Umberto Eco about home libraries

 I was clearing out files on my laptop and found this, worth posting here .   

Umberto Eco, who owned 50,000 books said about home libraries:

 

"It is foolish to think that you have to read all the books you buy, as it is foolish to criticize those who buy more books than they will ever be able to read. It would be like saying that you should use all the cutlery or glasses or screwdrivers or drill bits you bought before buying new ones.

 

"There are things in life that we need to always have plenty of supplies, even if we will only use a small portion. 

 

"If, for example, we consider books as medicine, we understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the 'medicine closet' and choose a book. Not a random one, but the right book for that moment. That's why you should always have a nutrition choice!

 

"Those who buy only one book, read only that one and then get rid of it. They simply apply the consumer mentality to books, that is, they consider them a consumer product, a good. Those who love books know that a book is anything but a commodity."

 

Brideshead Revisted by Evelyn Waugh

 

This was the first book I read in 2025 from January 20 through March 1.  I had heard it acclaimed by our Bishop Robert Barron as one of the greatest Catholic novels of the 20th Century.  Our priest also said he loved the book.  So when Word on Fire Book Club selected it, I  thought  I would take advantage and read along.  It is  the 75th Anniversary Edition.  A classic I have never read, or perhaps  tried and stopped.  After struggling through all 402 pages, I am mystified at its appeal.   I found it very tedious reading.  I was reading something else for pleasure  so would just read the chapters which would be up  for discussion on the site.   My opinion never changed, on  this novel. It is  one of the most tiresome things I've ever struggled to read.  That is why I have delayed posting it here, I could not stand to review it and scan it.  But here we are finally..

There were some terms I did not understand and  believe they must be the language of those times.  A few pgs 32-3 Plover's eggs, pg 53,scrofulous,pg 156 attempt to subborn me.

Briefly Captain Charles Ryder is on maneuvers in the English countryside, WWII, with his battalion Brideshead manor is taken for their lodgings and set up.  He remembers The novels spans the lives of that Flyte and Marchmain family, his friendship and concern about Sebastian, and their lives with complications, their characters, their falls from grace.  Preface, " "Its theme...the operation of the grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters, was perhaps presumptuously large but I make no apology..." 

Something that stuck with me was that the line used in this book "twitch upon the thread" is taken from Chesterton in his Father Brown stories to describe conscience.    I tried to read with understanding that the terms and writing style were before my time and the period escribed was an outgrowth of the lingering resentment of Catholics in Protestant England.  

Although there are supposed to be comical lines throughout this work, I didn't catch them.  Perhaps on Pg 198,  in conversation with Sebastian,  "It doesn't matter what people call you unless they call you pigeon pie and eat you up."  Maybe that's amusing?

Toward the end, after Lord Marchmain has returned and is passing there is a discussion about whether to call a priest for last rites.  "  Julia said, " I wish you wouldn't start these religious arguments."   I didn't start it.   You don't convince anyone else and you don't really convince yourself.,  l only want to know what these people believe.   They say its all based on logic.    If you'd let Bridie finish, he would have made it all quite logical.       There were four of you, I said.  Cara didn't know the first thing it was about and may or may not have believed it; you knew a bit and didn't believe a word; Cordelia knew about as much and believed it madli; only poor Bridie knew and believed and I thought he made a pretty poor show when it came to explaining.   And people go round saying, "At least Catholics know what they believe.   We had a fair cross section tonight..." , 

     

I am not giving this any stars be cause it has after all endured as a classic but was not my cup of tea.