Petike the Taffer on 6/6/2009 at 08:49

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They're mainly in TDS, the Keeper Compound mission. It's on of my favourites, I played it a lot, and there were one or two things that struck me as... somewhat familiar...

It seems there are some possible direct references to Eco's novel, that we haven't noticed before. It wouldn't be all that surprising, considering the NotR was cited as an important source of inspiration for LGS and ISA while fleshing out the Keepers and the atmosphere.


The layout of the ancient library building in the NotR looks like this:

https://alibilibrary.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/haft_library.jpg

Notice the octagonal centre. Does it remind you of anything in the KC mission ? That's right - its shape resembles the Grand Council Hall. ;)


Also, in one of the rooms on the upper floor (either the dining room or the one leading to Artemus' flat), there is a note on the table. An older Keeper is furious about some young acolytes reading "The Bafford Chronicles", obviously some sort of humorous prose about you know who:

KCbafford

Keeper Emory, I spied an initiate reading the Bafford Chronicles in the Dining Hall this eve. Such travesties of the written word may have their place in a nobleman's store, but are inappropriate here. The monetary value of this book matters not to a scholar. See to it that the book is removed from the hall and destroyed.

This pretty much mirrors a conversation between William and Adso from NotR, seen in the chapter Day Six, After Terce:

William listened to me in silence, then asked me, Do you know what you have dreamed ? Exactly what I told you I replied, at a loss. Of course, I realize that. But do you know that to a great extent what you tell me has already been written? You have added people and events of these past few days to a picture already familiar to you, because you have read the story of your dream somewhere, or it was told you as a boy, in school, in the convent. It is the Coena Cypriani.
I remained puzzled briefly. Then I remembered. He was right! Perhaps I had forgotten the title, but what adult monk or unruly young novice has not smiled or laughed over the various visions, in prose or rhyme, of this story, which belongs to the tradition of the paschal season and the ioca monachorum? Though the work is banned or execrated by the more austere among novice masters, there is still not a convent in which the monks have not whispered it to one another, variously condensed and revised, (...) others encouraged its circulation because, they said, through its jesting, the young could more easily commit to memory certain episodes of sacred history. (...) And how many scoldings had I received from my masters when, with my companions, I recited passages from it ! I remembered an old friar at Melk who used to say that a, virtuous man like Cyprian could not have written such an indecent thing, such a sacrilegious parody of Scripture, worthier of an infidel and a buffoon than of a holy martyr. ... For years I had forgotten those childish jokes.

Maybe it wasn't intended, but it's still an interesting coincidence anyway. :)


And here's another reference to the appearance of the mysterious ancient library in the film adaptation:

http://www.architecturalpapers.ch/images/articles/75_1_w1000h600.jpg

http://www.thief-thecircle.com/media/paintings/t2-keepers1.jpg

Bridge-like structures connecting the various sections of the inner part.

The novel describes the inner library differently, in a more plain matter.

Petike the Taffer on 6/6/2009 at 09:08

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Of course... ;) I'm just making smart guesses, I'm really not sure, whether there was any intention in this. :D

Beleg Cúthalion on 6/6/2009 at 15:40

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But wasn't the Coena Cypriani the book about poetry/comedy and thus a sort-of scientific piece of work? Or am I mixing it up with the simplified thing from the movie?

By the way, according to Jean-Jacques Annaud (audio commentary IIRC) they discovered during/before shooting that Eco's description of the library and the one-dimensional sketch didn't fit with each other and that the many stairs from the movie are in fact more believeable or rather what it was intended to be.

jtr7 on 6/6/2009 at 17:00

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Interesting and fun!:thumb:

Petike the Taffer on 7/6/2009 at 00:39

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Probably mixing it up with that long lost copy of Aristotle's Poetica (or what was it called), containing the chapters about humour and laughter that Jorge so despised. The Coena Cypriani is apparently another piece of unrelated literature, some sort of frivolous educational semi-parody containing biblical symbolism and references. Well, at least according to the book. Adso doesn't even have the weird dream in the movie version, so the whole part about the Coena Cypriani inspiring his dreams is left out.