Foucault's Pendulum

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Summary: How did this become a bestseller?
Review: The topic is fascinating, the book is tedious. Endless description, with sometimes whole paragraphs detailing minutiae. There are some paragraphs that are nothing more than lists. There is description about the origins of the Templars, and their Plan, but this too often desolves into a scholarly dissertation rather than a novel. A better author could have culled two hundred pages off of this book and made a much more interesting book. It took about a hundred pages from him to set the hook, and then he didn't really return to it until 200 pages later. Was he getting paid by the page? It would seem so. It is an interesting story, but not worth the time and energy to invest for five hundred pages. Read the reviews instead.

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Summary: Slow is not bad.
Review: A lot of people seem to dislike this book because it is so dense, so full of references. That happens to be the reason I love it. What's so wrong about having to stop and look something up? That only enhances the reading experience.

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Summary: It's hard to get into the swing of this Pendulum
Review: This book was on my shelf for years but I finally got around to reading it after reading the DAVINCI CODE and ANGELS AND DEMONS. They have similar themes, but Foucault's Pendulum has a much larger point having to do with the search for meaning. The point is that the search itself is compelling, and the temptation of searching for secret meaning can become obsessive. But it's hard to get into the swing of PENDULUM. To get to that main point, Umberto Eco constructs a story that manages to pack speculation about just about every occult group and secret society in history into one unified theory. Are the characters discovering or creating their story? Or is their imagination producing reality? Or are they, or at least the narrator, simply delusional? I think that's what I was supposed to be wondering while reading the book. I was pleased with the ending, which though a little ambiguous did not turn out to be confirmation of magic or the discovery of a secret of secrets. Dark and mysterious figures seem small and petty by the end. Cleverly, Eco leaves us at a point where the narrator simply arrives at a new theory, which he had been doing throughout most of the book, so I suppose what's really going on could be just about anything, but at least the ending seems to be about human nature in this world.

Although I liked the ending, I had many problems with this book. First, it took far too long to get to the ending. I think Eco wanted us to ease into the characters' descent into obsession, so the first half of the book contains too much off-the-main-plot narrative. Then Eco wants to overwhelm us with scope, so he writes pages and pages and pages about obscure secret societies, some of which I had known something about, some of which I hadn't. Where Dan Brown introduces quasi-historical organizations like the Illuminati with a lot of explanation, Eco's characters talk about them as if everyone is already familiar with them (including many groups far more obscure than the Illuminati). I don't think Eco here is trying to be pretentious. I think he's trying to establish a murky atmosphere within which he has an easier time manipulating our recollection of myth and history. But wading through pages upon pages of disorienting uncertainty can be tedious.

Eco also has an annoying habit of switching styles. At first he writes in his deliberately disorienting way, then he has pages of clear exposition, then he breaks into fine print that is supposed to be the writing of one of his characters. This too is uncomfortable, and I found the style shifts to often kill the book's momentum.

Finally, though the mysterious figures surrounding the book's main characters are rendered more plausible as frauds by the end of the book, there is no plausible explanation of why the main characters are surrounded by so many frauds, in on a lesser version of their grand plot. I think this is supposed to add to the story's deliberate ambiguity, but I'm not sure and not entirely convinced.

Ultimately I was wrong to pick up with book after reading Dan Brown's books. Brown writes "page turner" thrillers, which this is most certainly not. The right way to come at FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM is to recognize it as a character-driven novel about human nature.


Rating:
Summary: Read on
Review: This is one of the few books that dwell so deep into a topic so mysterious. The book however does tend to go back in time and forward again, only in the last few chapters do you finally find out what has been going on, to a lot of people, this does not appeal. I have had some doubts in it while I was reading the book, but a little by little it got so interesting I couldn't put it down.

It is a heavy duty book that requires a lot of thinking, but I thought it so good that the hairs on my back rose as I read certain lines. If you have the book, for the sake of book itself, please finish it.

There are some phrases in the book that are in different languages, readers may wonder what they mean, but as I read, they do not hold significant meaning of the novel if the author did not explain it.

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Summary: Post-Modernity at Its Best!
Review: Umberto Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum" is an amazing post-modern book. Though not quite as much fun as "The Name of the Rose," this work is a much more comprehensive and thought-provoking experience. Perhaps the biggest difference between this and Eco's first book is the (intentional) lack of a center. In "Rose" we feel comforted because there's always the monk Baskerville as our point of orientation and foment of rationality in an irrational world. However in "Pendulum" the very lack of one sure thing that we can put our faith into is the text's very theme. We're left with a mathematical point from which a pendulum swings above the Earth and that brief second in which a person can hold that same position.

If this doesn't make much sense, perhaps a comparison with Pynchon's "The Crying of Lot 49" is in order. Both texts set out to do similar things - show the absurdity of making too many connections between facts. Does the fact that Jesus Christ and Joe Camp have the same initials mean anything? Not alone, but if you try to tie this together with other facts, you can end up with a whole theory of mumbo jumbo that says nothing about the outside world - only your internal interpretation. Pynchon, talking almost exclusively about how we read literature, stops here. Eco, addressing everything from literature to history, goes further showing how these flights of fantasy can then, in turn, affect the outside world - in other words, even if you make something up, somebody will believe you.

What's left is very Socratic - the wise man is he who knows that he knows nothing - or even more that there's nothing to know.

Thought-provoking, ground-breaking and well worth the effort. It's just not quite as much fun as stomping through the abbey with Baskerville.


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Summary: This book has changed my life
Review: One of the reviewers said here: "You'd better have an unabridged dictionary handy." This is because, unfortunately, books do not get published in US with notes and translations. I've read Umberto Eco's books in both English and Russian. I didn't have a problem with the Russian version of "Foucault's Pendulum" because it is normal for Russian editors to provide comments to every historical reference and Latin/Hebrew/whatever phrase. Too bad this is not done in US! Half of "The Name of the Rose" was losty for me because the Americal edition does not translate Latin.

These issues aside, this is one of the most turning books I have read in my life; it's an eye opener. I could not stop reading it. This book has sent me on wild runs through Europe during my vacations scouting great gothic cathedrals, places like Stonehenge, small steets in Paris, etc. Believe me, it changes the way you look at things. I walk into a cathedral with a very different feeling now. And even though Umberto Eco is a non-believer, and you realize you've been tricked in the end, the book continues to inspire me now (I read it 2 years ago). I will soon be ripe for re-reading it, after visiting many of the places mention in this book, and reading about all sorts of historical phenomena mentioned in the book. "Foucault's Pendulum" is a work that will present new layers to you when you come back to it over and over again.

Rating:
Summary: Will be read long after "DaVinci Code" and the like are dead
Review: It is much more tempting to write a bad review to vent a frustration of an unsatisfactory reading experience than to reward a good book with a good review. However today I managed to convert the urge to demolish a couple of mediocre specimens of modern fiction into a positive review about the
excellent Eco's book which stands so much higher than any recent cheap imitations. (I am sure that Amazon will appreciate one review with 5 stars more than 5 reviews with one star too.) By writing "Foucault's Pendulum" Eco proved that it is possible to blend the medieval legends about the Holy Grail with the satirization of the modern seekers in a way that is thrilling, entertaining and deeply satisfying at all levels. It is very fast paced in some places and slow in others just as it should be when the author cares about what used to be called artistic integrity and not just about record sales and screenplay royalties. This one will stay the test of time when some recent bestsellers made of cheaper fabric have faded away without trace.

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Summary: The Occult Tradition Unveiled!
Review: Superstition brings bad luck. - Raymond Smullyan, _5000 B.C._

The conspiracy theory of society . . . comes from abandoning God and then asking: "Who is in his place?" -Karl Popper, _Conjectures and Refutations_.


_Foucault's Pendulum_ by Italian semiotician Umberto Eco is a fascinating novel which combines elements of mystery and suspense with occult knowledge and traditionalist philosophy. I first read this book in high school in the nineties and it has remained one of my favorite books ever since. The story involves several main characters, all intellectuals, who work for a publishing house, Garamond Press. The main character and narrator begins as a student in Italy working on a Ph.D. thesis on the Knights Templar, the medieval society of crusading knights who became very powerful and wealthy bankers and eventually were accused of heresy along with engaging in ghastly rituals and the worship of a human head called the Baphomet. The other two principle protagonists are employed by Garamond Press, and one is a foundling who believes himself to be of Jewish parentage and is extremely fascinated by the Kabbalah, the interpretation of the Torah, and numerology. Eco gently mocks the leftish intellectual scene in Italy during the late sixties and seventies as well as the Marxist and post-modernist philosophies which were popular at the time among intellectuals. One day a mysterious gentleman shows up at Garamond Press and offers his book to be published. This man relates a wild tale involving a secret manuscript he has discovered and which he believes to preserve a hidden tradition from the Knights Templars carried up to the modern day. He argues that a secret society is behind this event, providing many occult links to stonehenge, the Holy Grail, the Druids, ancient heresies, the medieval church, and modern day secret societies. However, the next day this individual shows up dead. This begins a drawn out sequence of events which occur over several years eventually leading to the concoction of a secret Plan by the three principle characters as part of their publishing company's newfound interest in "Diabolicals", self-publishing authors who write on occult and conspiracy topics.

Eco's novel combines elements from African and Brazilian syncretistic religion, Christianity and gnosticism, occultism, Rosicrucianism, secret societies, esoteric political beliefs, legends about the immortal Comte de Saint-Germaine, Satanism, Blavatskian theosophy, freemasonry, the writings of Count Joseph de Maistre and Cretineau-Joly, esoteric conspiracy theories regarding the Jews and Nazism, theories of telluric currents and subterranean realms, the science of Foucault's pendulum, as well as much more. Eco is clearly influenced also by two principle sources, including the book _Holy Blood, Holy Grail_ by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln written in the late 1980's which alleged that Jesus and Mary Magdelene were married and gave birth to a secret bloodline. In addition, Eco is clearly influenced by the traditionalist school of philosophical thought founded by Rene Guenon and politicized by Julius Evola. Finally, Eco's book reveals a unique esoteric political philosophy operating behind the scenes through an organization known as Tres, referred to as synarchy. This system is revealed in the hidden Masters of the World who rule the world through a system of underground tunnels, residing in the center of the world in the subterranean kingdom of Aggartha. This philosophy shows the influence on Eco of the writer Saint Yves d'Alvedrye and also Ferdinand Ossendowski. Synarchy is the secret system by which the Masters of the World seek to control all worldly governments.

As an intellectual adventure story, Eco's novel is very fascinating. It's meaning is revealed on many levels, indicating the fact that Eco's specialization lies in the field of semiotics, the science of the sign. Indeed, all conspiracies and occult doctrines converge in "the Plan" which reveals itself through this novel. Much in this book is true, although it requires special interpretation. That interpretation can only be known by those who are well grounded in philosophy and esoteric tradition.


Rating:
Summary: The Perfect Antidote to the 'DaVinci Code' mania
Review: I was lucky enough to bring this book along through a trip to Paris, Italy, and several of the novel's settings. Visiting sepulchres and reliquary exhibits got a jolt of eerie resonance as I avidly read this book.

Purely captivating, utterly beguiling, and a perfect antidote to all the WalMart pseudo-intellectuals now raving about "The Da Vinci Code" as if such a book had never been written; Eco is always amazing.