Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Harvest Books (1995), Edition: 1, 256 pages
Description
This witty and irreverent collection of essays presents Eco's playful but unfailingly accurate takes on everything from militarism, computer jargon, Westerns, librarians and bureaucrats to meals on airplanes, Amtrak trains, bad coffee, express mail, fax machines and pornography. "An uncanny combination of the profound and the profane".--San Francisco Chronicle.
User reviews
LibraryThing member WaxPoetic
Essays, particularly when very well-written, surpass short-stories for one very specific reason: they are generally based in fact, which is always funnier than truth and frequently more difficult to pin down.
I bought my copy of this book at the Oxford Bookstore in Kolkata. Friends and I had gone
It was a lovely gift to myself, and one that brought my travel companions and I great joy. We particularly enjoyed the advice on dealing with the coffeepot from hell and also the discussion of how to function in the blissfully self-indulgent bureaucracy of the Italian university system.
I am a great admirer of Mr. Eco's writings and revel in these wonderful moments of discovery. The ordinary daily use object of a book that holds the potential for such things as ordinary daily laughter.
I bought my copy of this book at the Oxford Bookstore in Kolkata. Friends and I had gone
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there to see an exhibit of paintings of ordinary daily use things. I saw the spine and the stack of books by Mr. Eco and had to stop and pick one up. It was a lovely gift to myself, and one that brought my travel companions and I great joy. We particularly enjoyed the advice on dealing with the coffeepot from hell and also the discussion of how to function in the blissfully self-indulgent bureaucracy of the Italian university system.
I am a great admirer of Mr. Eco's writings and revel in these wonderful moments of discovery. The ordinary daily use object of a book that holds the potential for such things as ordinary daily laughter.
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LibraryThing member k6gst
It reads like a collection of essays by a hybrid of Jorge Luis Borges and Dave Barry. (I mean that as a compliment because I admire both of those writers.)
In “How to Speak of Animals,” reflecting on a news item about two kids who break into the Central Park Zoo after-hours, go swimming in the
These children were probably victims of our guilty conscience, as reflected in the schools and the mass media.
"Human beings have always been merciless with animals, but when humans became aware of their own cruelty, they began, if not to love animals (because, with only sporadic hesitation, they continue eating them), at least to speak well of them. As the media, the schools, public institutions in general, have to explain away so many acts performed against humans by humans, it seems finally a good idea, psychologically and ethically, to insist on the goodness of animals. We allow children of the Third World to die, but we urge children of the First to respect not only butterflies and bunny rabbits but also whales, crocodiles, snakes.
Mind you, this educational approach is per se correct. What is excessive is the persuasive technique chosen: to render animals worthy of rescue they are humanized, toyified. No one says they are entitled to survival even if, as a rule, they are savage and carnivorous. No, they are made respectable by becoming cuddly, comic, good-natured, benevolent, wise, and prudent.
…
Advertising, cartoons, illustrated books are full of bears with hearts of gold, law-abiding, cozy, and protective—although in fact it’s insulting for a bear to be told he has a right to live because he’s only a dumb and inoffensive brute. So I suspect that the poor children in Central Park died not through lack of education but through too much of it. They are victims of our unhappy conscience.
To make them forget how bad human beings are, we were taught too insistently that bears are good. Instead of being told honestly what humans are and what bears are."
And some unassailable logic in “How to Avoid Contagious Diseases”:
"I read recently that according to the revelations of Professor Matré, heterosexual contact is carcinogenic. High time somebody came out and said it. I would go even farther: heterosexual contact causes death, period. Even a fool knows that it ends in procreation, and the more people are born, the more die."
In “How to Speak of Animals,” reflecting on a news item about two kids who break into the Central Park Zoo after-hours, go swimming in the
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polar bear enclosure and end up getting chewed to bits, he gives his theory on the root cause:These children were probably victims of our guilty conscience, as reflected in the schools and the mass media.
"Human beings have always been merciless with animals, but when humans became aware of their own cruelty, they began, if not to love animals (because, with only sporadic hesitation, they continue eating them), at least to speak well of them. As the media, the schools, public institutions in general, have to explain away so many acts performed against humans by humans, it seems finally a good idea, psychologically and ethically, to insist on the goodness of animals. We allow children of the Third World to die, but we urge children of the First to respect not only butterflies and bunny rabbits but also whales, crocodiles, snakes.
Mind you, this educational approach is per se correct. What is excessive is the persuasive technique chosen: to render animals worthy of rescue they are humanized, toyified. No one says they are entitled to survival even if, as a rule, they are savage and carnivorous. No, they are made respectable by becoming cuddly, comic, good-natured, benevolent, wise, and prudent.
…
Advertising, cartoons, illustrated books are full of bears with hearts of gold, law-abiding, cozy, and protective—although in fact it’s insulting for a bear to be told he has a right to live because he’s only a dumb and inoffensive brute. So I suspect that the poor children in Central Park died not through lack of education but through too much of it. They are victims of our unhappy conscience.
To make them forget how bad human beings are, we were taught too insistently that bears are good. Instead of being told honestly what humans are and what bears are."
And some unassailable logic in “How to Avoid Contagious Diseases”:
"I read recently that according to the revelations of Professor Matré, heterosexual contact is carcinogenic. High time somebody came out and said it. I would go even farther: heterosexual contact causes death, period. Even a fool knows that it ends in procreation, and the more people are born, the more die."
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LibraryThing member Arctic-Stranger
This is a book I can only take in small pieces. Individually, almost every essay is delightful; as a whole, they get a bit tedious. Good book to have by your bedside, and read one or two an evening. Or in the bathroom. Favorite essays; Rejection letters.
LibraryThing member SirRoger
These short pieces not only tickle my funny bone, but appeal to the would-be scholar in me. This is why I love Eco.
LibraryThing member e1da
It definitely had its moments of laugh out loud and killer wit, but drug on and on at points too...
LibraryThing member sparemethecensor
Eco comes off as an arrogant, snobby jerk in many of these essays. I was very surprised.
LibraryThing member sparemethecensor
Eco comes off as an arrogant, snobby jerk in many of these essays. I was very surprised.
LibraryThing member et.carole
A good casual reflection of Eco's genius and sense of humor, How to Travel is an oddball mix of short essays and fiction. Most pieces follow the "how-to" title format, with satiric content. Of note are the title essay, "How to Justify a Private Library," "How to Write an Introduction," "How to
The pieces which don't fit into this pattern provide nice change of pace and are completely unexpected. "Stars and Stripes" gets a little distracted by its own details, but is a brilliant little sci-fi sidetrack. "On the Impossibility of Drawing a map of the Empire on a Scale of 1 to 1" shows the extent of imagination which makes Eco successful in so many other ventures. "Editorial Revision" is clever and delightful, but I won't pretend to follow all of it; along with "Sequels" and a few of the other literary pieces it was a demonstration of the depth of Eco's reading but not all accessible for those who haven't a complete knowledge of the classics.
The closing essay is tender, kind, and loyal, all without giving up the honesty of telling about one's hometown or the historic rigor characteristic to Eco's writing, and gives the perfect bittersweet closing to a book unified only by the author's perspective.
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Watch out for Widows," and "How to Organize a Public Library." These have a rather matte sheen of cultural commentary on travel, life as an intellectual (I know, but Eco breaks the shiny celebrity life into rather hilarious pieces) and even issues like cultural representation and pacing in movies. Their reassuring rhythm stays fresh in this way: they always begin on-topic, precisely, but then take a very specific turn, and follow whatever conceit has been chosen to an appropriate closing point. Though most columnists induce involuntary urges in me to hit my head against the nearest wall, I'd gladly subscribe to a magazine that featured this kind of thing, if I could read Italian and Eco were in any state to be writing. The pieces which don't fit into this pattern provide nice change of pace and are completely unexpected. "Stars and Stripes" gets a little distracted by its own details, but is a brilliant little sci-fi sidetrack. "On the Impossibility of Drawing a map of the Empire on a Scale of 1 to 1" shows the extent of imagination which makes Eco successful in so many other ventures. "Editorial Revision" is clever and delightful, but I won't pretend to follow all of it; along with "Sequels" and a few of the other literary pieces it was a demonstration of the depth of Eco's reading but not all accessible for those who haven't a complete knowledge of the classics.
The closing essay is tender, kind, and loyal, all without giving up the honesty of telling about one's hometown or the historic rigor characteristic to Eco's writing, and gives the perfect bittersweet closing to a book unified only by the author's perspective.
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Language
Original language
Italian
Original publication date
1992
Physical description
256 p.; 5.25 inches
ISBN
015600125X / 9780156001250