From bestiality to Beyoncé: Umberto Eco waxes lyrical in a final interview
Three months before he died, the Italian literary giant and professor of semiotics took Gaby Wood on a whirlwind tour of his thoughts, which touch on everything from bestiality to Beyoncé.
Umberto Eco, the Italian philosopher who wrote bestselling novels including The Name of the Rose, died on February 19, aged 84. This interview was first published in November last year.
When Dan Brown published The Da Vinci Code, in 2003, Umberto Eco didn't think, as others did, that Brown had ripped off his own earlier bestsellers. Eco went one step further: he took credit for inventing Brown altogether.
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At 83, Eco has the physical appearance of a long-term armchair detective. When I arrive at the London hotel bar where we have arranged to meet, he already looks well settled. Eco orders steak tartare and a couple of glasses of chablis.
At first I feel I have positioned myself for a tutorial with the great professor, whose heavily accented English immediately suggests a commanding performance. But the background music is so loud that Eco is forced to lean sideways towards me, and I'm afraid he will spill out of his chair.
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Our conversation takes in, through no plan of mine, subjects ranging from Agatha Christie to sex with animals, and a comparison of fascist Italian leader Benito Mussolini with Beyoncé.
Later, I realise that its faintly absurdist quality must have been partly due to the fact that Eco, tired of asking me to repeat my question, had occasionally decided to answer a different one.