Yep, definitely. I've only read a few of Eco's novels but I think they all deal with similar ideas, or look at the same ideas through different lenses. Prague

Yep, definitely. I've only read a few of Eco's novels but I think they all deal with similar ideas, or look at the same ideas through different lenses. Prague Cemetery ruminates on the ideas of slanderous conspiracies [slanderous isn't really a strong enough word, they are really hateful]. At the start of the book Royalists are spreading conspiracies about the Jesuits being behind Italian Republicanism. By the end of the book the Jesuits have either been replaced by the Jews, or are working hand in hand with them. As in Focault's Pendulum many of the people manufacturing the conspiracy are also believers in it. In the Name of the Rose there are long passages about the nature of heresy and how a power [the Church] declaring something to be a heretical belief can attract those who oppose that power, in effect spreading that heresy, even in cases where the heretical belief might be manufactured or non-existent. One major difference is that the book also sets out how these conspiracies serve people's interests. In some cases the interests served are political reactionaries, in other it is political regimes or state intelligence agencies. It feels like a longer novel that Focault's Pendulum, though I'm not sure if that's correct. I think it loses the run of itself a little in places but it is well worth a read.