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Umberto Eco. Serendipities: Language and Lunacy. William Weaver, tr. New York. Columbia University Press. 1998. ix + 129 pages. $19.95. ISBN 0-231-11134-7.
For Umberto Eco's faithful readers, this relatively short book may not be a surprise. Most of the content of the five chapters that make up Serendipities ("The Force of Falsity," "Language in Paradise," "From Marco Polo to Leibniz," "The Language of the Austral Land," and "The Linguistics of Joseph De Maistre") have appeared, at least in part, in some of Eco's previous writings, including in his encyclopedic fictions. Nevertheless, even for dedicated Eco readers these casual essays on the origin of language and on the search for the perfect language (see Eco's Search for a Perfect Language, 1993) remain informative, instructive, and entertaining.
Once again we see the master of docere et delectare who can tackle linguistic and philosophical issues exploiting historical and scientific data combined with literary and fictional stories and anecdotes. This talent is also brilliantly demonstrated in Kant e l'ornitorinco (1998), Eco's latest thoughts on linguistic and semiotic notions first...