Serendipities : language & lunacy / Umberto Eco ; translated by William Weaver ; cover illustration by Peter Bruegel ; cover design by Linda Secondari.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Best-selling author Umberto Eco's latest work unlocks the riddles of history in an exploration of the "linguistics of the lunatic," stories told by scholars, scientists, poets, fanatics, and ordinary people in order to make sense of the world. Exploring the "Force of the False," Eco uncovers layers of mistakes that have shaped human history, such as Columbus's assumption that the world was much smaller than it is, leading him to seek out a quick route to the East via the West and thus fortuitously "discovering" America. The fictions that grew up around the cults of the Rosicrucians and Knights Templar were the result of a letter from a mysterious "Prester John"--undoubtedly a hoax--that provided fertile ground for a series of delusions and conspiracy theories based on religious, ethnic, and racial prejudices. While some false tales produce new knowledge (like Columbus's discovery of America) and others create nothing but horror and shame (the Rosicrucian story wound up fueling European anti-Semitism) they are all powerfully persuasive.

In a careful unraveling of the fabulous and the false, Eco shows us how serendipities--unanticipated truths--often spring from mistaken ideas. From Leibniz's belief that the I Ching illustrated the principles of calculus to Marco Polo's mistaking a rhinoceros for a unicorn, Eco tours the labyrinth of intellectual history, illuminating the ways in which we project the familiar onto the strange.

Eco uncovers a rich history of linguistic endeavor--much of it ill-conceived--that sought to "heal the wound of Babel." Through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Greek, Hebrew, Chinese, and Egyptian were alternately proclaimed as the first language that God gave to Adam, while--in keeping with the colonial climate of the time--the complex language of the Amerindians in Mexico was viewed as crude and diabolical. In closing, Eco considers the erroneous notion of linguistic perfection and shrewdly observes that the dangers we face lie not in the rules we use to interpret other cultures but in our insistence on making these rules absolute.

With the startling combination of erudition and wit, bewildering anecdotes and scholarly rigor that are Eco's hallmarks, Serendipities is sure to entertain and enlighten any reader with a passion for the curious history of languages and ideas.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• preface (p. vii)
• Serendipities (p. 0)
• 1 The Force of Falsity (p. 1)
• 2 Languages in Paradise (p. 23)
• 3 From Marco Polo to Leibniz Stories of Intellectual Misunderstandings (p. 53)
• 4 The Language of the Austral Land (p. 75)
• 5 The Linguistics of Joseph de Maistre (p. 95)
• Notes (p. 115)
• Index (p. 119)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Consider the platypus. With its famous molelike body carrying a beaver's tail and a duck's beak, the beast confounded the first Western scientists who studied it in 1798. Was it a mammal or a reptile? Did it lay eggs? Was it just a taxonomic hoax? The platypus eventually found its rightful place in the animal kingdom, but as Eco (Travels in Hyperreality, etc.) shows in these challenging essays, the questions it raised about language and perception still animate some sharply contested semiotic debates. Writing with his customary keenness of intellect, Eco ranges widely over metaphysical terrain, drawing on Aristotle, Heidegger and C.S. Peirce to inform his discussions. Revising aspects of Kant's philosophy in terms of cognitive studies, Eco ponders how we identify the things around us and argues that meaning in the world is ultimately contractual and negotiable. When Aztecs first saw horses ridden by Spanish conquistadors, for example, they used their previous knowledge to surmise that the invaders were riding deer. In another example, Eco investigates how we can recognize a Bach suite for solo cello, even when played by different soloists or transcribed for the recorder. Throughout, Eco gamely reconsiders his 1976 work, A Theory of Semiotics, over which many a gauntlet was testily thrown, and revisits other key moments in the history of semiotic research. This collection will certainly appeal to specialists. But Eco's ability to balance technical subject matter with broadly intelligible anecdotes and illustrations should make it valuable and pleasurable for anyone seeking a gallant introduction to the philosophy of language. (Nov.) FYI: Also in November Harvest will release Eco's Serendipities in paperback ($12, ISBN 0-15-600751-7) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

??LANGUAGE?? Eco, known for his intellectually stimulating best-sellers, most recently Island of the Day Before, is also an internationally known scholar of semantics. In his latest work, Eco ventures on an intellectual journey through time by studying the search for a perfect language. Although scholarly in nature, this slim but pithy volume offers an approachable introduction to the intellectual history of language and the foundation of linguistic study. Eco ventures into the work of Hellenic thinkers, medieval theologians, and more modern philosophers. From the search for the "original, perfect language" spoken before the Tower of Babel, the surprising premise arose (from Christian thinkers) that Hebrew was the original language and the one closest to perfection; it was refuted only by the more surprising theory that Chinese was the closest language to the original. The efforts to prove it led to all sorts of fortuitous discoveries, such as calculus. Fans of Eco's novels will not be left dissatisfied--his fictional players are still present: Templars, Illuminati, Jesuits, Theosophists, and Masons. They all have a part in this intriguing look at how the study of language can be full of surprises. --Michael Spinella

Kirkus Book Review

Italy's most celebrated public intellectual gathers five essays that focus (more or less) on how lunatic misunderstandings concerning the perfect language have led to new discoveries (sort of). Eco (The Name of the Rose, 1983, etc.; Semiotics/Univ. of Bologna) remains Italy's most successful and prolific writer. He is a novelist, cultural commentator, essayist, literary critic, and scholar of language. The present volume of essays is spun off his work on the historical search for the ``perfect language,Ž i.e., the language that God gave Adam, the one that was lost in the catastrophe at the Tower of Babel. But the conceit with which he rather unsuccessfully attempts to unify the book is this: the search in the cases he explores always involves either outright errors or otherwise fictional inventions that have somehow led to positive discovery. After all, Columbus accidentally discovered the New World owing to miscalculations about the size of the earth. Eco sees similar situations in the history of language. For example, a 16th-century Jesuit, Father Athanasius Kircher, fancifully and elaborately interpreted ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics as the lost language of the Garden of Eden. ``Kircher was wildly wrong. Still, notwithstanding his eventual failure, he is the father of Egyptology.'' This and similar disappointingly general findings do not satisfyingly deliver on the promise that the errors serendipitously produce truth. But all is not lost. The meandering erudition of Eco's book is interesting enough in its own right. He speculates, for example, that Dante believed his own Italian vernacular, as distinct from official Latin, was in fact an echo of Adam's perfect language. And, he examines philosophical attempts by Leibniz and others to recreate a perfect language and Joseph de Maistre's combination of linguistic mysticism and reactionary politics. The genial Eco may have had the lay reader in mind when he wrote these essays (which were originally lectures), but his book of linguistic arcana is also of avowedly esoteric interest.