Hsin-Hao Yu's Personal Blog

I was reading about the Emacs org-roam mode, and came across the Zettelkasten method of notetaking. I hadn’t seen this term before, but the idea of taking notes with cross-referenced index cards sounded familiar. Where did I read about it? Ah yes… in Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum, the main character Casaubon (an ex-academic who makes a living as a “detective of knowledge”) uses boxes of index cards to keep track of ideas.

I like this little episode in Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum. In Chapter 53, one of the main characters Casaubon, a scholar of European history, unexpectedly ran into Inspector De Angelis in a library. He was surprised that the policeman checked out the same book that he was looking for. Why are you reading such an esoteric book? The policeman answered: “… when I’m off duty, I like to browse in libraries.

The plot of Umberto Eco’s novel Foucault’s Pendulum involves two publishers: Garamond and Manutius. Both names refer to figures in the history of printing: Claude Garamond designed the Garamond font in the 16th century, while Aldus Manutius was a famous 15th century printer who invented italic type, a few punctuation marks, and the pocketbook format. This might be a joke because both names are relatable to Apple. The Garamond font was used in Apple’s logo, and Aldus Co.