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Summary: The full tour of imagined european history.
Review: Are you interested in the relationship between "History" and "Story"? Do you want to know where the boundaries lie? This is the zenith of a genre that explores this problem. It is clearly related to two other works; Waterland, by Graham Swift, and Midnight's Children, by Salman Rushdie. In Mid-Chi (and others of his oeuvre)Rushdie develops a fantastical plot linked to real historical events. It should be noted that the characters are unaware of the fantastical nature of the plot. The ready on the other hand is. After this came Swift's Waterland. In Wland he mixes real history, imagined history, 1st person story, 3rd person story and natural history, blurring the boundaries all the time. Again the characters are unaware (initially too the reader is unaware).Eco takes this to a new level. His characters are perfectly aware of the fragility of the History/Story axis. He takes us on a tour of the European occult, the Qabbalah, the Masons, the Druids. It is a non-stop tornado that jumps from historical fact to historical conjecture to modern story beautifully evenly and gracefully. A true modern masterpiece. He will go on to win the Nobel Prize!
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Summary: If you like this book you will probably also like....
Review: Whenever I've got nothing to read I always go to the amazon.com reviews page of my favorite books. Focault's Pendulum is my favorite book and by checking out the customers reviews I discovered some fantasic books that I may not have discovered otherwise. For instance: An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears, Perfume by Patrick Suskind and Ingenious Pain by Andrew Miller. Now it is my turn to return the favor: the book is called The Discovery of Heaven by Harry Mulisch and it is Fantastic. Equally fantastic is a book by a German writer called Helmut Krausser. The name of the book is Melodies and Helmut Krausser can only be described as the love child of Umberto Eco and Stanley Kubrick. Unfortunately, I don't think it has been translated into English yet! (I read it in German). Look out for it though! The Discovery of heaven has been translated and you can get it through amazon.com. I hope my contribution has been helpful to other Eco enthousiasts.
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Summary: Hard Work
Review: I was hooked in the beginning, but then I was bogged down in what a previous reviewer aptly described as "the big lump of detailed nonsense in the middle". However, I persevered to the end, because I wanted to find out how all of this misinformation would be interpreted. Eco did manage to pull it all together, and I was rewarded with a satisfying ending, and a strong sense of accomplishment for having made the trip. I believe that there was a great story embedded in this mess. But Eco's detailed descriptions of minor historical events were just a chore to read. He included references to places, people and events that had no relation to the basic plot of the book. A stricter editor was definitely needed.
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Summary: not for the faint of heart
Review: Eco is one of the greatest living writers in any language. Still, because of his erudition, many of his works are only accessible to scholars. I really enjoyed Foucault's Pendulum as a great science/mystery/suspense thriller, but not all readers will be as patient. If you can sift through his difficult allusions and references, you will be richly rewarded, but no one said Eco's books were easy reading. You're IQ will rise 5-10 points after reading any of Eco's books.
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Summary: Intellectual thriller extraordinaire!
Review: Let's just put it on the table: Foucault's Pendulum is one of the greatest intellectual thrillers of all time. It's astounding scholarly research and depth of plot eclipse any and all competitors. Eco's professorship in semiotics is apparently very deserved. His historical accuracy is impeccable and his characters exist in a real world. When they're supposed to. The only thing that drags this book down is its ending, which is disappointing, doing a shoddy job of tying together all the strings that Eco so carefully wove. Nonetheless, this book is a must-read for anyone even remotely interested in the genre.
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Summary: ECO's most interesting
Review: this one will keep your attention, challenge your intellect, and most likely give you the creeps.
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Summary: A joke book for the gods
Review: Eco is having the last laugh. In "Foucault's Pendulum" Umberto Eco is writing a huge joke with the whole world as the punchline. He takes everything you know about history (and quite a few things you don't) and wraps them all up in such a way that they make sense. Or better yet, in a brilliant act of post modernism, he has his characters do it. Causabon, the narrator of the tale, spends his time explaining to the reader that none of this is real. And yet, when you put the book down, all the connections which have been explained become glaringly obvious in real life. It's like when you buy a new car and suddenly all you see on the road is that model. Eco creates the pathways for your own brain to make the connections. I realize this tells you nothing about the plot of the book, but that's half the fun of reading it. You have to decide for yourself where he's being serious and where he's playing a joke. And even after you decide...you're probably wrong. Like Tim Powers, Eco is very skillful at weaving historical fact into a fantastic tale. Ultimately, you don't know if he's pulling your leg or if he's just written down a long forgotten history and is downplaying it as fiction to make sure he doesn't get into trouble with the powers that be.
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Summary: more people read this book than ought to
Review: am i the only one who understood this novel and felt that the history fit well into the story? it's a great, frustrating, fulfilling, monstrosity of a book and it's wonderful. however, it's not for everyone. if history, philosophy, theology, the occult, or whatever is your sort of thing, you'll love it, but if your just looking for a nice story to read before bed, don't bother. most people seem say one of two things "i didn't get it and that impressed me" or "i didn't get it and i hate things i don't get". well, most people won't get it, because most people don't care all that much about occultism in european history. however, if you are willing to take it on in the right spirit, you might learn a lot about the way the world works.....
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Summary: Utter mastery, of language, pace and subject matter
Review: Though any work of Eco's will be daunting to most, and downright heiroglyphic to many, those readers with patience, access to a gallows humor and a need to be challenged cannot afford to miss this treasure. Eco here considers the endless (and often mindless) paranoia afforded to those who seek a cabalistic explanation for that which is inexplicable, with a treatment that fits its denizens to a veritable 'T.' I was enthralled by Arturo Perez-Reverte's THE CLUB DUMAS, for similar reasons, but Eco's PENDULUM is an absolute benchmark--for fiction, any fiction, these lofty heights will rarely be reached again.
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Summary: Even better than Name of the Rose...
Review: ...which is something, after reading Name of the Rose, I thought I would not say. The breadth and scope of Eco's vision is unbelievable in this novel, but none of that would be worth a farthing if his characters weren't engaging, even when they had flaws. Ultimately, this novel is about belief--by the dizzying end you're not sure what to believe, which is, perhaps, the point. When some people talk of postmodern literature they use it as a negative attribute, without realizing just how FUN a novel of this caliber can be. This is a well-wrought page turner that uses postmodern techniques to enhance, rather than obscure, the narrative.
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