Umberto Eco, in Confessions of a Young Novelist, explains that whatever postmodernism might be, he employs at least two typical postmodern techniques. One of these is double coding, a term coined by the architect Charles Jencks, defined as the concurrent use of intertextual irony and an implicit metanarrative appeal. Eco offers as an example the opening of The Name of the Rose, which claims to be based on a rediscovered medieval text. This device draws on a well-known literary commonplace but also suggests, through an invented nineteenth-century translation, a justification for the neo-Gothic elements present in the novel. Readers aware of this regression of sources encounter a narrative shaped by ambiguity, while those less familiar with the tradition may simply experience the surface story.
Eco acknowledges that employing double coding creates a kind of silent complicity with the sophisticated reader, but he denies that this constitutes an act of literary elitism. Rather, he argues that literature should provoke and inspire rereading, and that respecting the intelligence and curiosity of the reader is part of that aim.
The first sections of Confessions of a Young Novelist offer a personal insight into Eco’s writing practice and an idiosyncratic analysis of fiction’s peculiar effects. Questions such as why readers are moved by fictional characters, even while knowing they do not exist, provide a framework for deeper reflection. The final section, a compressed essay on lists, feels more like a supplement than an extension of the central enquiry, but the earlier essays are substantial enough to sustain prolonged consideration.
>Love the question and while I do not presume to know the answer, I have often suspected that we are sometimes more in touch with our humanity when we deal with that which is not real or of grave importance personally. We may cry for a fictional character as an expression of our own fears for ourselves that might be too awkward or painful to face directly. To connect to a broad humanistic expression brings one closer to one's self without the boldness of self-scrutiny.
>It is one of the great attractions to fiction, this ability to consider situations and our response at one remove.You would find much to enjoy in this little book, Frances. The highlight is the lecture on how and why readers find many fictional characters so 'real'. There is also a good section on readers discovering content and themes that were unintended or unknown to the writer.