Page 1 of 7 Original research Umberto Eco’s The Prague cemetery: A game of double co-incidence Author: Although classified as a literary novel with a fictional plot, The Prague cemetery is crammed 1 Maria Spruyt with historical information on 19th century Europe, with the focus on the rise of anti- Affiliation: Semitism during this period. The overwhelming amount of data has been criticised as 1Research Fellow, distracting from the plot and creating difficulty for the reader in making sense of the University of Zululand, storyline. This article examines the role of the reader in deciphering the twisting of historic South Africa events and fiction inThe Prague cemetery, that is, a literary text packed tight with historical Correspondence to: data intertwined with a fictional story, loaded with signs, symbols and hidden meanings Maria Spruyt that have to be decoded. It is demonstrated, firstly, that a Model Reader with encyclopaedic knowledge will be able to decode the hidden meanings in the text; secondly, that the Email: nonmodel, or empirical reader, who does not actualise all of the meaning-content, will not [email protected] be hindered in his understanding of the story and thirdly, that the author’s intentions will Postal address: duly be accomplished. PO Box 39, Thornhill Plaza 0882, South Africa Dates: Umberto Eco se The Prague cemetery: ‘n Spel van die dubbelsinnigheid en toeval. Umberto Received: 04 Aug. 2014 Eco se The Prague cemetery is wyd gekritiseer oor die digtheid van die inhoud, wat sentreer om Accepted: 01 Apr. 2015 die geskiedenis van Europa in die 19de eeu en die opkoms van anti-Semitisme in daardie tyd. Published: 19 June 2015 Die groot hoeveelheid data kan die leser oorweldig sodat die storielyn dalk daaronder kan ly. How to cite this article: Hierdie artikel ondersoek die rol van die leser, wat sin moet maak van ’n teks, waarin tekens, Spruyt, M., 2015, ‘Umberto simbole en verskuilde betekenisse gedekodeer moet word, maar ook die storielyn moet kan Eco’s The Prague cemetery: A volg. Daar word eerstens aangedui dat die modelleser met ensiklopediese kennis in staat sal game of double co-incidence’, wees om die verskuilde betekenisse te dekodeer; tweedens, dat die niemodelleser, wat nie al Literator 36(1), Art. #1146, 7 pages. http://dx.doi. die inligting kan absorbeer nie, die storie tog nog sal kan geniet en derdens, dat die doelwit org/10.4102/lit.v36i1.1146 van die skrywer ontsluit sal word deur blootlegging van die verskuilde betekenis wat die teks onderlê. Copyright: © 2015. The Authors. Licensee: AOSIS OpenJournals. This work is Introduction licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution To Umberto Eco, professor of semiotics and master of codes, signs and hidden meanings, as License. well as conspiracies are favourite subjects mainly ‘because of the paranoia that allows them to flourish’. In an interview with Stephen Moss (2011) he says that the paranoia of the universal conspiracy is more powerful because it is everlasting. ‘You can never discover it because you don’t know who is there. It is a psychological temptation of our species.’ The theme of a Zionist conspiracy in The Prague cemetery (2011) is not new. In Foucault’s pendulum (1988) Eco unveils a plot by secret societies to take over the world. Anthony Burgess of the New York Times (1989) describes it is as ‘an encyclopaedic detective story about a search for ... men who not merely seek power over the earth but power of the earth itself’. Like conspiracies in general the novel is a formidable collection of information. The Prague cemetery is no less so. According to Moss (2011) it is ‘a gathering of complex artifacts of Eco’s postmodern aesthetic at work in a traditional literary form featuring the forgery of The protocols of the elders of Zion’. Moss asked the author why the protocols seems to interest him: ‘From lies to forgeries the step is not so long, and I have written technical essays on the logic of forgeries and on the influence of forgeries on history. The most famous and terrible of those forgeries is the Protocols’ (Moss 2011). The Prague cemetery also brings into the play the conventions applied in Eco’s graphic novel The mysterious flame of queen Loana(Eco 2005; Spruyt 2009). In the blurb on the back cover of The Prague Read online: cemetery the novel is pronounced to be ‘an inspired twisting of history and fiction’; a literary Scan this QR code with your exercise in an historical setting. As in Queen Loana the text is interlaced with graphic images smart phone or so that the reader not only have to contend with the elements of fiction (plot, character, theme, mobile device to read online. setting), but also with historical events combined with graphic art. The author uses a narrative formula, combining intertexts and writing to explore certain historical events from a specific era. http://www.literator.org.za doi:10.4102/lit.v36i1.1146 Page 2 of 7 Original research These events form the background against which another assumes the semantic actualisation of everything that the narrative unfolds, that of a fictitious character who becomes text means, as a strategy, with the cooperation of a reader involved in the historical events of the time so that disparate with ideological (encyclopaedic) competence (Eco 1985:237). influences are consolidated into a postmodern historical and Hammack (2014) describes literary texts as fields of meaning, literary format. and these are understood as open, internally dynamic and psychologically engaged fields between mind, society and This article explores the role of the reader (Eco 1979) and the life, while literature that limits one’s potential understanding Model Reader (Eco 1984) in making meaning of a literary to a single interpretation, is a closed text. text. The article demonstrates that the Model Reader, with encyclopaedic knowledge, would be able to identify signs in Interpreting a text the text that require a reinterpretation of the surface meaning, and by uncovering the intentions in the text, he will also be Guillemette and Cossette (2006) refer to the concept of an discovering the author’s intention. The not so competent empirical reader, who ‘deduces a model image of something reader, on the other hand, would still be able to enjoy a good that has previously been verified as an act of utterance and story. which is textually present as an utterance’ (Eco 1985:80– 81). This reader views the text pragmatically and will, for instance, find publicly displayed structures he recognises A theory of signs from the story, even though they might have been the In The theory of signs and the role of the reader (1981) Eco inventions of the author. The ideological reader, or Model describes a theory of communication as linked to a theory of Reader (developed by Peirce, 1931, cited by Guillemette & signification, and a theory of signification, in the first place, Cossette 2006), has the ability to fill in gaps in the story to as a theory of signs. A sign becomes meaningful only when it the best of his knowledge, using his encyclopaediae, social is inserted within a larger context (Eco 1981:37). Through the background, cultural conventions and knowledge of the process of interpretation, the context of the sign grows. In a world. The author in fact anticipates a Model Reader who text more can be said than what one proposes and something is able to cooperate in the text’s actualisation in a specific new can always be said, because signs are the starting-point of manner, and who is also able to deal interpretively with the a process of interpretation which leads to an infinite series of text in the same way as the author produced the text (Eco progressive consequences (Eco 1981:44). To understand how 1979:7). a text can be generated and interpreted, one needs a set of semantico-pragmatic rules, organised by an encyclopaedia- However, as Guillemette and Cossette (2006) point out, like semantic representation, which establishes how and although the Model Reader is created by the text, he is not under which conditions the reader is entitled to collaborate the one who owns the only correct interpretation. A text may in actualising what the text really says (Eco 1981:43); so the count on a Model Reader who is capable of trying out several text becomes an extension of a virtual text that consists of the interpretations when he is confronted with several fabula or reader’s world knowledge, or an encyclopaedia-like set of possible worlds. The Model Reader, in essence, is ‘a textually information that allows him to make further inferences. What established set of felicity conditions [...] to be met in order to the reader has to do, is look for possible contexts to make have a macro-speech act (such as a text is) fully actualized’ the original impression understandable and reasonable. The (Eco 1979:11). The Model Reader actualises the meaning of very nature of signs postulate an active role on the part of everything that the textual strategy intends to say. On the their interpreter – he has an essential function in the process other hand, if the reader’s ideological competence includes of making meaning of the text. It becomes a process of the opposition of spiritual values (connoted as ‘good’) and textual cooperation, a process that is more than the sum of cultural conventions (‘bad’), he will be inclined to actualise the author’s words and the reader’s meaning (Eco 1981:29). the textual content in a certain manner. The text might apprehend this competence and lead the Model Reader to establish more complex structures than this simple form The text and possible worlds of opposition (Guillemette & Cossette 2006).