You may or may not know my name – I am Marshall Blonsky and once had the audacity to publish a book in homage to Barthes, called “American Mythologies.” Eco was my teacher and indeed friend and were it not for him, my first book “On Signs” would not have seen the (presumptive) light from the readers’ eyes.

I just saw “Angels and Demons,” and had the sense 1) that I was rereading “Foucault’s Pendulum,” as Eco himself has remarked, and 2) that perhaps Dan Brown was trying (miserably) to write on semiotics.

But what I find hard to believe is that Brown would dare to plagiarize Eco. I was wondering if you would specify a bit where,in FP, the plagiarized words have been acquired?

Actually, I don’t know this website, but would like to. I came on it by a Google search for “Umberto Eco Dan Brown.”

I share your surprise at the lack of uproar over Brown’s apparent plagiarism of Dr. Eco’s novel. Dr. Eco’s work could never be as popular as Brown’s because of “Pendulum”‘s more experimental narrative structure and more satisfyingly literary bent. Eco’s work has moments of poetry where Brown’s works only as “an American thriller,” a fascinating bit of prescience uttered by one of the characters in “Pendulum.”

Michael

I believe Mr. Eco is all too kind in his remarks about Dan Brown’s DaVinci Code. To me the are definite smacks of plagarism throughout much of the first half of this book, and no one has taken exception to this.

Am I alone taking this position?

-BAA