Foucault's Pendulum

Rating:
Summary: Tour de Force (and other French phrases)
Review: Right off the bat, you need to know that I am listening to the abridged audio cassette version of this book. I bought the book while I was in college, but never got around to reading it. It looked like one of those books I should have, but too dense for me to actually read. Sort of like the Lord of the Rings, which just seemed so large and intimidating (both in volume and hype). And both seemed to have large bits of politics and major digressions. I got up to page 4. I still have the bookmark in place.

So here I am comparing Foucault's Pendulum to The Lord of the Rings. A fascinating thing happens when you listen to an abridged book on tape, or watch the movie. The plot is condensed in such a way that the art of the story jumps out at you. I am sure this is the case with the Lord of the Rings movies.

When I first listened to Foucault's Pendulum, I appreciated much of it, but I don't think I got a lot of it. Too many odd phrases and mintuae about the Knights Templar and the Rosecrucians. Later I read a book on the subject (Born in Blood by John J Robinson) and now I'm listening to it again.

AH. Now I understand, and while the ending will no longer be a surprise (though it was a bit of a letdown, but then, it must be given the subject matter) I appreciate everything so much more. Umberto Eco's brain is filled with facts, and the connections he makes are fascinating. He could write a non-fiction book on the subject, but instead chooses to write a fiction book, wherein they describe numerous so-called scholary works on the subject. All of which exist in Eco's brilliant mind.

There is a genre of book that re-writes history, advances various conspiracies, throws fake or ill-referenced footnotes at you and sell fairly well. Such as the aforementioned Born in Blood. They're easy to write for anyone steeped in the Genre. The 3 main characters of this book run a publishing company specializing in such books.

The twist is, they start to take it seriously. There's a further twist upon that one, and another twist on that, but I don't want to give away too much of the plot.

Tim Curry is marvelous, and he pronounces things you would never figure out on your own. If you know who the Knights Templar, the Knights of the Rosy Cross, and the Masons are, and know the difference between them, pick up a copy of this book (or tape).

I've enjoyed everything I've ever owned from Audio Renaissance and would buy from them again in a heartbeat. I also reccommend that anyone with an interest in things mysterious also check out the Pratum book company. One would almost think this book company sprang out of the pages of Foucault's Pendulum.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent, as far as weird books go
Review: I could almost ask what the hell this was all about. It is amazing how well a book with so much material that it would take a very high degree of learning in well-nigh useless subjects to understand, a plot so slow-moving you barely notice it at all, to my mind rather weird characters (who can, it seems, only talk in Philosophy) and a slightly obscure ending can, as proven by this one, work.
First, I would not recommend this to anyone who does not want to let their minds get strongly involved, as that is an absolute necessity (so people who think Philip Athans writes well, stay away).
There is really little more that needs to be said, because there is not much point in describing the plot either; basically, it is about some kind of a weird (apparently) fictional, historical conspiracy. The basic idea, though, is that if you like weird, intellectual writing (like I do), this book is for you. Somehow, I find my powers of description rather exhausted if I try to say anything more about it.

Rating:
Summary: Best book I ever read
Review: Changed some of my ways of thinking of religion and humanity.
Not an easy ride. But a skill.

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.