I am planning to read this, but I've heard it's extremely referential to topics I don't really know much about...

I am planning to read this, but I've heard it's extremely referential to topics I don't really know much about. What is some good pre-reading material?

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If it makes you feel any better, I've heard this about basically everything by Eco.

Just google things as you go along

I've heard that Numero Zero is pretty straightforward by his standards, dunno how true that is - for what its' worth I found Prague Cemetery more dense though

I don't think you have to read anything beforehand. Eco is usually pretty good at explaining himself.

This user is right. Eco explains at length and your research will duplicate what he writes. If you wanted to read around it, then the Italian student riots would be the best hing, in that they're referenced, but not crucial to the main plot and so not explained.

You don't need to understand any of the references to get Eco.

>but I've heard it's extremely referential to topics I don't really know much about.

you can skip past those. they don't influence the plot, and if you're really curious you can look them up.

it contains entry level gnosticism/masonry/alchemy topics, you won't need any preliminary material at all.
Also Eco is an overrated hack, and I'm Italian. Just a better Dan Brown.

Does anyone have some supplemental reading for pic related?

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I've heard this before from Italians and got the idea that it's primarily a prose objection. In translation obviously it has another feel and I was never much bothered by the style.

Do you have a problem with fat Umbert other than his inability to write Italian? Genuinely curious, because I love those first two books.

How uneducated are you? I read it, there were only a few references I didn't get, which I still figured out the gist of based on context and not being a retard. If you have basic knowledge of history or the ability to figure shit out based on context you'll be fine. If you've ever been to /pol/ or /x/ you should understand the magic references.
>pre-reading material
>for a babby level novel
The absolute STATE of Yea Forums. Unless you're reading something that's postgrad level academic text, you don't need pre-reading material, jesus fucking christ. Ignorance disguised as pretention, retardation wrapped under the flag of educational aspirations. You're like that guy who needs to take 5,000 pages of notes on every novel he reads because he can't understand it otherwise, and goes around thinking he's superior to anyone else.
If that guy is here, I hope you know I still hate you and I want you to rid the world of your pseudatry by jumping off a bridge. Do a flip, faggot.
It kind of was just a better Angels and Demons/DaVinci Code. If Dan Brown writes at a fourth grade level, Umberto Eco writes at a ninth grade level.

>Do you have a problem with fat Umbert other than his inability to write Italian? Genuinely curious, because I love those first two books.
No, the problem is not that he wasn't good at writing in Italian. He was good, albeit not stellar. Surely he didn't had a strong style. He was very knowledgeable in history and he put university tier history in popular books, that was his formula and that's it. Commercially successful, but not milestones in literature in every way.
Most of the problems with Eco stem from other aspects. He was, putting things at a very base level, a huge opportunist. He "criticized" the medias, while being an executive at the national television (RAI). As his much with his so praised linguistic works on semiotics (a bunch of bullshit, to be honest), he put an aura of intellectual detachment on himself. But it's very clear to anyone who is not gullible fuck, that behind the pretense of criticism he really just released operating manuals for the manipulators of the masses.

What does "university tier history" mean? Does something stop being true if other people already know it?

No I meant he cashed in his medieval history degree with The Name Of The Rose. In layman terms, he put in there historical shit you don't learn in high school, and people went "oooooh!"

that's what I did, on an as needed basis.

Imagine being the moron that brings up Dan Brown every time we have an Eco thread, and thinking you're superior to literally any other mammal on the face of the earth.

I read the name of the rose, but got to chapter 2 and realized I hadn't absorbed any of it.

A lot of stuff in the novel is basically bullshit that you can 100% forget after you turn the page. The extensive display of knowledge on esoteric topics is not supposed to make you research them, but to take them in as an aesthetic object contained in the novel. Don't waste your time reading stuff before reading it. Just do it.

He has the best intro to Philosophy of Language book anywhere. On one hand, yea he makes a lot of references, on the other he explains what the reference means and their place in history so you can use his books to get a feel for the different positions throughout history.

Also unlike many philosophers who do this, he doesn’t go overboard giving you his versions of the thinkers.

exactly this. pendulum is the only eco i have read, but the references contained in it are not necessary to understand and if you go through the process necessary to understand all of that esoterica you won't be any better prepared to read the book. it's about the act of consuming and producing esoterica, not the specific esoteric references contained inside it

That book is great though. It's not a history manual but a solid murder mystery

Dan Brown

I'm not saying his books are bad. They are likable. But I don't like them, and I think that Eco, along with many other writers who are part of the pop culture, is massively overrated.