Rating: 
Summary: Classic Masterpiece
Review: I was recently asked by a group of friends to compile a list of the world's classic literature. I was compelled to list Foucault's Pendulum as one. Simply a magnificent book that can be read on a variety of levels; it is a mystery thriller, historical text, satire, and an intellectual and philosophical exercise. I approached it, initially, like many books on the market today -- doubtful it would entertain and challenge me. As always I read the first chapter (no easy task!) and read the last chapter. It passed my test -- I couldn't logically guess what would happen in the story! So I forged ahead and found myself enthralled with the story/stories and the implications. I, too, started out knowing that the author/narrator was telling me truths, half-truths and falsehoods, but ended up believing that all were true, must be true! And I was a history major in college with a tremendous knowledge of the Middle Ages, mysticism and the Knights Templar!!!!! I loved every convoluted, difficult, challenging moment of the book. It is not for everyone but definitely for those who love to read good books.
Rating: 
Summary: Postmodernism Meets Hermetic Idealism
Review: There are several enough plot summaries of FP here, we do not need another one. However, I would like to look at a specific facet of the novel, the idea that everything is connected to everything else. This is wryly mentioned in FP, in the form of a refrain, "Everything is about the Templars." This idea, that every piece of information that the protagonists look at is in some occult fashion related to the Templars, is examined in critcal form in Eco's "The Limits of Interpretation." He examines the Hermetic belief that every text is in some fashion a text about God. Of course, with universal semiotic connectedness, meaning evaporates since everything can mean anything. Since this is the stand taken by the protagonists in FP, I would propose that FP is a monumental piece of satire. It pokes fun at universal deconstruction, and proposes that true meaning lies in some middle ground. Very good reading, but do not become discouraged! You can follow the plot and enjoy the novel, even if there are five page sections you can't possibly comprehend. I would recommend reading the sections until you start to figure out want's going on, since dwelling overly on the minutia of the novel is likely to give you a headache.
Rating:
Summary: Behind the mirror lies a masterpiece
Review: The world is a jigsaw puzzle, and Umberto Eco assembles a crazy patchwork from its scattered pieces in this convoluted pearl conch of a novel. The tale explores a search for meaning by three men, men whose singular qualities meld as they sleuth the secret history of the World. This story is not for the faint of heart, and its evocation of intellectual fire in the complexities of arcane and mystic lore brings light to our workaday, humdrum present. This novel is meant to be slowly nibbled, tasted, and swallowed patiently after long reflection. Truly a masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: A Must Read in this knowledge-relativistic "new age".
Review: The subtitle to this book should be something like this "How I Found the Wine Of The Crackpots And What Happened To Me When I Drinked It".
The book is, more or less, about what happens when you are trying to explain the world's history. It starts out like an intellectual joke, then all goes downhill. The reader learns about Templars, Rosicrucians, Freemasons and other societies of the old world. Which I thought was wery refreshing. As an european, you can get very tired of "americania" like Area 51 and The Kennedy Assassinations.
Now here's a small competition: In the book, there's an small episode, who's like a distillation of the story (how you discovers conspiracies).
Send me an e-mail and tell me about the episode. Closing date: 23 of May 2001
Rating:
Summary: A rose is a rose is a rose ...
Review: Eco puts the P back in post-modern in this densly crafted masterpiece!
The kids will love it! I know I did!
Buy two!
Rating:
Summary: hilarious & a little egg-heady
Review: This book is a riot: read to discover if you are an idiot, moron, fool, or a cretin, Eco's four categories for thinkers (I think I'm a moron). The story is about our relationship to the unknown: but this is no dry religious treatise. Eco's interested in a definitely nutty slant on the unknown: centuries old conspiracy theories regarding the knights of the Templars & their secrets which, although never proven to exist, would, if discovered, allow one to rule the world! Join Eco as he meets the various whackos who vainly seek after the Knights. You will have fun.
Rating:
Summary: A fascinating series of revelations
Review: Foucault's Pendulum is as thought-provoking as his other works, and even more accessible than The Name of the Rose or The Island of the Day Before.
The plot is a narrative told by the apprentice character, Casaubon (similar to Melk in Name of the Rose) who meets Jacopo Belbo, a cynical man working for a corrupt publisher. The story, however, does not dwell much on the current lives of those 2 and the third member of their team (Diatollevi, a self-styled Cabalistic Jew).
Instead, the story focuses, through a series of circumstances, on the Knights Templars and the secret that they have hidden and which, it seems, men have been plotting, killing and warring to find out for the past several hundred years.
It seems that the Templars possessed a knowledge, an artifact, a weapon so strong it could move continents -- it had, in fact, been the likely cause of the destruction of Atlantis, among other historical incidents.
The plot, although difficult to understand in detail without taking notes, is incredibly absorbing: the 3 men find out such coincidences throughout history that they are sure they are well on the way to figuring out the Templars' secret, despite their contempt for the lunatics who are after the secret and their own growing inability to distinguish "reality" from the fiction they believe themselves to be creating.
The story revolves around a few seminal semiotic concepts, which appear in Eco's other stories as well: Power, secrets, words and the Other. He also brings a heavy dose of mystic symbolism and Medieval history, including the Knights Templars, the Freemasons, the Rosicrucians, early Christianity, the Jesuits, the Druids and the builders of the Eiffel Tower and the Paris Metro.
By the end of the book, the reader is taken up in the plot, and starts to believe the Plan as thoroughly as the triad of plotters.
This is one of the rare books that not only tells an engaging fiction but also a philosophical treatise that teaches the reader and can change his or her perspective on life.
A good knowledge of French and Latin will help the reader, as well as a good background in Eco, Semiotics and/or Templarism/Masons/medieval occultism.
Rating:
Summary: Challenging novel not for everyone
Review: If this book were written solely for me, then I would rate this book a solid 10. However, I must take into account the general population, and this book is not one everyone is going to love.
The plot itself is magnificent in its elegant simplicity: Three editors are caught in their imaginations which is slowly becoming real. "We're from the Tres. . .but you know more about the Tres than we do."
But nothing else about the novel is that clean cut. Furthermore, the story skips around a lot and can be hard to follow at times. Every few pages, the story jumps from the past to the present, or from the streets of Milan to the jungles of Brazil. A casual reader is constantly in the danger of being caught 'out of the loop' at least until the end of a chapter.
Most of the story is filled with odd history, clever and wild interpretations, and the fascinating field of numerology. The flip side to this is that the real 'story' does not begin until well past the half-way point. Not to say the first half is irrelevant, though - the second half won't make sense without the detailed background supplied at the beginning.
Therefore, this novel is recommended only for those who are interested in devoting a large portion of their time into reading it. For those that are, Focault's Pendulum is a real treat for the brain.
The knowledge of various European languages (esp. French) is recommended to get the most out of the novel.
Rating: 
Summary: A challenge
Review: This book is an intellectual challenge and I guess
most readers will struggle when trying to understand the authors ideas. I didn't like the
book, because it does not come to the point. The idea of the plot nevertheless is brilliant.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating tour through back closets of history.
Review: Eco offers a fascinating tour down the appropriately labarinthine history of conspiracy theories. Notions of esoteric knowledge and hidden power have been around since the beginning, and the earlier peddlers of these notions had a lot more style than today's dismal crop of Roswell ravers, new age crystal waivers, and black helicopter spotters. If you have been away from the academic environment for some time, the three young editors conducting the tour will vividly recall the good and the bad of that environment: the breadth, charm and vitality of the liberal arts, as well as the tendancy of its practitioners to become self-absorbed, self-important and self-centered. The story in which the tour is encased, unfortunately, is not quite as engaging as the tour, and has slow and wordy spots
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