Uncategorized 26 May 2005 11:22 pm
Umberto Eco’s apartment
What a pad!
We pass through a labyrinthine library containing 30,000 books – he has a further 20,000 at his 17th-century palazzo near Urbino – and into a drawing-room full of curiosities: a glass cabinet containing seashells, rare comics and illustrated children’s books, a classical sculpture of a nude man with his arms missing, a jar containing a pair of dog’s testicles, a lute, a banjo, a collection of recorders, and a collage of paintbrushes by his friend the Pop artist Arman.
— Heavyweight champion, a profile of Umberto Eco in the Telegraph. (Via Kitabkhana)
Presumably the jar does not contain all those things.
So many books! I do wonder, though, if at some point all those books start to look a little… That is to say, I don’t think it’ll be too many decades before I look at my own wall of books and am reminded faintly of death. There are good books I own now that I will probably never read. You may carve on my gravestone, “She always meant to get around to it.”
on 27 May 2005 at 7:29 am 1.Mia said …
What a wonderful interview! My favorite quotes …
“If some people are so weak that they buy my books because they are piled high in bookshops, and then do not understand them, that is not my fault. If people buy my books for vanity, I consider it a tax on idiocy.”
“‘I would describe myself as an insecure optimist who is sensitive to criticism. I always fear to be wrong. Those who are always certain of their own work risk being idiots. Insecurity is a great force, apropos of teaching. The moment I start a new class I feel panic. If you don’t feel panic, you cannot succeed.”
And the library just makes me think of a quote from somewhere I can’t recall about how dull it would be to be surrounded by books you’d already read.
I keep hoping that The Da Vinci Code will get more people to read Foucault’s Pendulum.
on 27 May 2005 at 7:48 am 2.co149 said …
I need a bigger house, clearly…
on 27 May 2005 at 8:38 am 3.Cam Sculpin said …
I need a 17th-century palazzo.
on 27 May 2005 at 9:21 am 4.Mia said …
Don’t we all!?