THE NAME OF THE ROSE
5 NOVEMBER 2002

Dear ——,

I was just having a bite of lunch and turned on the TV for a 10-minute mental vacation.

The movie that happened to be playing was "The Name of the Rose," which I have not seen in a very long time, and the scene I saw reminded me of last night's conversation about "Damage" and Stephen's route toward knowledge.

Here's the scene, and some dialogue, which I will try to remember as best I can.

LOOKING FOR A BOOK

We know the monk is looking for a book, and the scene opens with him and his novice-helper in a dark and scary room. There's an altar in the middle of the room, covered with skull carvings. The monk asks the boy to point to the scariest skull he can find. The boy hesitates, then points, and the monk says, "My choice exactly."

The monk then presses the skull's chin, nose, cheek, forehead, and then he puts a finger in one of the eye sockets. We hear a click. So he puts fingers in both eye sockets, and the altar swings back, revealing a small passage of stone steps retreating into the darkness. "After you," the monk says, and they scramble down the stairs.

SKULLS

The first thing they encounter are dozens of stacked skulls. Then they pass entire human skeletons huddled near the damp walls. Then the novice yells as a rat runs across his foot, and the monk shines his torch at the floor.

"Rats like parchment more than scholars," he says. "Let's follow him."

Then they come to a door and another flight of steps, only these lead upward. As they go up the monk counts, almost 200 steps, I believe, and we see an exterior shot of a great tower, which is part of the abbey or castle in which the monks live.

THE TOWER ROOM

Now the men enter the tower room to find hundreds of books. The monk says, with glee: "Do you realize we are in one of the greatest libraries in Christendom!" And he lets out a boyish whoop.

They look at various books and talk about the volumes they're seeing, and at one point the monk says, "These should be made available to all those seeking knowledge!"

The novice says, "Maybe they're fragile and are stored here for safe-keeping."

"No, not for safe-keeping," the monk says. "They are hidden away because they contain a wisdom we don't know and ideas that might make us question the infallibility of God."

At this point I turned off the TV, so I could watch the movie in full again soon, and savor it as it so richly deserves.

MYTHIC THEME