We encourage you to buy and read the full version of Umberto Eco’s book! But if you can’t, due to the Corvid 19 emergency, here’s Chapter 3 of our ‘Riassunto facilitato per studenti di italiano L2, da Francesca Colombo’, which corresponds approximately to pp. 73 (Primo giorno, Verso nona) – 91 (Primo giorno, Dopo nona) of the original Italian version.
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Nei freddi corridoi del convento, Adso e Guglielmo fanno la conoscenza del monaco Severino, l’erborista.
Guglielmo gli fa i complimenti per le sue piante: “Avete un orto magnifico e variegato!” e poi va dritto al dunque: “Che sapete dirmi di Adelmo? Con chi aveva più relazioni qui al convento?”
Severino risponde: “Con Venanzio e gli altri amanuensi, con Jorge il confessore e, naturalmente con Berengario, l’aiuto bibliotecario”.
Guglielmo nota: “Perché avete detto ‘naturalmente’?”
“Beh…'” risponde il frate in imbarazzo “perché… perché avevano la stessa età”. È visibilmente arrossito. Gugliemo lo ringrazia e gli chiede di indicargli la strada per lo scrittorio, dove lavorano gli amanuensi come Adelmo.
La stanza è enorme e illuminata da fasci di luce naturale. Un monaco alto e sgraziato, con il cappuccio tirato sulla testa, l’aria torva e la carnagione pallida, si fa incontro a Guglielmo e Adso. È Malachia, il bibliotecario, che li riceve con freddezza: ha un’aria cupa e tetra, pare che non gli piacciano le visite.
Nella meravigliosa sala della scrittorio, Guglielmo e Adso conoscono gli amanuensi Bencio, Aymaro, Venanzio e Berengario, quest’ultimo è l’aiuto bibliotecario di cui parlava l’erborista.
Tutti loro sono stati colleghi del defunto Adelmo, hanno lavorato giorno dopo giorno a stretto contatto con lui… devono pur sapere qualcosa!
Guglielmo, discretamente, introduce il tema della misteriosa morte: “Di cosa si occupava il confratello Adelmo?”
Gli amanuensi gli spiegano che Adelmo disegnava soprattutto miniature, ovvero decorava i libri con figure. Nel rappresentare creature mostruose, dicono gli altri amanuensi, Adelmo era veramente eccezionale.
Essi interrompono il proprio lavoro per mostrare agli ospiti, Guglielmo e Adso, le miniature del povero Adelmo, che ritraggono bestie fantastiche e improbabili. Tutti insieme le osservano e scoppiano a ridere: sono davvero fatte bene e i mostri rappresentati sono così strani e fantasiosi… Ma la pausa ricreativa viene presto interrotta.
Padre Jorge da Burgos, il vecchio monaco confessore cieco, li mette a tacere brusco: “Vergogna, per i desideri dei vostri occhi e per i vostri sorrisi”.
La risata, secondo Jorge è peccaminosa. Guglielmo interviene a contraddirlo in modo educato ma deciso: “A me pare che la risata sia un dono di Dio che rafforza le relazioni e alleggerisce lo spirito. Altrimenti, perché Dio ci avrebbe concesso di ridere?”
Jorge rimugina un istante, poi borbotta: “Gesù Cristo non ha mai riso!”, e mentre se ne va, continua a rimproverarli con tono severo: “Voi ridete di questi mostriciattoli, mentre l’Anticristo sta arrivando… l’Apocalisse è vicina!”
Jorge è un grande saggio, conosce un’infinità di opere a memoria che ha appreso in gioventù, prima di rimanere cieco. Gli amanuensi e persino il tetro bibliotecario Malachia fanno riferimento a lui, quando si tratta di individuare un libro raro nell’immensa biblioteca. E quindi, poiché tutti hanno molto rispetto per Jorge, la risata viene soffocata e i monaci ritornano al lavoro.
Guglielmo scuote la testa, sospirando.
Glossario
orto: vegetables and herb garden
amanuensi: scribe, amanuensis
sgraziato: graceless
torva: gloomy
improbabili: unlikely
vergogna!: shame on you!
peccaminosa: sinful
rimugina: dwells, broods over
Esercizio
Vero o Falso?
1. Guglielmo conosce Severino nell’orto.
2. Severino esita parecchio prima di rispondere alle domande di Guglielmo.
3. Berengario è il vicebibliotecario.
4. Severino parla apertamente e non è per nulla in imbarazzo.
5. I copisti sono tutti colleghi di Adelmo.
6. Malachia ha un’aria inquietante e non gradisce le visite.
7. Jorge guarda tutti negli occhi e li ammonisce severamente.
8. I monaci nutrono grande rispetto per il vecchio confessore cieco.
Soluzioni | Back to Italian Literature page
Daniel says
Buondì, book-clubbers!
Today’s article ( https://onlineitalianclub.com/bottom-up-or-top-down/ ) contains a challenge for you:
“Have a day without a dictionary, see how you get on.”
Personally, I almost never use a dictionary when I’m reading.
I’m getting through ‘Rosa’ at a rate of about 10 pages an hour, quicker if it’s pacy stuff. I’d read faster if it were in English, but not that much faster. Maybe 50% quicker.
But if I stopped to look up everything I didn’t know?
I’d be banging my head against the wall in frustration. And I’d still be half-way through the ‘Prologo’, probably, instead of at the end of ‘Quarto giorno’.
Try a day with no dictionary and see how that changes things.
The ‘why’ is explained here: https://onlineitalianclub.com/bottom-up-or-top-down/
Buona lettura!
Killian O Donnell says
You are right. There! I find that when I stop to look up words – and I do- not only is the flow broken but the words I look up are almost immediately forgotten, since I just want to get on with the text – and feel an obscure resentment towards the unknown vocabulary for putting a stop to my gallop-not exactly an ideal frame of mind for learning.
Regards
Killian
Daniel says
You are right.
Thanks Killian, you made my day.
Earlier, a particularly irritating woman emailed to ask why I needed to be so verbose about telling people the obvious advice that they should look up words they don’t know in a dictionary…
Sigh.
Mandy Kennedy says
I decided yesterday to just read and not worry too much about what I didn’t understand and I finished these pages much more quickly but still grasped what was going on. When I read in English I don’t read every word but tend to skim read bits that I find a bit boring and I’m now using this technique in Italian, although maybe for a slightly different reason. I am not enjoying it more and finding it easier going. In fact I’m looking forward to getting back to it. I rarely remember the words I look up anyway! Thanks Daniel. This is something I wouldn’t have dreamt of doing without your book club.
Daniel says
I decided yesterday to just read and not worry too much about what I didn’t understand and I finished these pages much more quickly but still grasped what was going on.
BRAVA Mandy!
Ann Dobson says
Hi Daniel. I am really enjoying these extracts from ‘Il nome della rosa’. I am so pleased that I understand most of the text and there are some new words that I have learned in the process. I tend to read through each paragraph and then translate it to see if I have understood it correctly, subsequently recording the new words I have encountered. I would just like to say thank you for providing this for your readers to read. I am intending buying the Kindle version of the book now.
Thank you again, and keep safe in these unprecedented times.
Wendy Hartnell says
I am truely trying the ‘no dictionary’ approach. It’s a bit quicker, although I don’t look up much anyway and I use an Italian language dictionary on the Kindle (which is sometimes a bit frustrating if I don’t understand the definition either). I know I’m missing some detail though. There was a lovely description of drawings in the margins of a manuscript before I gave up the dictionary crutch and I would have missed it completely without looking things up. Happy to skim read some of the long theological discussions though.
I’m a bit ahead so will have time to go back and read the summaries which are more my level.
Wendy Hartnell says
Probably being dim but if we’re not supposed to use a dictionary, why do the summaries have glossaries?
Daniel says
Because the ‘riassunti’ (and our simplified easy readers in general) are learning tools, whereas the book is…um… a book. They are designed for different purposes, Wendy.
While the ‘riassunti’ can be seen as a story to be read (personally, I always ignore the glossaries and the tasks), they are written and often used as study material.
In contrast, one assumes that anyone attempting to read Eco’s text in the original Italian either IS Italian, and a well-educated one at that, or like you and I, will need to employ an approach that will permit them to enjoy the bulk of the story while getting through it in a reasonable amount of time and without herculean effort.
Wendy Hartnell says
Ah, thanks, thar makes sense.
Lynne F says
Capitolo 3 and yes it is getting easier.! Your suggestion to read on regardless was difficult at first but once you get into that mind set it becomes more natural. Reading in any language is complex and many skills need to be learned, Comprehension usually the last. So although an avid and fluent reader in English when it comes to reading in Italian I have accepted that I my skills are as yet not so highly developed. Thanks again for this Daniel
Daniel says
It should be just a question of degree, Lynne. If you allow it to be the same process (reading in English, reading in Italian) it will be. The trick is to remember that ‘reading’ and ‘studying’ are not the same things. ‘Reading’ and ‘learning’, though…
Judy Atkinson says
I have really been enjoying listening to the RAI audiobook of this as it is so dramatic but it is abridged, A day or so ago someone mentioned they were listening to the audiobook read by Tommaso Ragno. I’ve listened to some of the sample which seems to be the first narrator’s explanation about how he came across the early sources for the text and therefore is a little flat to listen to. Is this version equally dramatic when you get to the main story and is it unabridged?
Thanks Daniel for finding the RAI version – much easier to stick to the rule of not looking things up when I have a voice reading and conveying meaning through tone. I’ve also found RAI versions of other books I have read/want to read.
Daniel says
I didn’t find the RAI version… I just passed it on when someone else mentioned it.
Margaret says
I totally agree about not using a dictionary – if I’d stopped whenever I found a new word, I would have given up by now, I ‘m sure. I’ve also started ignoring any Latin, even though I did it at school and grew up a Catholic in days when the Mass was in Latin, it can’t be important!
Sreph says
Something magical happens when I push through. and just keep reading without stopping – I start to think in Italian! And a lot of cognates suddenly jump out at me! I actually am understanding far more words than when I stopped to translate because the text is no longer fragmented.
Yay!
Daniel says
Understanding comes at different levels (think of the jokes aimed at adults in kids’ films), and in waves or cycles in time – the more you engage, the more you understand. Eco’s book has this built right in – the further you get into it, the more everything starts to become familiar. A bit like the labyrinth!
But there’s nothing magical about reading, assuming you’re doing it right (and it sounds like you now are, Steph!) It’s a skill we’ve spent a large part of our lives perfecting, though not one that is well-understood. Which is why people commonly make tactical errors when beginning to read in a foreign tongue (focusing on word, phrase or sentence-level meaning instead of looking to ‘follow’…)
Mary says
I agree that it is better to try and go with the flow rather that translate. When I find words/phrases I don’t understand I think of the context, imagine the scene and how the monks might behave and speak. It works for me!
(I am reading from a Kindle version as well. My Kindle tells me I have now read 16%. I have just finished “Primo giorno-Dopo Nona-dove si visita lo scriptorium” The next section begins “Primo giorno. Vespri” )
Daniel says
You’ve lots of fun to come then, Mary.
I think I’m about to start day five, and rather regretting only having 20% or so more to read…
Wendy Hartnell says
I’m at about the same point Mary.
Actually my London Italian tutor uses a similar technique. When we watch a video we don’t understand she gets us to imagine what’s happening. It felt strange at first but after a while I realised it got us talking.
I’ve managed to go all today without looking up words!
There’s something a bit strange about my Kindle version though. Quite often it says ‘vi’ where I expect ‘ci’. I don’t know if this is an oddity of Kindle or formal Italian.
Happy reading.
Daniel says
If you can quote a line or two as an example, Wendy, someone might know. Or I can ask my wife.
Wendy Hartnell says
Thanks Daniel. I’ve seen loads – but am now reading them as ‘ci’
‘Vi sono momenti magici ‘, che vi si avvinasse’, ‘nell’abbazia vi sono molte altre personne’
Apologies for any typos – I can’t work out how to turn off auto-correct.
Wendy
Rosalind says
“vi” is often used to mean there, instead of “ci”. Eg the ‘sentence which starts : Vi sono momenti magichi.
Wendy Hartnell says
Ah, that might be it! Hadn’t come across that before.
Thanks.
Sylvia May says
I understand that the ‘voi’ form was used instead of the Lei form as the polite form of address. Unfortunately, I don’t know a lot about this, as my understanding goes only as far as being warned that some older people might use the voi form instead, and I seem to remember this being particularly so in the South of Italy. Anyone out there can help me further? I don’t have a lot of time for Google-surfing at present, and realise that this is something I’ve been wanting to look up for a while. I only remembered when I realised that this seemed to be happening in the book…
Chris says
Reading the book itself on a Kindle app and now also reading the reassunti. After reading Daniel’s mail yesterday Bottom- up, top- down? (Yes you are totally right!!! lol)
I took the no dictionary challenge.
Yes I was getting frustrated having to keep stopping to look up vocab and then still didn’t quite get some of the text meaning.
So now no dictionary and feel I understand more. . It’s getting easier !
I’m liking Guglielmo. He has this calm wisdom about him.
Ann Dobson says
That’s what I am doing too. Using the summary alongside the actual book, without looking up everything. This is definitely helping me get a better grasp of the text and giving me a little more confidence to have a go!
Bryanne says
Sometimes reading the text aloud helps me grasp the significance of a word or phrase don’t understand….
Angela Sprotte says
In learning new languages, I have also always used your method and found it perfect for me. . For my students I suggested that they only looked up words if they encountered them more than five times and still couldn’t work out the meaning-this seemed to satisfy most.. Another tactic I used was to get them to choose 5 words from a chapter that they really wanted to remember and to create exercises for the rest of the class using them. ( I worked in teacher training) Am really enjoying the challengeand just wish that speaking was as easy as reading!!!
Daniel says
The speaking IS as easy as the reading, Angela, if you are willing to adjust your expectations and measure progress accordingly.
Nobody much thinks – “I don’t know this language hardly at all. I know! I’ll do 100 hours of conversation with a native speaker”, but in fact, that’s more or less all it takes – the willingness to engage, and the patience to allow enough time for the brain to do the stuff it is pre-programmed to do. I manage 55 minutes of (mostly) Turkish conversation each week, plus 30 in Swedish and 30 in Spanish. My spoken ability in each language, if traced on a graph, went from close to zero (or actually zero) to much, much better in not much more than a dozen or so online meetings.
I worked in teacher training too, once. So what I write about in these articles is not ‘my method’ but what I would assume to be fairly standard practice in language-teaching. Unfortunately, most students (and many teachers) have no idea what standard practice is, so there’s still a need for someone to repeat the obvious, that you and I know well, that skills development is a different process from learning new vocabulary, and that it’s important to understand that these things are different and can therefore clash. Getting distracted by unknown words can/will reduce the benefit gained from doing the reading.
Teacher-training was fun, but my main takeaway was meeting my wife (still together, 23 years later), who was a teaching-practice trainee in one of the groups I supervised. She remembers me giving feedback on observed lessons using the phrase “Well, it wasn’t a total disaster…”
Simeon Underwood says
Daniel — I suppose that,, because of the very large overlap in vocabularies between English and Italian, it may be easier to read Italian texts without a dictionary than it is texts in other languages (would you try this approach if you were reading novels in Turkish or Swedish) ? But you then need to be careful about the possibility of ‘false friends’, and I do want to thank my dictionary (or at least the dictionary app on my i-phone) for a new one I found at the end of ‘Primo Giorno — Vespri’ (p.113 of my edition): “… l’ufficio dei vespri era terminato. I servi tornavano alle loro mansioni prima di ritrarsi per la cena …”: which doesn’t mean that the Abbey is so rich that even the servants live in mansions ! Sometimes the textual/linguistic detail is fun too. But that is not to say that I disagree with the approach you are recommending, especially in this case.
On the scene in the Scriptorium, — the way that Jorge bursts onto the scene (p.98) reminds me very much of the way the evil Scarpia bursts into act 1 of ‘the opera Tosca’. There is levity going on in a holy place; then without any warning even of his presence Jorge/Scarpia thunders out a single line,in “una voce solenne e severa”; and the mood music changes completely.
Daniel says
Ciao Simeon,
Arguably, and I don’t have any research on hand to back this up with, just my experience as a learner, false friends are the EASIEST things to learn without looking in a dictionary.
Using your example:
“l’ufficio dei vespri era terminato. I servi tornavano alle loro mansioni prima di ritrarsi per la cena”
Now, what could that mean??
“The vespers service was over. The servants?? people attending?? went back to their XXX before meeting up?? again for dinner.”
So XXX is obviously not ‘mansions’. What about ‘jobs’, ‘tasks’, ‘duties’, then? N.b. mark ‘mansioni’ with a red flag for next time.
Easy.
N.b. “I live in a palazzo in the centre.”
Assuming you already know that I’m not a royal, ‘palazzo’ = palace? building? Have a wild guess.
False friends, in my humble opinion, are easy.
Here are two from the book club text that I’ve worked out, just through reading, without using a dictionary:
‘lussuria’ = ?
‘misericordia’ = ?
Any time something just doesn’t make sense, then your brain will likely start to puzzle over it, and eventually supply a more coherent suggestion as to what the meaning could be.
Buona pasqua!
Elsa says
Further to your article “Bottom-up or top-down” ( I don’t have the book ), I followed your instructions reading the Riassunto for chapter 3. All my answers to the questions were correct which made me feel very pleased with myself. I then went back and counted 8 words I hadn’t known and found 4 of them in the glossary.
Good advice, thank you.
Daniel says
Prego!
People invariably ignore the fact that you can pass a C2 (top level) reading exam with just 60% or 70% of the correct answers.
We don’t evaluate comprehension in terms of perfect (100%) understanding because 1.) there is no such thing as understanding EVERYTHING (Umberto Eco illustrates this very well in the book) and 2.) the evaluation tasks can be more or less difficult, so making 100% achievable or otherwise.
Judge yourself by your success in the task, or by your own standards, whatever those may be. But not by ‘understanding everything’, or you’ll be fearful ever to try.
Buona pasqua!
Helen Hensley says
I am with you Elsa – I did exactly the same, but only scored 6 out of 8. Although I must say I was of two minds about the two errors.
I am happy with that
Helen
Rosalind says
I loved Adso’s description of Guglielmo’s spectacles. It actually took me a while to understand what it was he was describing but you get a good feel for his wonderment at this new invention. Googling it, they appeared on the scene right at the very end of the 13th C so Guglielmo was certainly amongst the first to use them.
Jane R says
Ciao Daniel and fellow book clubbers.
Thank you for organising this Daniel. I am reading both the short riassunti, which I find very useful, and the real book on kindle. I’m also trying to avoid using the dictionary as it would become a very slow and disjointed read if I looked up all the words I don’t know.
Rob Lee says
Hi Daniel, I had a look at the emails from capitolo 2 and mine is still the last one so I am presuming I am on my own at the back of the field – probably everyone else has had their shower, gone home, had dinner and are tucked up in bed – with a good book! Still enjoying the slow pace leeting the story unfold. The characters are really interesting and it has a feeling of something building. Onwards and upwards.