Holy shit you are right. I thought from your edit it was just going to maybe not fully recognize his accomplishments, but this is just terrible writing. Was it written by a five-year old from Wikipedia? One of the greatest writers of the 20th Century, and he gets this crap. Utterly unbelievable. Hopefully some more heartfelt and proper tributes will come out over the weekend.this article is an insult.
That is a bad article. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/20/umberto-eco-fiction-intellectual
I'm sure that BBC couldn't get anyone willing to write a piece about Eco on short notice but they needed to print something, so this is what we get. It's short and sticks to a few solid facts. Better than something hasty, longer and bullshitty. If an obituary or death notice is any good it's because they had it in the can ahead of time. Shame they didn't work one up on Umberto but his death is news and it needed to get posted immediately.