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I didn't read any of his novels (yet), but this I consider one of the most important documents I'm aware of. http://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism
by PavlovsCat 11y ago
I didn't read any of his novels (yet), but this I consider one of the most important documents I'm aware of.
http://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism.pdf http://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism.pdf
If we still think of the totalitarian governments that ruled Europe before the Second World War we can easily say that it would be difficult for them to reappear in the same form in different historical circumstances. If Mussolini's fascism was based upon the idea of a charismatic ruler, on corporatism, on the utopia of the Imperial Fate of Rome, on an imperialistic will to conquer new territories, on an exacerbated nationalism, on the ideal of an entire nation regimented in black shirts, on the rejection of parliamentary democracy, on anti-Semitism, then I have no difficulty in acknowledging that today the Italian Alleanza Nazionale, born from the postwar Fascist Party, MSI, and certainly a right-wing party, has by now very little to do with the old fascism. In the same vein, even though I am much concerned about the various Nazi-like movements that have arisen here
and there in Europe, including Russia, I do not think that Nazism, in its original form, is about to reappear as a nationwide movement.
Nevertheless, even though political regimes can be overthrown, and ideologies can be criticized and disowned, behind a regime and its ideology there is always a way of thinking and feeling, a group of cultural habits, of obscure instincts and unfathomable drives. Is there still another ghost stalking Europe (not to speak of other parts of the world)?
- anigbrowl 11y agoNormally I tell everyone to read The Name of the Rose first and be happy, but for you I think you should start with The Mysterious Flame of queen Loana, even though it's one of his less accessible works. Much of it is a fictionalized memoir on how fascism became embedded in the fabric of daily life during Mussolini's reign, although this concern with mass movements and the dangers they pose to thinking individuals is a consistent theme in his work.
- PavlovsCat 11y agoOh, thank you so much! I will be sure to check it out.
- wazoox 11y agoRead it last year, it was really a much enjoyable read.
- jlg23 11y ago> Nevertheless, even though political regimes can be overthrown, and ideologies can be criticized and disowned, behind a regime and its ideology there is always a way of thinking and feeling, a group of cultural habits, of obscure instincts and unfathomable drives. He wrote a whole book about this: The Prague Cemetery.