Eco: Foucalt's Pendulum by eco foucault (important books to read .txt) 📗

when a manuscript is lost, you know whosefault it is."

"She loses manuscripts,too?"

"Publishers are alwayslosing manuscripts. I think sometimes that's their main activity.But a scapegoat is always necessary, don't you agree? My onlycomplaint is that she doesn't lose the ones I'd like to see lost.Contretemps, these, in what the good Bacon called The Advancementof Learning.''

"How do they getlost?"

He spread his arms."Forgive me, but that is a stupid question. If we knew how they gotlost, they wouldn't get lost."

"Logical," I said. "Butlook, the Garamond books I see here and there seem very carefullymade, and you have an impressive catalog. Is it all done here? Howmany of you are there?"

"There's a room for theproduction staff across the hall; next door is my colleagueDiotallevi. But he does the reference books, the big projects,works that take forever to produce and have a long sales life. I dothe university editions. It's not really that much work. NaturallyI get involved with some of the books, but as a rule we havenothing to worry about editorially, academically, or financially.Publications of an institute, or conference proceedings under theaegis of a university. If the author's a beginner, his professorwrites the preface. The author corrects the proofs, checks thequotations and footnotes, and receives no royalties. The book isadopted as a textbook, a few thousand copies are sold in a fewyears, and our expenses are covered. No surprises, no redink."

"What do you do,then?"

"A lot of things. Forexample, we publish some books at our own expense, usuallytranslations of prestige authors, to add tone to the catalog. Andthen there are the manuscripts that just turn up, left at the door.Rarely publishable, but they all have to be read. You never cantell."

"Do you likeit?"

"Like it? It's the onlything I know how to do well."

We were interrupted by aman in his forties wearing a jacket a few sizes too big, with wispylight hair that fell over thick blond eyebrows. He spoke softly, asif he were instructing a child.

"I'm sick of thisTaxpayer's Vade Mecum. The whole thing needs to be rewritten, and Idon't feel like it. Am I intruding?"

"This is Diotallevi,"Belbo said, introducing us.

"Oh, you're here to lookat that Templar thing. Poor man. Listen, Jacopo, I thought of agood one: Urban Planning for Gypsies."

"Great," Belbo saidadmiringly. "I have one, too: Aztec Equitation."

"Excellent. But wouldthat go with Potio-section or the Adyn-ata?"

"We'll have to see,"Belbo said. He rummaged in his drawer and took out some sheets ofpaper. "Potio-section..." He looked at me, saw my bewilderment."Potio-section, as everybody knows, of course, is the art ofslicing soup. No, no," he said to Diotallevi. "It's not adepartment, it's a subject, like Mechanical Avunculogratulation orPylocatabasis. They all fall under the heading ofTetrapyloctomy."

"What's tetra...?" Iasked.

"The art of splitting ahair four ways. This is the department of useless techniques.Mechanical Avunculogratulation, for example, is how to buildmachines for greeting uncles. We're not sure, though, ifPylocatabasis belongs, since it's the art of being saved by a hair.Somehow that doesn't seem completely useless."

"All right, gentlemen,"I said, "I give up. What are you two talking about?"

"Well, Diotallevi and Iare planning a reform in higher education. A School of ComparativeIrrelevance, where useless or impossible courses are given. Theschool's aim is to turn out scholars capable of endlesslyincreasing the number of unnecessary subjects."

"And how manydepartments are there?"

"Four so far, but thatmay be enough for the whole syllabus. The Tetrapyloctomy departmenthas a preparatory function; its purpose is to inculcate a sense ofirrelevance. Another important department is Adynata, orImpossibilia. Like Urban Planning for Gypsies. The essence of thediscipline is the comprehension of the underlying reasons for athing's absurdity. We have courses in Morse syntax, the history ofantarctic agriculture, the history of Easter Island painting,contemporary Sumerian literature, Montessori grading,Assyrio-Babylonian philately, the technology of the wheel inpre-Columbian empires, and the phonetics of the silentfilm."

"How about crowdpsychology in the Sahara?"

"Wonderful," Belbosaid.

Diotallevi nodded. "Youshould join us. The kid's got talent, eh, Jacopo?"

"Yes, I saw that rightaway. Last night he constructed some moronic arguments with greatskill. But let's continue. What did we put in the Oxymoronicsdepartment? I can't find my notes."

Diotallevi took a slipof paper from his pocket and regarded me with friendlycondescension. "In Oxymoronics, as the name implies, what mattersis self-contradiction. That's why I think it's the place for UrbanPlanning for Gypsies."

"No," Belbo said. "Onlyif it were Nomadic Urban Planning. The Adynata concern empiricalimpossibilities; Oxymoronics deal with contradictions interms."

"Maybe. But what coursesdid we put under Oxymoronics? Oh, yes, here we are: Tradition inRevolution, Democratic Oligarchy, Parmenidean Dynamics, HeracliteanStatics, Spartan Sybaritics, Tautological Dialectics, BooleanEristic."

I couldn't resistthrowing in "How about a Grammar of Solecisms?"

"Excellent!" they bothsaid, making a note.

"One problem," Isaid.

"What?"

"If the public gets windof this, people will show up with manuscripts."

"The boy's sharp,Jacopo," Diotallevi said. "Unwittingly, we've drawn up a realprospectus for scholarship. We've shown the necessity of theimpossible. Therefore, mum's the word. But I have to gonow."

"Where?" Belboasked.

"It's Fridayafternoon."

"Jesus Christ!" Belbosaid, then turned to me. "Across the street are a few houses whereOrthodox Jews live; you know, black hats, beards, earlocks. Therearen't many of them in Milan. This is Friday, and the Sabbathbegins at sundown, so in the afternoon they start preparing in theapartment across the way: polishing the candlesticks, cooking thefood, setting everything up so they won't have to light any firestomorrow. They even leave the TV on all night, picking a channel inadvance. Anyway, Diotallevi here has a pair of binoculars; he spieson them with delight, pretending he's on the other side of thestreet."

"Why?" Iasked.

"Our Diotallevi thinkshe's Jewish."

"What do you mean,¡¥thinks'?" Diotallevi said, annoyed. "I am Jewish. Do you haveanything against that, Casaubon?"

"Of coursenot."

"Diotallevi is notJewish," Belbo said firmly.

"No? And what about myname? Just like Graziadio or Dios-iaconte. A traditional Jewishname. A ghetto name, like Sholom Aleichem."

"Diotallevi is agood-luck name given to foundlings by city officials. Yourgrandfather was a foundling."

"A Jewishfoundling."

"Diotallevi, you havepink skin, you're practically an albino."

"There are albinorabbits; why not albino Jews?"

"Diotallevi, a personcan't just decide to be a Jew the way he might decide to be a stampcollector or a Jehovah's Witness. Jews are born. Admit it! You're agentile like the rest of us."

"I'mcircumcised."

"Come on! Lots of peopleare circumcised, for reasons of