Rating: 
Summary: not for the faint of heart
Review: Eco is one of the greatest living writers in any language. Still, because of his erudition, many of his works are only accessible to scholars. I really enjoyed Foucault's Pendulum as a great science/mystery/suspense thriller, but not all readers will be as patient. If you can sift through his difficult allusions and references, you will be richly rewarded, but no one said Eco's books were easy reading. You're IQ will rise 5-10 points after reading any of Eco's books.
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Summary: Intellectual thriller extraordinaire!
Review: Let's just put it on the table: Foucault's Pendulum is one of the greatest intellectual thrillers of all time. It's astounding scholarly research and depth of plot eclipse any and all competitors. Eco's professorship in semiotics is apparently very deserved. His historical accuracy is impeccable and his characters exist in a real world. When they're supposed to.The only thing that drags this book down is its ending, which is disappointing, doing a shoddy job of tying together all the strings that Eco so carefully wove. Nonetheless, this book is a must-read for anyone even remotely interested in the genre.
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Summary: ECO's most interesting
Review: this one will keep your attention, challenge your intellect, and most likely give you the creeps.
Rating: 
Summary: A joke book for the gods
Review: Eco is having the last laugh. In "Foucault's Pendulum" Umberto Eco is writing a huge joke with the whole world as the punchline. He takes everything you know about history (and quite a few things you don't) and wraps them all up in such a way that they make sense. Or better yet, in a brilliant act of post modernism, he has his characters do it. Causabon, the narrator of the tale, spends his time explaining to the reader that none of this is real. And yet, when you put the book down, all the connections which have been explained become glaringly obvious in real life. It's like when you buy a new car and suddenly all you see on the road is that model. Eco creates the pathways for your own brain to make the connections. I realize this tells you nothing about the plot of the book, but that's half the fun of reading it. You have to decide for yourself where he's being serious and where he's playing a joke. And even after you decide...you're probably wrong. Like Tim Powers, Eco is very skillful at weaving historical fact into a fantastic tale. Ultimately, you don't know if he's pulling your leg or if he's just written down a long forgotten history and is downplaying it as fiction to make sure he doesn't get into trouble with the powers that be.
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Summary: more people read this book than ought to
Review: am i the only one who understood this novel and felt that the history fit well into the story? it's a great, frustrating, fulfilling, monstrosity of a book and it's wonderful. however, it's not for everyone. if history, philosophy, theology, the occult, or whatever is your sort of thing, you'll love it, but if your just looking for a nice story to read before bed, don't bother. most people seem say one of two things "i didn't get it and that impressed me" or "i didn't get it and i hate things i don't get". well, most people won't get it, because most people don't care all that much about occultism in european history. however, if you are willing to take it on in the right spirit, you might learn a lot about the way the world works.....
Rating:
Summary: Utter mastery, of language, pace and subject matter
Review: Though any work of Eco's will be daunting to most, and downright heiroglyphic to many, those readers with patience, access to a gallows humor and a need to be challenged cannot afford to miss this treasure. Eco here considers the endless (and often mindless) paranoia afforded to those who seek a cabalistic explanation for that which is inexplicable, with a treatment that fits its denizens to a veritable 'T.' I was enthralled by Arturo Perez-Reverte's THE CLUB DUMAS, for similar reasons, but Eco's PENDULUM is an absolute benchmark--for fiction, any fiction, these lofty heights will rarely be reached again.
Rating:
Summary: Even better than Name of the Rose...
Review: ...which is something, after reading Name of the Rose, I thought I would not say. The breadth and scope of Eco's vision is unbelievable in this novel, but none of that would be worth a farthing if his characters weren't engaging, even when they had flaws. Ultimately, this novel is about belief--by the dizzying end you're not sure what to believe, which is, perhaps, the point. When some people talk of postmodern literature they use it as a negative attribute, without realizing just how FUN a novel of this caliber can be. This is a well-wrought page turner that uses postmodern techniques to enhance, rather than obscure, the narrative.
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Summary: Stick with it until the end
Review: This is one of the best books I've read. It is a non stop thriller taking you through the recesses of history in an atrtempt to track down and witness the occult and secret lives that have existed for centuries. The book takes you down the paths of many of these cults in an attempt to discover glory. Eco uses extremely descriptive, complex language (a dictionary is always handy), while using colourful, paranoid and witty characters throughout. The book rollercoasters to the end as you are left frantically grappling for the next page. A fantastic read and it is highly recommended.
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Summary: Gripping account of society's secret circles
Review: Though many reviewers try to argue about the 'pseudo-intellectual' quality of this work, I think it can be enjoyed by anyone who perseveres. The book is wonderfully written, although it may be felt that some of the compassion that was abundant in The Name of the Rose is missing. The book is intellectual for intellect's sake, and it is a great parody of the _real_ pseudo-intellectual type of mystic literature. A tough book, but you should really give it a try, if only to understand the book's title.
Rating:
Summary: Great book, but may not be what you think it is
Review: The trouble with the reviews that either praise the book as the best ever, or dismiss it as worthless, is that they didn't help me figure out if it's the kind of book I'd like to read. About half-way into it, I thought, "I wasn't looking for another detective story with a puzzle to solve," but after finishing it, the overall picture, I think, redeemed the effort. The big words, the pomposity, the big lump of detailed nonsense in the middle, and then the corny end of the chase are fitting. It inflates and then pops the cork. Even with all the detail, I found the book hard to put down and a quick read. The only way I can see the book being hard to read would be if someone thought they had to keep track of the detail to understand the ending. The narration itself seems to mock the book from the beginning, and Eco's digressions and witty (but still ambiguous) comments, seem to me the treasure of this book, even more than the pensive summary at the end. It keeps to its message through-and-through. It puts positivists in their place, dethrones scientists from their crusade of saving the world, deflates mystics who search for proof, and leaves an onion where Rilke might have put a rose. I'm not in that "business," but I think Eco the semiotician attempts to show us laymen how meaning is created, its slippery delusional character, and its endemic presence. I think he succeeds, even though I don't understand it on a cerebral level (the conspiracy wins, after all). I have two minor complaints. First, Eco seems to struggle sometimes while attempting to keep the characters interesting, and to avoid turning the whole book into a treatise, though I guess it's not surprising that a postmodernist text doesn't read like a Dostoevsky novel. Second, I either didn't see all that Eco offers in the windup of the book, or the "explanation" he ends with is no more than a "traditionally" postmodernist message, however human and down to earth. Or maybe, the ending just means to discredit itself, and claim its power elsewhere.
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