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Comment by wobbleblob | Hacker News Reader

That book made me feel stupid and uneducated. There was hardly a paragraph without a word I had to look up or a reference I couldn't get. The translator utterly defeated me. I never finished it.

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I guess it's a matter of perspective, but my first read was similar, and it made me feel smart.

I actually listed all the words I had to look up on a 3x5 index card and used it for a bookmark. I no longer have it but I definitely remember "numinous" was on there, along with many others.

I don't know which translation have you read. The fact is that translators rarely understand all the subtleties of Eco's original, translate it incorrectly and thus the translations are much more confusing than they should be.

English readers were very fortunate to have William Weaver as the translator. Umberto Eco himself said --only half in jest-- that Weaver's translation of the Name of the Rose was better than the original.

Which is the direst critique one can address to any book! It's the book's (and author's) failure, not your own, to be incomprehensible and pedantic.

God bless this way of thinking has come to its end place in the greatest work of American writing ever made: https://xkcd.com/thing-explainer/.

Naa, I was just not the intended audience, and maybe a few decades too young.

If a child cannot understand the scope and themes of, say, Montaigne's Essais, is this a fault of Montaigne's? The Pendulum is similarly loaded with concepts and ideas.

Montaigne isn't pedantic and doesn't use fancy words.

It is a reason for not reading it and worthwhile information.

Your comment however was arrogant and uncalled for.

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