Umberto Eco on books and films

The second piece is about Umberto Eco, the Italian professor famous for his work on semiotics and medieval aesthetics, who wrote 'The Name of the Rose': a serious, difficult novel that sold millions of copies.

Eco says journalists and publishers are wrong to assume that people want only easy reading. Many readers want challenging experiences.

His American publisher expected to sell only a few thousand copies. The book's huge success, Eco says, is a mystery that no one could have predicted.

A novel, he says, is like a 'club sandwich', made of many layers. A film can take only one layer. He disliked that most readers came to his book after seeing the film, already told how to imagine it.

So he refused to sell the film rights of his later novels, even to the great director Stanley Kubrick.