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.
Rating:
Summary: This is the best book I have ever read!
Review: I have read Foucault's Pendulum several times over the past 7 or 8 years and it just keeps getting better! I LOVE IT!! (Does anyone think that this book is about Michael Baigent, Henry Lincoln and Richard Leigh and the book Holy Blood, Holy Grail?) Let me know if you think it is. If you haven't read this book, do it now!
Rating:
Summary: The game is still going, at least for some of us
Review: This book is full of alternitive realities, depending on your point of view of course. Don't be affraid to be sucked into the game it can only show you a side of you never befored explored. Or you can look the other way, the game will still go on, enjoy it.
Rating: 
Summary: Where is an editor when you need one?
Review: This is a book that I'm glad I read, but only in the sense of climbing a daunting mountain. The accomplishment is worthwhile in itself, but the view from the summit isn't inspiring enough to justify the trip. For me, Belbo's Partisan boyhood and elemental yearnings were the real story. The Frankenstein-ish Plan revealed how he created and destoyed his own worlds, but the tortuous path robbed the revelation of much of its joy. Perhaps we can blame the translator.???
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely amazing.
Review: *Foucault's Pendulum* is way up there on my list of all-time best books. However, I can't say I'd recommend it to everyone. In order to truly grasp this book, a fairly broad background in mysticism and medieval history would be extremely helpful. I myself am taking a Jewish Mysticism class so that I'll better understand the references. I think what I find most fascinating about this is the range of Eco's knowledge. I can't even imagine knowing enough "stuff" to compose such an intellectual masterpiece! The plot pulls you right in and has you looking up anything you don't understand. There I was with a French dictionary in my lap trying to decipher random quotes. Best of all, you can read *Foucault's Pendulum* over and over, each time getting a better understanding of what's going on. :) A must read for those interested in medieval history or mysticism.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutley brilliant
Review: I really can't understand those peolple who dislike this book. To be sure it asks for a little more intelligence, a little more intellectual fore-grounding, than Name of the Rose (which for many people was readable as simply a light detective story). What I loved about Foucault's Pendulum was the grand scale of the idea behind it all, bringing in a grand historical narrative which would explain EVERYTHING about how the Western world came to take the road it did, and very intimate moments from the characters. In my opinion one of the greatest novels of this century.
Rating:
Summary: So What...
Review: Tedious, convoluted, pedantic, and frustrating. Eco should have let this one distill in his head for another half a decade or so before he put it on paper. The worst thing about it is that it has all the elements of being great with no real synthetic thread to tie the plot (and history) together.
Rating:
Summary: Oy, so many words
Review: Like in all of Eco's books the digressions in this are more interesting than the plot. The chapters and chapters on the Templars, the Rosicrucians, The mythic figure of the Comte de Saint-germain enthralled me more than the (literally) pivotal pendulum. These books are not for people who want an exciting, quickly digested plot which is definitely moral or amoral; They are for readers of histories and those obsessed with useless trivia. The mixed reviews here indicate the existence of those people who expected the above due to the marvellously intricate plot or previous experience of the Name of the Rose but were bitterly disappointed.
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