SOURCE: “The Wild Goose Chase,” in The New York Review of Books, Vol. 43, May 23, 1996, pp. 32-5.

In the following review, Kermode assesses the strengths of Eco's principal argument in The Search for the Perfect Language, focusing on his various reasons for inevitable failure in ascertaining the Ur-language.

The Search for the Perfect Language is published in a series called “The Making of Europe,” of which the general editor is the eminent medieval historian Jacques Le Goff. Other volumes are by Peter Brown (The Rise of Western Christendom), Aaron Gurevich (The Origins of European Individualism), and Ulrich Im Hof (The Enlightenment). Some nine volumes have so far been published or are on the point of publication, and there are many more on the way, all by distinguished writers. The series is published in five languages. It may be unfair to say so, and it doesn't appear that there is...