What was distinctive about Eco’s academic writing style?
Umberto Eco is known for as a writer of novels. His scholarly work is different from a more regular academic style. Mukund asks Eco about his use of informal style. Here Eco tells that most of the scholars first learn a lot about a subject. They make a lot of false hypotheses, correct them and put a final conclusion. In his case of research he put the method of ‘Trails and Errors.’ His professor agreed to it and his dissertation was published as a book. At the age of 22, he felt that even the scholarly books should be written by telling a story of one’s research. That was the reason that his essays had a narrative aspect. It was because of his narrative ability, he started writing novels. At the age of 50 he started writing novels, though somewhat late but he started writing by accident. Novels started his taste for narration. He even told that he was a university professor who wrote novels on Sundays. He participated in academic conferences to identify himself with the academic community. By writing novels, he had reached a large audience.
