It may take the passage of time to answer the question in the title of this review but, for myself, the answer is a resounding "Yes". I have read and re-read this amazing book so many times did I have lost count! I admire the work on many levels, the least important being its guise as a mystery. I believe it can be in many different ways interepreted Because it has so much to offer. In my opinion it is Actually a book about books and Their Influence through History and Ultimately about the censorship of the ideas found in books. Fear of ideas and books is at the heart of the murders and is the reason for the ultimate catastrophe - the burning of the monastery library. Jorge de Burgos takes upon himself the role of censor and the logical outcome of his worldview is murder and destruction. (Echoes of Nazism, perhaps?) It is therefore a book about the effects ideas have lived out in When people's lives, how a good idea, as St. Francis Search 'love of poverty, can become twisted by fanaticism. It is thus filled with a sly sense of humor (the resemblance of the William of Baskerville / Adso duo to Sherlock Holmes / Dr. Watson is one example). As an art historian I was highly amused to read St. Bernard of Clairvaux's condemnation of the artistic milieux of the Abbey of Cluny quoted just where it ought to be, as a commentary on the decoration of the Abbey Church. So amusing is the idea of this fictional monastery as a microcosm of the emerging European Union, with representative monks from many countries on hand. The scholarly debates have much to say to our contemporary world, for, at Their base, They are oft current still. HOWEVER, I do agree with some of the criticisms about the lack of Expressed explanatory notes. For Those Without the Necessary background in languages and a reasonably good knowledge of medieval history it may indeed by a Toughbook to get involved in, as I have found in the case of friends To Whom I have recommended the book. But for anyone With That knowledge, and For Those without it Who are willing to persevere, this has to be one of the greatest books written in the 20th century, if not the greatest. It Is Certainly the most magical.
