Misreadings

by Umberto Eco

  MISREADINGS .EO^Rt)O: A great Peter named-- jM: Excuse me, Professor Vinci This is a family program, you understand... So if we could stick to the subject . . LEONARDO; Mmm, of course, I'm so sorry. Now then, the caravel exploits the propulsion system known as ventus et vela, that is, wind and sail, and it stays afloat in accord with the principle of Archimedes by which a body immersed in a liquid receives an up- ward impulse equal to the weight of the water dis- placed. The sail, the fundamental element in propulsion, is articulated in three sections, main, mid, and jib. The bowsprit has a special function, coordinating flying jib and staysail, whereas the top- gallant and the spanker operate in an orientative sense. jIM: Does the thalattocraft reach its destination whole, or are certain stages detached during its tra- jectory? LEON^RDO: I'm glad you asked that question, Jim. There's a process of stripping the thalattocraft usually known as "hit and drown." In other words, when a sailor behaves improperly toward the admiral, he receives a blow on the head and is thrown into the sea. This is the moment of the so-called mutiny showdown. In the case of the Santa Maria there have been three hit and drowns, which are exactly what has allowed Admiral Columbus to maintain control of the thalattocraft, with what might be called manual operation--using the hands, in other words. In such instances the admiral has to look sharp and act at precisely the right moment . 138

  The Discovery of America BM: otherwise he loses control of the craft, I understand. Tell me, Professor, what is the technical function of the cabin boy? LEO^RtO: Very important, Jim. It's known tech- nically as the "feedback function." Perhaps our view- ers would get a better idea if we called it the "release valve." ! have devoted considerable study to this problem, and, if you like, I can show the viewers some of my anatomical drawings, which-- jM: Thanks a lot, Professor, but I'm afraid we have to move right along We have a linkup also with the Salamanca studio. Are you there, Willard? WL^Rn: You betcha, Jim. I'm here in Salamanca. Great place, Salamanca! And I've got some brainy guys for you to interview. Really swell people. First I'd like to ask a question of the President of the University of Salamanca. Just stay at that chalk line, Prexy, eh? Now tell us, Doctor, er, what exactly is this America everybody's talking about? ?StET: Nonsense, that's what it is! Horse feathers! w^Rt: Hold on a sec, Prexy. Our experts have written a word. . Con. . Continent. ?stT: Well, I'm sorry for your experts. No, no . I supplied you people with a basic text, the Almagest of Ptolemy-. Check and you'll see that the chances of discovering anything are practically nil. Admiral Columbus apparently thinks he can buscar el levante por el ponente, in other words, sail east to find the West, but his project is absolutely without any scientific foundation. Most people are quite aware that the Earth ends beyond the pillars of Hercules. 139

  MISREADINGS The survival of the three vessels after that boundary is due to a simple televisual effect, the work of the devil. The Columbus case is the obvious result of the weakness of the proper authorities in dealing with student protest, and on this subject I am preparing a book, in fact, for the Bob Jones University Press. But even if such a voyage were possible, the thalat- tocraft would inevitably lack sufficient cruising range, through a shortage of angelic fuel. You see, William, as various councils have taught us, the problem is knowing how many angels can stand on the head of a pin. In the council reports there is no mention of angels standing on the top of a foremast. That would instead be Saint Elmo's fire, and therefore diabolical manifestations unsuited to directing a caravel toward a promised land or terra incognita, however you choose to call it. WLLARI: Yeah, well, this is heavy stuff, and I don't want to get into an argument here. We'll see what the experts have to say, and meanwhile good luck with the great work you're doing at the university! Now we'll hear from a very important expert, a lovely gent who is the Dean of the Royal Society of Cartographers of Portugal. Tell us, Mr. Dean, do you think Columbus is really heading for the Indies ? DEA: That's a tough question, Willard, and Co- lumbus's big mistake is that he's waiting to give an empirical answer instead of working out a definition of the problem through its essence. The fact is, you see, non sunt multiplicanda entia sine necessitate, which leads us to postulate the existence of one and only one India. In that case, Columbus should land 140

  The Discovery of America from the east at the westernmost tip of Asiatic soil, to be precise, at the mouth of the river Ussuri. If this proves to be correct, then his expedition is of no interest whatsoever, given the total political and geo- graphical unimportance of that land. Or he could reach the eastern end of the island of Gipango--I believe you call it "Japan"--in which case the Med- iterranean economy will experience a severe negative counterreaction. Since the people of that island per- versely specialize in producing transistorized imita- tions of the mechanical inventions of others, the market of the seafaring republics will be invaded by thousands of perfectly imitated caravels and at much lower prices. The economy of the republic of Venice will collapse, unless the Doge's authorities provide for the construction of new shipyards at Porto Marghera, but that would have disastrous conse- quences for the ecological balance of the lagoon and the islands . WILLARD: Now we have another super-guest with us here, the Dean of the law school of the University of Granada. He's going to fill us in on the legal aspects of this discovery. A lot of people are won- dering who'll be the owner of these new lands. And the part of the ocean Columbus has crossed, who will that belong to? LAW tEA: The questions of international law raised by this expedition are serious. First of all, there is the problem of a division between Spain and Portu- gal, and I think I am not rushing things when I suggest a summit meeting should be convened, say, at Tordesillas, to establish a theoretical line of de- 141

  MISREADINGS marcation between the spheres of influence uoBa: Excuse me, Willard... This is TV Sforza in Milan. We have a group of distinguished Milanese judges here in the studio, and they don't agree. They say that the problem as stated doesn't make sense. That at that rate you would have to consider another important maritime power, England, and then it is even conceivable that one day the new lands would be divided into Anglo-Saxon, Spanish, and Portu- guese spheres of influence . Pure science fiction, of course! Now I'll turn the line over to Wittenberg. All yours, Johnny! jo�: Here's Wittenberg! Our guest is a young and very smart Augustinian student of theol- ogy here at Wittenberg U. He's considered the white hope of Holy Mother Church, and we have a ques- tion for him. Tell us, Dr. Luther, do you think this landing represents a genuine, lasting revolution in human history? LUa'EU: Let me put it this way: technological rev- olutions aren't the only kind. There are also inner reformations that can have much greater, more dra- matic, thrilling results . . jo�: Brilliant, Doctor... But surely you don't mean to say that in the future inner reformations will make even more of a wave than this great scientific event... ? LVa'Eu: Believe, don't believe . jo�: Ha ha, that's what I'd call sibylline. Just joking, Doc. I'm ready to believe you. My motto is: Believe Firmly and Sin Strongly. Ha ha ha! va'Eu: Clever phrase, that. I'll just make a note. 142

  The Discovery of America JIM: Excuse me, fellows. One moment. I'm getting voices over the audio . It seems land has been sighted . . Yes, now I can hear them clearly. They're shouting, "Land ho!" Can you hear them, Alastair? ALASTAIR: Actually, no. Half a too', I'll check with the Azores. JIM: Yes! Land has definitely been sighted. . The ship's dropping anchor. . They've landed!! Today, October 12, 1492, man has set foot for the first time in the New World. Alastair, what are they saying where you are? ALASTAIR: Well . the latest is that it seems the landing has been postponed for a month, that the land s. ighted was the Aeolian Islands . JIM: No, no, Alastair, I heard it distinctly! DAN: Hello? Yes? Fine. Looks like both Jim and Alastair are right. The ship has definitely dropped anchor, as Jim says, but it still isn't terra firma. It's San Salvador. A little island in the Caribbean archi- pelago, which some geographer has also decided to call the Sea of Tranquillity. But now the camera set on the flagship's figurehead is operational. Now here's Christopher Columbus setting foot on the beach, t
o stick the flag of His Catholic Majesty in the sand! It's a great sight, folks. Among the palm trees a crowd of natives with- feathers in their hair are coming out to meet our thalattonauts. We're now about to hear the first words uttered by man in the New World. They are being uttered by a sailor leading the group, the bosun, Baciccin Parodi . . . PARODI: Mamma mia, Cap'n, look at them tits! JIM: What did he say, Alastair? 143

  MISREADINGS ALASTAIR: I didn't hear very well, but it wasn't what we have in the press kit. One of the en'gin�,ers says it must have been interference. This apparently hap- pens a lot in the New World. Here we are! Admiral Columbus is about to speak! COLUMBUS: A small step for a sailor, a giant step for His Catholic Majesty Hey, what's that they're wearing around their necks? Holy shit, that's gold ! Gold! AL^Sa'^IR: The spectacle the cameras are giving us is truly grand! The sailors are running toward the natives with great leaps, man's first leaps in the New World . . From the necks of the natives they are collecting samples of the New World's minerals, cramming them into big plastic bags . Now the natives are also making great leaps, to get away. Apparently the lesser gravity would cause them to fly off, so the sailors are fastening them to the ground with heavy chains. . Now the natives are all neatly lined up in a civilized way, while the sailors head for the ships with the heavy bags filled with the local mineral. The bags are extremely heavy, and the men have had to make a huge effort to fill them and carry them gI: It's the white man's burden, Alastair! 1968 144

  Make Your Own Movie In 1993, with the final, complete adoption of video cameras even in the offices of the national registry, cinema both commercial and underground was in real trouble. The prise de la parole had by now tranformed moviemaking into a technique within everyone's reach, and everyone was watching his or her own film, deserting the movie theaters. New methods of reproduction and projection in cassettes insertable into the dashboard of the family car had made obsolete the primitive equipment of the avant-garde cin- ema. Numerous handbooks were published on the order of Be Your Own Antonioni. The buyer bought a "plot pattern," the skeleton of a story which he could then fill in from a wide selection of variants. With a single pattern and an accompanying package of variants an individual could make, for example, 15,741 Antonioni movies. Below we reprint the instructions that came with some of these cassettes. The letters refer to the interchangeable elements. For example, the basic Antonioni pattern ("An empty lot. She walks away") can generate "A maze of McDonald's 145

  MISREADINGS with visibility limited due to the sun's glare. He toys for a long time with an object." Etc. Antonioni Scenario An x empty Y lot. z She x y z k k walks away. n Variants Key Two, .three, an infinity of. An enclosure of. A maze of. Empty. As far as the eye can see. With visibility limited due to the sun's glare. Foggy. Blocked by wire-mesh fence. Radioactive. Distorted by wide-angle lens. An island. City. Superhighway cloverleaf. McDonald's. Subway station. Oil field. Levit- town. World Trade Center. Stockpile of pipes. Scaffolding. Car cemetery. Factory area on Sun- day. Expo after closing. Space center on Labor Day. UCLA campus during student protest in Washington. JFK airport. He. Both he and she. Remains there. Toys for a long time with an object. Starts to leave, then stops, puzzled, comes back a couple of paces, then goes off again. Doesn't go away, but the camera dollies back. Looks at the camera without any expression as he touches her scarf. Jean-Luc Godard Scenario He arrives a and then bang b a refinery e explodes. The Americans d make love. e Cannibals f armed with 146

  Make Your Own Movie bazookasg fire h on the railroad. i She falls riddied with btillets m from a rifle. n At mad speed � to Vin- cennesP Cohn-Benditq catches the train r and speaks. s Two men t kill her. u He reads sayings of Mao. v Mon- tesquieu z throws a bomb TM at Diderot. x He kills himself. k He peddles Le Figaro.i The redskins arrive. y b c d e g h Variants Key Is already there reading the sayings of Mao. Lies dead on the superhighway with brains spattered. Is killing himself. Harangues a crowd. Runs along the street. Jumps out of a window. Splash. Splat. Wham. Rat-tat-tat. Mumble mumble. A kindergarten. Notre Dame. Communist Party headquarters. Houses of Parliament. The Parth- enon. The offices of Le Figaro. The Elyse. Paris. The Germans. French paratroopers. Vietnamese. Arabs. Israelis. Police. Do not make love. Indians. Hordes of accountants. Dissident Com- munists. Crazed truck drivers. Yagatan. Copies of Le Figaro. Pirate's sabers. Submachine-guns. Cans of red paint. Cans of blue paint. Cans of yellow paint. Cans of orange paint. Cans of black paint. Picasso paintings. Little red books. Picture postcards. Throw rocks. Bombs. Empty cans of red paint, green paint, blue paint, yellow paint, black paint. Pour some slippery stuff. 147

  MISREADINGS i On the Elyse. On the University of Nanterre. In Piazza Navona. All over the road. : I Is thrown out of the window by CIA agents. Is raped by paratroopers. Is killed by Australian aborigines. m With a gaping wound in the belly. Spewing forth streams of yellow (red, blue, black) paint. Mak- ing love with Voltaire. n Loquat. o Unsteadily. Very, very slowly. Remaining still while the background (process shot) moves. p Nanterre. Flins. Place de la Bastille. Clignan- court. Venice. q Jacques Servan-Schreiber. Jean-Paul Sartre. Pier Paolo Pasolini. D'Alembert. r Misses the train. Goes on a bicycle. On roller skates. s Bursts into tears. Shouts Viva Guevara. t A band of Indians. u Kill everybody. Kill nobody. v Quotations from Brecht. The Declaration of the Rights of Man. Saint-John Perse. Prince Kor- zybski. Eluard. Lo Sun. Charles Pdguy. Rosa Luxemburg. z Diderot. ' Sade. Restif de la Bretonne. Pompidou. w A tomato. Red paint (blue, yellow, black). x Daniel Cohn-Bendit. Nixon. Madame de Se- vign& Voiture. Van Vogt. Einstein. k Goes away. Kills all the others. Throws a bomb at the Arc de Triomphe. Blows up an electronic brain. Empties onto the ground various cans of yellow (green, blue, red, black)paint. 148

  Make Your Own Mov, ie Y The sayings of Mao. Writes a ta-tze-bao. Reads verses of Pierre Emmanuel. Watches a Chaplin movie. The paratroopers. The Germans. Hordes of starving accountants brandishing sabers. Ar- mored cars. Pier Paolo Pasolini with Pompidouo The Bank Holiday traffic. Diderot selling the Encyclopdie door to door. The Marxist-Len- inist Union on skateboards. Ermanno Olmi Scenario A forester a out of work b roams at length c then comes back to his native village d and finds his moth- er e is dead. f He walks in the woods,g talks with a tramp h who understands i the beauty of the trees and he remains there, m thinking. n Variants Key b d A young man who has just arrived in the city. A former partisan. A jaded executive. An Alpine soldier. A miner. A ski instructor. Overworked. Sad. Without any purpose in life. Sick. Just fired. Overwhelmed by a feeling of emptiness. Who has lost his faith. Who has returned to the-faith. After a vision of Pope John XXIII. Briefly. Drives a mini Cooper along the super- highway. Is driving a truck from Bergamo to Brindisi. To his brother's sawmill. To the mountain hut. To Pizzo Gloria. To Chamonix. To Lago di 149

  MISREADINGS e g h m rl Carezza. To Piazzale Corvetto and his cousin's tobacco shop. Another close relative. Fianc6e. Male friend. Parish priest. Sick. Has become a prostitute. Has lost her faith. Has returned to the faith. Has had a vision of Pope John XXIII. Has left for France. Is lost in an avalanche. Is still performing the humble little daily tasks as always. On the superhighway. Near the Idroscalo. At Rogoredo. Through immaculate snow. At San Giovanni sotto il Monte, Pope John XXIII's birthplace. In the halls of a totally alienated advertising agency. With a former Alpine soldier. With the parish priest. With Monsignor Loris Capovilla. With a former partisan. With a mountain guide. With a ski instructor. With the head forester. With the executive of an industrial design studio. With a worker. With an unemployed southerner. Doesn't understand. Remembers. Rediscovers. Learns thanks to a vision of Pope John XXIII. Of the snow. Of the work site. Of solitude. Of friendship. Of silence. Goes away forever. Thinking of nothing. With no purpose in life now. With a new purpose in life. Making a novena to Pope John XXIII. Becoming a for- ester (mountain guide, tramp, miner, water bearer). 150

  Make Your Own Movie Angry Young Directors' Scenario A young polio victim x of very richr parents sits in a wheelchair z in a villa n with a p
ark full of gravel. k He hates his cousin, s an architect TM and a radical,q and has sexual congress e with his own mother b in the missionary position, v then kills himself f after first playing chess a with the farm manager. i x y z n k Variants Key Paraplegic. Compulsive hysteric. Simple neu- rotic. Revolted by the neocapitalistic society. Unable to forget an act of sexual abuse at the age of three by his grandfather. With a facial tic. Handsome but impotent. Blond and lame (and unhappy about it). Pretending to be crazy. Pre- tending to be sane. With a religious mania. En- rolled in the Marxist-Leninist Union but for neurotic reasons. Fairly well off. In decline. Diseased. Destroyed. Separated. On cul-de-jatte. On crutches. With a wooden leg. With false teeth. With long fangs on which he leans. Supports himself by leaning against trees. Yacht. Garden city. Sanatorium. Father's private clinic. Another kind of paving, provided it makes a constant sound when a heavy vehicle arrives. Other close relation, as desired, half brothers and in-laws admissible. Mother's lover (or fa- ther's, aunt's, grandmother's, farmer's, fiancee's). 151

  MISREADINGS W q b v City planner. Writer. President of Save Venice. Stockbroker (successful). Left-wing political writer. Subscriber to the New York Review. Moderate Communist. Liberal professor. Former partisan leader. Member of WWF board. Friend of Theo- dorakis, Garry Wills, Jessica Mitford. Cousin of Berlinguer. Former leader of Student Move- ment. Tries to have sexual congress. Reveals impo- tence. Thinks of having sexual congress (dream sequence). Deflowers with bicycle pump. Grandmother, aunt, father, sister, female second cousin, female first cousin, sister-in-law, brother. From behind. Inserting a stick of dynamite into the vagina. With an ear of corn (must be pre- ceded by casual Faulkner quotation from radical architect, see s-w). Cunnilingus. Beating her savagely. Wearing female dress. Dressing up to look like father (grandmother, aunt, mother, brother, cousin). Dressed as Fascist official. In U.S. Marine uniform. With plastic mask of Dracula. In SS uniform. In radical dress. In Scorpio Rising costume. In a Paco Rabanne tail- leur. In prelate's robes. Sprinkles himself with gasoline. Swallows sleep- ing pills. Doesn't kill himself but thinks of kill- ing himself (dream sequence). Kills her (him). Masturbates while singing "Love divine, all loves excelling." Calls the suicide hot line. Blows up the post office. Urinates on the family tomb. 152