Book review: The Infinity of Lists, Umberto Eco

Published on Saturday 28 November 2009 00:23

THE INFINITY OF LISTS Umberto Eco Maclehose Press, £35

IT'S slightly cheeky for this book to purport to be "by" Umberto Eco, the influential philosopher of language and author of the wonderful novels The Name Of The Rose and Foucault's Pendulum (and a few others, but of them least said is soonest mended). Less than 70 of its 400 pages are written by Eco, and many of them are copious quotations from other writers. It would be franker if this book had been billed as "curated by" Umberto Eco; indeed, it is based on a series of events which Eco was invited to co-ordinate and select by the Louvre this month. This grumble should not, however, be taken as a discouragement to potential buyers. The theme of Eco's programme was lists, and the book, in essence, is a lavish, curious catalogue about catalogues.

As an earnest semiotician, Eco starts by suggesting a distinction between finite lists that can be completed and lists that can never be completed and extend ad infinitum – the kind that can only ever end with etcetera. His chosen metaphors for the two are images on the Shield of Achilles, described in Book XVIII of The Iliad, and the immense roll-call of Greek ships in Book II. It is a dichotomy that buckles under the merest intellectual pressure, and the rest of the book is a pleasant trauchle through all the anomalies, exceptions and contradictions of his theory. It allows Eco to take in the thesaurus and the labyrinth, the Wunderkammer – or cabinet of curiosities, a precursor of the museum – and the internet.

What makes the book such a pleasure are the pictures and extracts Eco uses to propound his vague thesis, and I would have given a page of ruminations for a few concise words of his delight in these. Eco has always had an eclectic, esoteric mind, and a meander around the byways of his brain is a joy indeed. Among the literary oddities are lots of mucky, witty Rabelais; Mark Twain's list of what Tom Sawyer gets in exchange for allowing his friends to whitewash the fence; The Supper of Cyprianus (a weird medieval poem about all the characters in the Bible having a dinner party: no-one knows if it is a parody or an aide-memoire to monks); and a list of alchemical substances from 1758. Art-wise, there are baroque ceiling paintings and Dadaist collages, a wonderful 12th century Noah's Ark (that seems to include two hydras and a pair of sphinxes) and a stunning piece by Ronan-Jim Svellec – although, frustratingly, the note doesn't say if it's part of one of his weird, decrepit doll's houses.

There's also a lot of Dal, which seems appropriate. Like Dal, Eco is instantly recognisable, immensely popular and an easy introduction to "modern" art. I loved them both, when I was a teenager.

• This article first appeared in the 29 November edition of Scotland on Sunday