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After the lecture, CBC journalist David Gilmour joined Professor Eco. The leaflet handed out before the event mentioned his name but not his profession; some speculated on the possible presence of the guitarist of Pink Floyd. Maybe the Air Canada Centre would have been a more appropriate venue, had that been the case. The journalist interviewed Eco on various issues related to novel writing. Eco entertained the crowd by alternating jokes to more serious answers.
Is it true that you spend the weekend writing novels? People usually play golf.
"George Bernard Shaw is thought to have said, 'Being stupid is not required for playing golf, but it helps!' Anyway, it is true that I began writing novels as a hobby."
Don't you find it strange that so much interest and popularity surround your books, which are far from easy? How do you explain that?
"In the book industry there is a category of people who don't understand much: publishers. They think that everybody wants to read easy books. That's untrue, or else authors like Thomas Mann would have never enjoyed any popularity. Some people want to read easy books, other people want to read hard books. I was lucky enough to find a publisher who accepted my first book even though it belonged to the latter group."
What do you think of the Name of the Rose movie? Personally I like it a lot. Turning a book into a film is always delicate work, and different authors have different attitudes. For instance, Stephen King hates the movie version of Shining, which many people see as as much a masterpiece as the book.
"A film is someone else's work, so it will always be different by the book it is based upon. I think that this is the case with The Name of the Rose; anyway, I like the movie, too."
Aren't you afraid that translating your novels might lose the beauty of the language it was originally written in?
"Any translation is a compromise between two different needs. I think it should be neither too free nor too rigid. What's important is that readers of the translation feel the same effect, have the same experience of readers of the original work."

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