Why I want to be an Italian semiotician/novelist when I grow up
December 3rd, 2007
From a New York Times Magazine interview with Umberto Eco:
I am wondering if you read Dan Brown’s “Da Vinci Code,” which some critics see as the pop version of your “Name of the Rose.”I was obliged to read it because everybody was asking me about it. My answer is that Dan Brown is one of the characters in my novel, “Foucault’s Pendulum,” which is about people who start believing in occult stuff.
But you yourself seem interested in the kabbalah, alchemy and other occult practices explored in the novel.
No, in “Foucault’s Pendulum” I wrote the grotesque representation of these kind of people. So Dan Brown is one of my creatures.
Point Umberto!
I’ve frequently said that The Da Vinci Code is a dumbed-down knock-off of Foucault’s Pendulum. I’m glad Eco agrees.