Book Review: The Name of The Buttercup - Umberto EcoFriendly

Italian semiologist's latest work is a tour de force. EcoFriendly rarely gives interviews but in one candid moment admitted that he no-longer regards himself as a full semiologist. "How can I be? I write about symbols and signs or portent, yet I choose to do so in plain old Italian. At best I'm a semi-semioligist." Well you can't say fairer than that!

So to this latest work, a modest three hundred page book, is essentially a murder mystery wrapped up in an enigma wrapped up in a puzzle. The first two hundred and ninety-nine pages are a load of inpenetrable stream of consciousness ramblings on the nature of semiotics followed by a really cracking page which at heart is a simple whodunnit. EcoFriendly admits that the structure of the book is intended to put off the casual reader. "If you can make it through the first part, then you deserve the story proper."

The story proper is oddly concise. You can paraphrase it in just eleven words, "Some monks are murdered. Was it the devil's work?Aggh, poison!" Obviously that is a precis of that all important last page which actually containes a whopping fifteen words. And did the devil do it? Don't ask me, read it yourself and don't lick your fingers.