Rating: 
Summary: Conspiritatus Profundi
Review: All right, so I don't speak Latin. This book does. Loudly. At night. Sure, right off the bat, there's a little bit of intimidation wading into a book so obviously dense and erudite. Unless you're the kind of person who throws words like "erudite" around, in which case you may jump in like a giddy schoolgirl hoping to find that the intellectual snobbery you've clung fast to all your life was based on something after all. Either way, this book will hook you right away. First off, the characters are wonderful. Both the cabalistic Diotavelli and our sublimely arrogant narrator Casaubon are well-thought out, breathing creations, but it is the third editor, Jacopo Belbo, and his arc (complete with a breathtaking extended metaphor in the form of a trumpet... well, I'll let you all discover that one for yourselves) that is the piece de resistance. He is the prime focus of the story, though for obvious reasons, Casaubon makes for the better narrator. The dynamics between the three men are intriguing enough to hold our attention as the plot ever so slowly moves forwards, almost unnoticeably, until it has taken on a life of its own. And yes, like with any Eco, there are some rather lengthy digressions into the land of intellectual minutia, but it is acceptable, to me at least, for two reasons. One, the characters are SO arrogant in their bastion of intellectualism and SO hungry for more knowledge that the incessant probing into the mysteries of the Knights Templar, Rosicrusians, Hash-hashins, et cetera, not only makes sense, but paves the road towards madness that often accompanies such searches for absolute knowledge (see the works of H.P. Lovecraft for more of this... one of my favorite themes). And B, well, the stuff is so damn interesting. Whether you're a conspiracy buff or no, this stuff will send your mind a reeling, and then give you a swift kick to the head for believing these paranoid fantasies. And then another kick to the head for not believing them (because, you know, they ARE after you). I'll tell you, between the constant kicks to the head and the thing speaking Latin from a dark corner of your room while you sleep... maybe you shouldn't buy this after all. Seriously, though, this is one of the best books I've read in a long long while, and while I felt that the climax (at least the climax of the plot... the thematic climax was great) was oddly out of place -- almost slapped on, as though someone told old Umberto he better have something exciting happen fast -- it does not warrant me taking even one star away from this magnificent, magnificent book. Read it. I did. No, just kidding... I copied this off the back cover.
Rating: 
Summary: Foucault's Pendulum: Swallowing the whole Christmas pudding
Review: The thing about this book is in the beginning it does attract the reader to the subject but then Eco treats the same thing over and over again. We know Signor Eco is a brilliant and academic homme but he fails to realise that the verbosity in his novel by showing off all the occults he knows renders his book to be rather plotless. In that sense the book loses life. It is eating the whole Christmas cake. Signor Eco overdosed, as if drugged by his brilliance. Academic readers will find this rather disappointing in that sense. Interesting but disappointing in the ultimate sense. This will be intriguing for younger readers as they can look up the net and search for the place names and histories he mentions but little in plot enhancement. Eco forced us to eat the whole Christmas pudding rather than living room for other desserts.
Rating:
Summary: amazing
Review: An excellent voyage to the creation of Meaning through stories that are among all traditions. I found very difficult to put the book aside for sleeping or eating.
Rating:
Summary: Foucault¿s Pendulum: Spare Yourself
Review: Eco introduces his novel with a curious quote by a "Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa Von Nettesheim, De occulta philosophia": "Only for you, children of doctrine and learning, have we written this work. Examine this book, ponder the meaning we have dispersed in various places and gathered again; what we have concealed in one place we have disclosed in another, that it may be understood by your wisdom." The reader is left to wonder whether the "work" referred to is in fact Foucault's Pendulum, the very "book" she holds in her hands. The book is intriguing from the start. Three academics, seduced by ancient tales and occult practices, discover what they believe to be a trail leading to unlimited power. They feed their research into a computer, which leads them to what seems to be the holy grail of worldly power. In the end, however, the reader is left with a distinct feeling of betrayal because the trail never leads to euphemistic "pot of gold." The plot idea is good; the meat of the book is self-serving. The story could have been told in fifty pages, instead of well over five hundred (paper back). Eco connects the mysterious power, for which the characters are searching, to an "extraordinary fable" related to the Knights of the Temple (The Templars). From there, the author weaves an endless web of history and myth to support the idea that the elusive power exists. He tells endless tales of Templars, Druids, Satanists, Nazis, Egyptians, Monarchs, Popes, Christians, and just about any and every vaguely interesting character or group in Europe and the Mediterranean region since the dawn of written history. After reading page after page of historical vomit, one begins to feel as though Eco is winking at the reader from behind the pages, saying, "See how much information I know." But in the end, the coffee-talk-like history lesson seems pointless. Even a person of above average intelligence is left to wonder how much of the history Eco outlines is accurate and how much is true, which seems to be the underlying joke of the book. After turning the last page, the reader is left to wonder if she has missed the "meaning". After all, who could decipher so much information but a person of true "wisdom"? Presumably, Eco is the only one. There is no wisdom is Foucault's Pendulum, only a maze of information meant to puff up Eco's ego. We're very proud that he has found something to do with the glut of knowledge that he has amassed. At least it has brought him some profit. Now, on to novels that complete their tales, and, most importantly, entertain. If you'd like to join a small group of pseudo-intellectuals who've read the esoteric Foucault's Pendulum, then by all means read it. It pages, tattered from hours of reading, will no doubt impress your beatnik friends when they spy it on your book shelf. But to those of you who want to read stories that are logical, that satisfy, and that entertain, I highly suggest that you never read such egoism, unless you enjoy intellectual self-torture.
Rating: 
Summary: The perfect tonic for insomnia...
Review: As a novelist Eco writes the kind of superficially 'intellectual' books that somehow manage to convince a great number of people that they are reading something with a certain cachet. Foucault's Pendulum is a confidence trick of stupendous proportions. For a start this guy can't write for toffee. The prose is turgid and unwieldy, lending Foucault's Pendulum all the page-turning qualities of the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary (which, by the way, is the book you'll constantly need at hand if you're to wade through this mire). To compound matters the text is littered with arcane locutions and absurd neologisms (made-up words), making large sections of the book utterly incomprehensible. The plot (such as there is one) is that a secret occult society is bent on (wouldn't you know it!) world domination. That's right, 700 odd pages to reveal the most hackneyed plot imaginable- the staple of a million B-movies and pulp horror novels. To top it all the Plan isn't ever remotely credible (how could it be?), robbing this book of any narrative suspense that might be on offer. Eco employs the old chestnut of the 'unreliable narrator' (in this case Cassaubon), but when you don't care what a narrator says, his unreliable status becomes frankly irrelevant. To those who claim this book demands intellectual staying-power I have this to say: there really isn't anything in Foucault's Pendulum a precocious adolescent couldn't understand. It's tough to read because the most simple plot is buried in a mountain of wilfully obscure guff. Clearly Eco's intention is to dazzle us with his scholarship, but once you cut through the all the drivel there is simply nothing of substance here. There are occasionally funny moments and some diverting ideas, but they in no way justify the monumental effort involved in reading this nonesense. In the end the Plan is revealed to be bogus (you'll arrive at this conclusion on page 2) and the shenanigans of the Diabolicals (the credulous fools taken in by it) simply their attempt to impose a subjective meaning on the last 1,000 years of European history. If the point of Foucault's Pendulum is to illustrate how in the absence of absolute values (God and so on) we bring our own designs and meaning to life then I suggest you read Albert Camus's succinct existentialist novel 'The Outsider.' In summarises in a 100 pages of beautifully simplistic prose the point Eco may or may not have been getting at in this attempt at a novel. This book will be a major disappointment to anyone who cherishes genuinely challenging fiction. It gets one star purely for it's soporific qualities.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic book that changed my way of thinking
Review: I REALLY enjoyed this book! It was challenging to read, but at the same time it opened up a whole fantstic, thrilling world of history, mystery and ideas. It changed my way of thinking about many things. I am reading it a second time just now. I actually believe that Eco intentionally made the first two chapters extra difficult to discourage half-hearted readers.
Rating:
Summary: A remarkable work of Eco...
Review: This book addresses to people who enjoy the mystic writing of Eco. This book has not a definite chronological order, since it is a book, which describes Mysticism, making references to true and imaginery facts. It is trip into mysticism and Eco allows us to get a feel of the Mystic Orders and their doctrines through this book. Eco did not write this book for people who are not interested in Mysticism, but for those who have shared his own experiences via thise doctrines. Unfortunately, this sometimes leaves us to dark, since we are not able to comprehend the deepest meaning of his descriptions and the lack of chonological cohesion in his book.
In case you do not enjoy his writing style and/or mysticism or mysteries, do not read it.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely unbearable.
Review: Absolutely unbearable. I think I gave it about 80 pages of very small type. Another one of these "weird" books that is trying to be clever. It is possible that there is a palatable story in here somewhere, but I really didn't care enough to find out.
Rating: 
Summary: The Most Frustratingly Perfect Book Ever Written
Review: First, dont be deceived by the plot summaries listed above...though masterful in its own way, this book does not have a fast paced, detective style plot. Eco does tell the tale of three editors of who weave a compelling yet fictitious Plan culled from the writings of crackpot would-be authors, (a fake Plan that becomes menacingly real when the crackpots take it seriously). However, if you are a reader who judges a book by how well the author tells a compelling story, and how well the author keeps you gripped by the interaction of his characters, you are likely to judge this book a failure. This book is not a failure. True, entire chapters meander along, seemingly contributing nothing to the premise of the story, but Eco's true story is not found in the plot, or the interaction/evolution of his characters, but rather the fascinating evolution of the Plan his characters are creating. The story of human thought, human philosophy, and humanity's desire to control the very rotation of the World itself is masterfully told through Eco's amazing ability to meld actual historical facts, philosophical axioms and scientific discoveries with fictional connections, interrelations and motivations. Eco's numerous oblique references to historical figures and events, to works of literature and art (secular, religious and occult) may annoy some readers as overly showy (Eco's writing can give even a philosphy Ph.D an inferiority complex), but I think that is partly Eco's aim...to inspire his readers to higher standards of learning, preception and appreciation. I think many readers feel the last hundred pages of the book are the best, when Eco's plot focuses more on his characters as they reap what they have sown. I agree, but more because the plot is now empowered by the full weight of their/Eco's intellectual journey/descent (just as some feel that Shawshank Redemption was way too long a movie, but the ending's emotional impact is due largely to the fact that the movie had time to properly build it up) Read it all, its worth it. I gave it 4 stars only because all this having been said, I believe Eco could have done a better job with the story...its as if the magnitude of his creation was too much even for him to control to the full extent of his skill as a writer.
Rating:
Summary: Foucault's P
Review: This book holds much promise to the reader: a good mystery, lots of arcane knowledge, recognizable real-life cults. Unfortunately,
it's the sort of book only professional critics love. I found it interesting in idea, but cumbersome to read. It has moments of brilliance,
but all too often resorts to long lists of names which the reader, presumedly, is supposed to recognize. To my mind, a novel should
not be this much work to read.
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