The paperback was thick and dense and full of English words I could mostly decipher, even though I hadn’t learned them in school. ( The Name of the Rose was Eco’s first novel: it was originally published in Italy in 1980, then translated into English in 1983 by William Weaver). I’d never heard of the book, or Umberto Eco. Thinking back on it now when I’m more worldly-wise, it’s possible that he kind of liked me, but since he was very old (at least mid 20s!), and since I wasn’t used to anyone liking me, nothing happened except that one day he handed me this book that he’d just finished reading, and told me I should read it. I don’t remember much about him, except that he was tall, and might have been from California. Meanwhile, we were blissfully unaware of all that anxiety, keeping very busy eating hot ham- and cheese sandwiches, suntanning on the gorgeous beach, dancing to Cyndi Lauper, and whatever else teenagers do when they bust out of their hometown and get a snoot-full of total freedom.Īnyway, there was an American guy named Fred who was staying at the same small, family-run hotel where we were staying. It was a very cool trip, though we scared our families half to death by not phoning home for over a week (this was way before cell-phones and wifi and ever-present internet access), and at some point our parents were probably about ready to send out Interpol or an international search party to look for us.
We were doing the backpacking, inter-rail thing and had come down by train through Yugoslavia (yes, it still existed), had spent some time in Athens (mainly to see Acropolis), and then ended up staying almost two weeks on Corfu before heading back to Sweden via Venice and Vienna. This paperback copy of The Name of the Rose was given to me in 1985 when I was a mere teenager, visiting the Greek island of Corfu with my best friend.
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