Rating: 
Summary: Pique
Review: The thing I enjoy most about Umberto Eco is that he builds his stories on a framework of a true history that is not only mysterious, but typically un-taught.Basically, if you're going to understand his books, you're going to learn a lot about some things that happened a long time ago that no one ever taught you in high school or college (unless you ever happened to be a medievil studies post doctoral candidate). Rather than setting his Historical Fiction within the relatively boring and overused framework of something we all know a little bit about, he sets it within a shadowy world most of us have only imagined having actually happened. From The Knights Templar and The Real Holy Grail, to the Human Psyche and The concept of understanding God and the infinite... This sort of thing is not typically what you have to think about while reading a mystery novel. I won't lie though, it is dense and it is difficult. i.e. This guy ain't messing around. Eco probably knows as much if not more about this stuff than anyone in the world. From what little I know about him, Fiction is his 2nd career. So while you can bet he knows what he's talking about, you might find that you do not. In the mean time, you can feel confident trusting in his authority on the subject. His passion for the mysterious and ancient is apparent in every bit fiction he writes. The tricky thing for him is that there is a big black empty period of the history of Western Civilization. Long story short, Eco is writing about historical events for which there is only partial information. A page or two here, half a damaged manuscript there. This novel is much more about about a fascination of speculating about those black holesin our history than it is actual speculation about those holes. Perhaps no one is more qualified to perform such speculation than Umberto Eco, but that is not his purpose here. He succeeds in reeling you in to a world whith which few are familiar. Unfortunately there are no clear answers to either the historical or the metaphysical mysteries his characters become obsessed with. If you're lucky, it will fascinate you as well. Then it will become a thunderous ride for you and your brain. If you climb this mountain expecting to get to the golden palace, you will not be satisfied. If you climb it, you will find a beautiful valley on the other side and an entirely new mountain range beyond. You'll also find a pretty good view of the plain you just came from. The end of this book is no great revelation as you might be tempted to hope for. Rather, it's a clearer picture of the journey you are on and how it is not exactly the journey you thought it was.
Rating:
Summary: A Dazzling Work of Conspiracy
Review: Umberto Eco's books are not for the faint of heart. Eco is a master of history and literature, and his books are like a quick tour through a doctorate program in Renaissance literature and history. This is no accident; he is, after all, a professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna when he is not writing his unusual fiction. This book, Foucault's Pendulum, is a tour through the conspiracies involving the Knights Templar. Three rather eccentric employees of a Milan publishing firm become intrigued with the story of the Knights Templar and all matter of esoterica, including the Kabalah, the Eleusinian Mysteries, the Rosicrucians and Freemasons, Brazilian religions including the umbanda and candomble, and the Templars. Assisted by a knowledgeable and mysterious Count, who may or may not be one of the incarnations of the Comte de Saint-Germain, the three have fun in building an overarching theory of conspiracy, which they call The Plan, assisted by a primitive computer named Abulafia. But then they discover that the Plan is actually true -- and then they are on the run for their lives. The book is on many levels silly, but the tremendous skill and knowledge of Eco make it all fun, exciting, mysterious, and educational. Eco has skills worthy of a time travelelr in that he not only has a trmeendous body of knowledge, but he has a remarkable grasp for the history of ideas -- how ideas were regarded in their own place and time. A marvelous work, well worth reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating content, but tedious, unremarkable story
Review: Overall, I enjoyed the experience of reading this book, particularly getting sucked in to the unfolding connections between secret societies, history, and religion. I wish, however, that I would have read about the book's esoteric content without having to put up with the boring, one-dimensional characters' personal relationships and political interests. A nonfiction version of this (for the portions that actually are nonfiction -- by the end you don't know what's based on fact and what's a creation of the author's imagnation) would be a more worthwhile read. The message or "moral" of the ending, at least the way I interpretted it, was a kind of an interesting and unexpected one from a refreshing outsider perspective. But in the end, unless you're a particularly avid reader, or don't mind skimming some really dull parts, I would recommend the point of this novel, but not the novel itself.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't Waste Your Time
Review: I enjoyed "The Name of the Rose" so much that I thought I would try Foucault's Pendulum. After all, it sounded like a fascinating read. I slugged my way through page after page of the book thinking that surely soon I would get hooked. Finally, when about 2/3 of the way through the book, I came to the brilliant conclusion that it just wasn't going to happen and that there was no need to bore myself to tears any more. I took the book back to the library. The librarian saw me turning it in and asked if I had read it, and did I enjoy it? I reluctantly admitted that I had given up more than halfway through it. She laughed and said that she was foolish and stubborn enough to have read the whole #$(*&@ thing and still had no idea what was going on! For several years now, Foucault's Pendulum has been our family joke--a book for people who like to trumpet their intelligence by claiming to understand something completely unintelligible.
Rating:
Summary: A Provoking Plan
Review: Garamond/Manuzio Press, Casaubon, Belbo, Diotallevi and the Isis Unveiled Serie is just a pretext that Mr. Eco use to introduce us in a fascinating world of the helmetic mysteries and occultism where a serie of historical personages and events are mentioned in it pages. The book has a little of everything, Templars, Teutonic and Kadosh Knights, catars, illuminatis, jesuits, rosicrusians, freemasons and the assassins of Alamut. Also the author makes extended references to the Hebrew, Christian and Muslim theology and philosophy, the Thule Society, the Qabalah, the Ordo Templi Orientis, Madame Blavasky's Theophical Society, the myth of the Count Saint Germain immortality, alchemy, etc. This is a perfect novel for people who like thrillers mixed with occultism, mysticism and religious mysteries.
Rating:
Summary: Quisquiliae turgidus (Latin for 'turgid gobbledygook')
Review: Umberto Eco's 'Foucault's Pendulum' is a book that inspires strong emotions. Readers either love it or loathe it. Count me in the latter category. Nothing against the author. I'm sure he achieved his objectives with flying colors. And the subject matter is, at times, pretty darn interesting. But Eco's style -- fraught with arcane references and interminable diatribes -- is not my cup of tea. To boot, the explanation of the causes of the holocaust, albeit fictionalized, is disturbing, to put it mildly. Here's a snippet of what I'm talking about: 'Hitler was searching the Jews for the clue that would allow him to determine, with the Pendulum, the exact point under the earth's concave vault where the telluric currents converged.' (See pp. 422-3, et al.) I regret that I plowed through the whole book, but I have an irrational habit of always finishing the books that I begin reading. To the more rational reader, I suggest the following: read the first six pages. If it tickles your shorts, keep reading. There's plenty more where that came from. If not, cut bait and find something else to read. Granted, there are many people for whom 'Foucault's Pendulum' is a brilliant piece of literature. But for others, the book will only disappoint for many, many hours.
Rating:
Summary: an absolute classic
Review: An enduring classic on the rich, wonderful territories of cognition and exploration of thought. An astonishingly entertaining novel that took this reader through the amazing corridors of mind, mysticism and magic in a manner unlike anything else. Eco's vast repertoire of knowledge shines through in such detail and vividness to uniquely render stunning imagery and lasting impressions. The story ain't too shabby, either. The story deals effectively with the realms of religion, mythology, symbols, psychology and mysticism - just to name a few. The reader is pulled into a sophisticated cognitive game that proves enlightening and thought provoking FOR YEARS to come. Eco set the bar extremely high on this one.
Rating:
Summary: To the Naysayers:
Review: For me the beauty of Eco's literary work isn't in the initial reading of the piece, but in the REREADING. I myself am a peon in comparison with the great literary minds of the century, but that doesn't prevent me from learning The occult, the templars, and other subjects covered in this book. And I swear, if armed with this knowledge, the book is almost guaranteed to be a rewarding experience. No other book offers that kind of shelf life, a book that can be reread countless of times. Unless you happen to be in the same level as professor Eco, reading the book multiple times will almost always reveal a new level of understanding. A must read. definitely worth reading, most definitely worth buying.
Rating:
Summary: My favorite book ever... who knew it was so controversial?
Review: I first read Foucoult's Pendulum back in college when it was first published. It was recommended by my bofriend, and I spent half of Spring Break plowing through it. Hard work. One of the few books that absolutely necessitates having a dictionary at hand to really absorb it, and it better be the OED because Webster's doesn't have all the words. Seriously. And in the end, I was floored, absorbed, and used the remaining days of vacation to read it again. I had found a new "Favorite Book Ever!" I guess I understand why so many are so full of vitriolic loathing when they discuss "Foucault's Pendulum". It isn't really a thriller, nor a consipiracy theory text, nor a philosophical treatise, nor an easy read. If you really want some brain candy (and I certainly do a lot of the time--PG Wodehouse forever!) this is not the book to pick up. It was, however, probably the first work of fiction I had ever read that made me think about the nature of reality... what is real, what is knowledge, how do we know and who decides. I loved the historical mind games, the twisted conspiracy plots, the flights of fanciful speculation. I found the language dense, yes, but dense like the best kind of rich, dark, brownies--intense and flavorful. For me the climax of the novel had nothing to do with the plot, it was the moment when I went "ah-ha!" and actually "Got It!" An intellectual pleasure in the extreme, but a genuine joy nonetheless. Twelve years later I own three copies of this book (my tattered original paperback, a hardcover I've read once because I felt this was a book I wanted to own in hardcover, and another paperback for lending out). I've read "Foucault" three additional times... it would be more, but, as I said, it's a tough read and you have to be in the right mood. Every time I've experienced again that first wonderful "Ah-ha!" moment, though perhaps a little less intense since I know it is coming. The boyfriend who recommended it is now my husband. And hundreds of books later, it's still my favorite book.
Rating:
Summary: one of the richest intellectual books for the last 45years
Review: First, this book is for people having a certain preference for historical and philosophical oriented books .It is trully one of the best books I ever read ,for it asks very deep questions which are fundamental in our present era.
This books has three levels or axis of explanations :the first one, which is the most "superficial" and that is an apparently uninteresting story about three editors having "fun"(more like an obsession) for an obscure reason ,in making stories up about different sects (Masosns, Rosicrucians,illuminati of bavaria, ... ), connecting different hitorical facts, suspicions, rumors and it ends in absurdly apparently by the death of two of our three heroess, the third narrator also waiting for its expected death ... .
However, the people whom I read a very negative assesment of the book are really angry because they apparently expected a more "en action" story where the author i.e eco himself would explicitly tell them about the meaning of this "absurd knot".
I think that is the kind of the very simplistic and naive approach to the "novel" ,but maybe it is just like the characters' approach to "History".That is why there is a second axis less obvious If i can say so but nevertheless important and which a lot of the readers suspected ,which is the idea that revolves around the feasibility, falsifiability of conspirationnal theories, how close they could be to reality, with all their temptationnal aspect.For example it appears suddenly that a certain secret society posesses by pure chance the very same approach to "History" as our heroes fanciful plan!Now is this very "pure" coincidence a sufficient argument to disregard the Plan or the fact that by chance we have some people that would beleive in it may give a certain real value for what were just doing by fun?
This only one of the questions which it asks and there are many more... .
The third axis which in my opinion is a very unique one , truly original , a kind of a "dobbleganger" motive between the reader and the narrator Casaubon which symbolizes the mere average person posessing a rather very good amount of intelligence and who tries to understand what is going on.
This third deeper level is focusing on a rather central issue : What can Man make out of all this? Can we really as individuals separate on our own without a physical experiment between truth and relity in history? Even if we could do an experiment, what does it became the instant it it in the past behind us writtten in history, where it is now and again a "mere" hitorical event?
We are entangled here with the shortcomming of man in general in verifying what he knows, or even knowing enough on an individual level.
I reckon that the story may be difficult , especially in its second third part, but that is only for "readers" of the first level... .
Moreover Although the traduction is very helpful for the exerpts above each chapter however I doubt that it was itself a reason of the apparent silliness of the english traduction where sometimes expressions are transformed into vulgar english slang to try making this colossal work close to the average reader while the french ( De Poche editions )version which I read also is much more authentic and frankly more attaching - maybe because of the close relation between italian and french expressions, culture, ...-.
However it is only fair to acknowledge the huge effort in this book and the great philosophical dimensions it opens in a totally original way.Since the 60's existensialism, I didn't see any intellectual having this much of a rich view which bears so many interpretaions as eco's work.
This is trully a great book, a star still shining in the relatively intellectually poor sky of this last half of century.
Ponder it thouroghly!
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