The Name of the Rose - and The Adventure of the Devil's Foot

[Bruce N H]

Hi all,

When William visits the glasier on day 1 there is a conversation about the lights in the library at night, and the glasier says "I think those lamps are prepared for visions" and then proceeds to describe how different candles and lamps can cause anyone who inhales the smoke to see horrific visions.

Spoiler: spoiler for day 2

And when William and Adso explore the library at the end of day 2, Adso is overcome by just such a lamp.

. Anyway, I've found a possible inspiration for Eco.

My wife's recently gotten us into the 80's UK adaptation of Sherlock Holmes starring Jeremy Brett - these aired in the US on PBS and you can now find many of them on YouTube. Anyway, we watched the Adventure of the Devil's Foot (here), where there are two incidents where people die or are driven insane in closed rooms with no apparent cause. Holmes deduces that something was burned in the fireplace in the first case and a lamp in the second. He finds some unburned material (of what turns out to be the Devils foot root) and convinces Watson to try an experiment where they burn this to see if there is any effect. Here's Watson's description from the story (which you can find here):

At the very first whiff of it my brain and my imagination were beyond all control. A thick, black cloud swirled before my eyes, and my mind told me that in this cloud, unseen as yet, but about to spring out upon my appalled senses, lurked all that was vaguely horrible, all that was monstrous and inconceivably wicked in the universe. Vague shapes swirled and swam amid the dark cloud-bank, each a menace and a warning of something coming, the advent of some unspeakable dweller upon the threshold, whose very shadow would blast my soul. A freezing horror took possession of me. I felt that my hair was rising, that my eyes were protruding, that my mouth was opened, and my tongue like leather. The turmoil within my brain was such that something must surely snap. I tried to scream and was vaguely aware of some hoarse croak which was my own voice, but distant and detached from myself. At the same moment, in some effort of escape, I broke through that cloud of despair and had a glimpse of Holmes’s face, white, rigid, and drawn with horror—the very look which I had seen upon the features of the dead. It was that vision which gave me an instant of sanity and of strength. I dashed from my chair, threw my arms round Holmes, and together we lurched through the door, and an instant afterwards had thrown ourselves down upon the grass plot and were lying side by side, conscious only of the glorious sunshine which was bursting its way through the hellish cloud of terror which had girt us in.

Anyway, it seems that Eco wasn't just finding inspiration for the characters of William and his chronicler Adso in the Holmes stories, but also plot elements as well. I'll be curious to see if there are any other things from the Holmes canon that find there way into this story.

Bruce