I’ve been keeping a little inventory of books that misuse and abuse the word palimpsest. It is, in my opinion, a bit of a trap of a word - arcane yet evocative, strange sounding with a compelling meaning that is particularly so for authors; what is more authorial than burying one layer of meaning behind another? And so it seems extraordinarily common for authors to shoe in the word where it is not appropriate, either through blatant misuse (I’m looking at you, The Traitor Baru Cormorant) or just like a bit of a stretch (it is not necessary to refer to dirty whiteboards as palimpsests, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow). Also, to Homi K Bhabha, palimpsetical is most definitely not a word that needs to exist.

Anyways, The Name of the Rose is somewhat likely in my opinion to have the only justified use of the word in modern literature. A murder-mystery built around arcane hermeneutics in a labyrinth in a library in a monastery at the crux of an exegetical crisis. The perfect excuse to use weird old words that otherwise gather dust at the back of your mind. It is also I think just a pretty good book in general, even if you aren’t all about pretentious word usage.