under the combined blows of new sciences and contradictory social events. Aptly enough, the novel is a mystery, the most rationalist of all literary genres, based on a determination to reach irrefutable, if partial...