Reading prolongs your life. This is the greatest lesson that Umberto Eco has left us in a column that started on the last page of L'Espresso-s in March 1985, and continued every week until March 1998. It was called "Zaefi i Minerva" and the reflections made by the famous intellectual were summarized in a book of the same name published in 2002. below are Eco's words on the power of reading:It is true that when nothing happens, we say that time never passes. When we have spent exciting hours or days, we say that time has passed in the blink of an eye. But this only happens to us when we are upset or excited. Meanwhile, try now to think about a boring day or week you had some time ago. You will remember very little of them, and those hours or days that are all the same will create a very short space in your memory. There are people who, after reaching the end of their lives, after doing the same things every day, look back and it doesn't even seem like they were even in this world. All life went too quickly. Meanwhile, think about a day or a week in which many exciting things happened to you, one after the other, (be it joys, annoying things, or pains): you will remember hours or whole days, you will have the impression that you have lived a lot. I believe this is one of the reasons why people have always devoted themselves to reconstructing the past, both through the oral stories of the elders who told us stories around the hearth, and also through the stories written in books. Someone who, along with his personal memories, has the memory of the day Julius Caesar was killed, or of the battle of Waterloo, remembers more things than someone who knows nothing about what happened to others. Among my memories, I have some very emotional ones, about things that didn't happen to me, but to my father, mother or grandmother, that they told me (even many times) so they have become part of my personal memory. Remembering more, I feel like I've lived longer. I think this is a good reason to read books, regardless of the other reasons, aesthetic or educational, that are usually said. Of course, if one is forced to read (as sometimes happens in school), the experience is boring, and therefore it does not leave a mark on one's memory. But, it's different if you read for passion. The great publisher Valentino Bompiani once said: one man who reads is worth two. This statement means that the reader is more cultured, knows more things than others, and can be more successful in life. We know very well that sometimes even people without many values and who have not read anything are successful. No, one should not read to succeed, but to live longer. During my childhood, many things happened to me, just like everyone else. Even the memory of many nights spent in shelters during the war, while explosions were heard up there, we played with other boys, are an exciting part of my past. And yet I have the feeling that I had a very long and full childhood, precisely because it is full of memories that I stole from others. I stole from Sandokan and Yanezi as they sailed the Malaysian seas on their ship, from d'Artagnan dueling Baron de Winter, from the Masked Man hopelessly chasing Diana Palmer, even Renzo and Lucia escaping in Lake Como. However, don't be fooled by those who tell you that you should only read important books. I have strong and beautiful memories of books that may be meaningless, but which have given me long, very exciting afternoons. I am very grateful to all those who, by writing about me, have given me such a long life that I cannot remember them all at once. That's why I hope I live long enough to remember everything they told me. Maybe when you're very young you don't think it's worth living long, but I assure you that even after your 30s or 40s, living longer is not something that should be neglected. Therefore, reading now is a good guarantee, I do not say for old age, but for a mature age which will not be long in coming. Apart from the present entertainment. If every TV show is the same as last week's, every book, even the most idiotic, is different from another.
Born in Alessandria in 1932, Umberto Eco attended the Classical Lyceum and then the University of Turin, where he graduated in medieval philosophy at the age of 22 with a thesis on the aesthetics of St. Thomas Aquinas. Until 1959, he worked in the cultural programs of RAI-t and in the publishing house Bompiani.
From 1971 he became professor of Semiotics at the University of Bologna. He has collaborated with Italian and foreign newspapers and magazines. In Italy he was among the first to study the mechanisms of contemporary art and mass culture. In 1980 he published his masterpiece, the novel "The Name of the Rose", while in 1999 he received the award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He died in 2016. During his lifetime, he received 40 honorary degrees for his research and studies. /Bota.al/
