Rating: 
Summary: An amazingly intelligent author writes a dull book.
Review: Eco is a brilliant man who did a tremendous amount of research in order to produce this book. But he tends to drag, sputtering fact after fact. This can get very tiring in a 500+ page book.
Rating: 
Summary: A sequel to "The Name of the Rose"
Review: Dazzling book, and a natural (if geographically and chronologically shifted) sequel to "the name of the rose." If in the first novel the underlying question was the role of the sign as an intermediary between the subject and the object of knowledge (the overquoted--yet here quoted--stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus), the topic of this second book is the use of the sign to create reality. In other words: if everybody says that a tree fell in the forest but nobody can confirm it, did it really happen?The relevance for our world of media-mediate (excuse the alliteration) reality is immediate. From the pentagon control over the news of the gulf war, to Nixon's "big lie," the dangers of the sign run amok are all too real and magnificently represented in the book. The overflowing stream of connections that Casaubon, Belbo, and Diotallevi are able to justify sound as incredibly real in a world of UFO abductions, Millennial Cassandras, and New Age theorists. I won't comment on the style, since I read the Italian version and many comments seem to refer to the English translation. Like others, I found the finale a little weak. I wanted to withold one star for this, but then I wondered is, in spite of my best efforts, I had been ruined forever by despicable Hollywood habits. Are the last 10 pages of a book really more important than the other 690?
Rating:
Summary: informative Templar stuff
Review: THE knowledge anyone can get in history books and literary works about 10 different nations and culture could be learned in just ONE copy of Foucault's Pendulum. Eco is just one heck of a demigod.
Rating: 
Summary: Think Twice
Review: In a profusion of pages, Eco's prosaic prose delivers a multitude of recondite, hermetic minutiae, but little style and a disappointing resolution to a provocative premise. Despite its drawbacks, the intricate story line wholly immerses the reader in an intriguing international, cabalistic plot. The mystery spans millennia of history, and its implications are nothing less than fantastic. Fans of secret societies, ancient mysteries, historical fiction, or world-domination plots must read this. However if, like me, you are the casual reader captivated by the synopsis, think twice - you will spend many hours to finish this convoluted novel.
Rating:
Summary: Divine madness
Review: I skimmed the rest of the reviews, and here's my summation: First, like many other great, challenging, sometimes inaccessible works of art, this one tends get polarized responses... you're gonna love it or hate it. And second, not everyone responds well to the particular brand of fantastic historical puzzle that Eco spins here. And let's face it: the plot, the characters, the historical references are DEEP. Navigating some of the "back story" jumps is definitely an effort, and I can see where some people's minds just won't engage with Eco's beautifully crafted, diabolically brainteasing yarn. This book is WORK. With that said, I LOVED it. Yeah, it can be work to get through, but it's SO worth it. Eco is the ultimate pimp when it comes to building his sentences, and the beguiling gossamer with which he weaves his dark fantasy ultimately ropes you into his style and leaves you begging for more. Eco's style is almost as seductive as his substance: the synthesis of the secret societies, the Masons, Templars, Rosicrucians et al makes for a beautifully researched alternate reality which is so compelling that it'll have you turning your worldview upside down. If you buy in to Eco's universe the way I did, this will be one of the best, most maddening, most terrifying reads of your life. One more earlier review comment worth repeating: If you have poor self-control, wait until you have a few days off to read this book. The last 100 pages took over my life... lucky it wasn't a school night.
Rating:
Summary: Exasperating and spellbinding at the same time
Review: _Foucault's Pendulum_ is amazing and deranged book that appealed to my senses.I bought it out of curiosity and found myself pulled in to the plot.It is a great book and has a few lines that I'll never forget.This is a must buy book!
Rating:
Summary: Wonerfully thought provoking.
Review: This book, with all of the travels it takes you on, especially the intillectual explorations ranks up there for me at least to be one of the greatest books ever written. Second, of course to The Magic Mountain
Rating:
Summary: Magnificent and invigorating to the mind.
Review: "I bought the book out of curiousity, having read Foucault's work. I loved the way Eco brought together so many elements in occultism and turned it into a cohesive story, just like what Gaiman did with Sandman. I loved the humor especially the one on the Jesuits. Great!"
Rating: 
Summary: Pseudointellectual Flapdoodle
Review: This is obviously Eco's joke. If you bought all of his pseudointellectual flapdoodle, then you're the butt of his joke. I threw it into a corner in a fit of laughter. There it remained until today, when I threw it away as a bad investment. Eco's imagery is so abstruse and disjointed that the translator is probably now confined somewhere under heavy medication. Only the most literate readers will realize that many of his allusions are strained beyond any reasonable limits of taste, add nothing to the story, and lead to no place anyone seeking literary entertainment would wish to go. The many glowing reviews quoted in the paperback version must have been written by critics who did not want to admit that they didn't understand the allusions,and who were too lazy to trace the origins of the allusions to find the meaningless results. Many entire paragraphs may be described thus: semantic content nil. Foucault's Pendulum is so scattered that it reminded me of the following joke: "Heaven is where the police are British, the cooks are French, the mechanics German, the lovers Italian, and it's all organised by the Swiss. Hell is where the chefs are British, the mechanics French, the lovers Swiss, the police German, and it's all organised by the Italians."
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: This is a story that sucks you the reader, right into it. It's masterful plot has you chasing to keep up with all it's twists and turns.
| 
