Repeat that, repeat

When the Louvre invited me to organise for the whole of November 2009 a series of conferences, exhibitions, public readings, concerts, film projections and the like on the subject of my choice, I did not hesitate for a second and proposed the list.

Thus Umberto Eco on the genesis of this book, published simultaneously in Italian, French and English. Considering those parallel manifestations of the project, it was perhaps to be expected that this, its sole printed version, would be situated at the more ingratiatingly ludic end of the Eco spectrum. The Infinity of Lists is a work less of theory than of taxonomy. Flaunting his extraordinary erudition, but flaunting it modestly, if such an oxymoron is permissible, Eco basically draws up a list of lists, which he then proceeds to categorise, codify and exemplify under a capacious umbrella of rubrics: Lists of Places, Lists of Mirabilia, Excessive Lists, Incoherent Lists, Collections and Treasures, etc.