Umberto Eco's latest novel 'The Prague Cemetery' is a wonderfully readable narrative where history and fiction blend seamlessly leaving reader agape at the inspired twisting of fact and fiction that incapacitates him to locate where history begins and fictions ends.
It is worth our while to recall that Eco is among the few academics who is capable of coming out of the cloistered class room and strike a chord with lay readers in the role of a virtuoso storyteller. And as we know a great story teller always portrays himself in his characters, Eco claims that all the characters in ' The Prague Cemetery' are real historical figures save the narrator whose identity is shrouded with mystery-sometimes posing as a split personality contradicting himself( Do I contradict myself? yes I contradict myself because I contain multitude). We have every reason to believe that it is none other than Eco himself who is all set (re)construct seemingly non-existent conspiracy theory that dates back to the time of Barruel or maybe before.
While reading 'The Prague Cemetery', I came across the following statement made by a character that made me reflect deeply as the statement rings a bell and assumes extraordinary significance in the context of the trajectory of human evolution from Homo Riligiosus to Homo Economicus. The statement is :' Man's principal trait is readiness to believe anything.Otherwise , how could the Church have survived for almost two thousand years in the absence of universal gullibility?'
The birth of Christ as we understand by 'Immaculate Conception' is hard to believe. Any person with a scientific bent of mind fails to understand how a virgin without coming into contact with the member of an opposite sex can conceive. Yet we believed. Inquisitions happened.Crusade happened. Christianity shaped our world and civilization to a very large extent.
The Islamic sacred book The Koran is believed to have been dictated by the archangel Gabriel. Who was Gabriel? Did any body see him? But The Koran touched all aspects of human existence including matters of doctrine,social organization and legislation.
The propensity to pass myths as history is rampant in hinduism. The classic example is the Ramjanmabhoomi case that still comes back to haunt us like bubonic plague.
Astrology has survived. A planet that orbits hundreds of light years away(Light travels at a speed of 299,792 Km per second) shapes the destiny of a baby who is born out of a cesarean section in an ICU in Downtown Hospital. Can any one explain this? yet we believe.
Those who are reading newspapers these days are bound to come across how fly-by-nights NGOs and finance companies are duping common men promising double or treble the amount they put by with them. Unipay- to- you is a discourse now. Yet we believed and our money went down the drain.
The list will go on. These are nothing ;but quintessence of 'Universal Gullibility'.
Viva Gullibility.
( As I said it was the lines from Eco's 'The Prague Cemetery' that triggered my ideas. My wish is not to disrespect religion or beliefs.)
