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From: Chase mel99 11/5/99
Date: 11/5/99
Time: 9:14:29 AM
Remote Name: 130.68.51.70
What is most interesting in the opening segment of the novel is that Eco refers to the Soviet troops chasing him and many others from the city of Prague. I find it difficult to establish in my mind whether Eco is relating the Soviets to the evil Papal forces found in The Name of the Rose, or to the Dulcinians who, while they were considered heretics, were also in essence embracing an ideal that was dear to all. The Dulcinians, like the Soviet communists, were based on some of the ideas of St. Francis (a.k.a. Karl Marx), but became twisted by the idea of violent overthrow. Neither Francis nor Marx, while indicating need for great change, advocated violence, though Marx thought the upheaval of oppression by the working class was necessary. And so, because they were felt to be a threat to the dominant way of life, the Dulcinians and the Soviets were deemed heretics or enemies of state and were threatened and indeed hunted into extinction. There are no more Soviets, so we have had to make up new heretics to kill. There is never a shortage.