It's a Tale

I guess most people would be able to figure out that the title of this blog is inspired by (actually, it is in fact exactly the same as) Umberto Eco's foreword to The Name of the Rose. But the title that I really had in mind was It's a Tale, which in turn was inspired (this one was really inspired!) by John Crowley's Little, Big. In the end I just decided to go with Naturally, a Manuscript because I thought it possessed the virtue of greater recognizability. In fact, it immediately brings to mind a world of books, manuscripts, narratives, tales, signs, words, intertextuality, the relationship of the written word to the world that it encapsulates and sheer postmodernist intellectual playfulness. This is exactly what I want to talk (write, type, think, silently converse...) about. I really want to believe that an underlying, unifying theme of this blog would be how life itself is in some way a narrative, a never ending tale that is continuously being told, written, imagined...this is in part the theme of Little, Big as well. Though I really want to believe this, I feel that when I look back on this blog a few years hence it would be as varied in its themes as the narrative of life itself and as idiosyncratic, opinionated, intellectually playful, downright crazy and verbose as I myself am and my varied interests are.