Rating: 
Summary: Needs action figures
Review: If you have an appropriate sense of chaos and mischief, you will appreciate the characters in FP. If there were action figures I would buy them. They are brilliant and out of control- weaving from the world they are adeptly creating into their clumsy reality and back again. I laughed out loud several times in inappropriate places while reading this book. YES there will be things that you do not understand, and plot points you will miss because you weren't taking notes, but that's not really the goal. Is that how you live your life? Is it? That's pathetic. Go watch a movie, they make sense.
That being said, a suggestion for future editions: TRANSLATE those huge blocks of french, hebrew, etc. They look interesting.
Rating: 
Summary: funny and complex
Review: I must admit, that I would not have liked Foucault's Pendulum this much if I read it 3 years ago. But now, with a knowledge of math, logic, philosophy beyond general knowledge it is really fun to read and not hard at all. If ypi think you don't have that knowledge don't bother to still get this book together with the dictionary to this book. It is certainly worth it!
Rating:
Summary: Foucault's Pendelum
Review: It has been many years since I have read this book, but while at the site to add it to my wish list, I dipped into the reader reviews and was surprised to find that so many people found it so boring or only accessible to those with "higher education."
I had been told about this book by my 14 year old brother, who adored it, and while spending my 18th year in Madrid as an exchange student came across a copy in Spanish. It was the only novel (besides required texts for school) that I read in Spanish that entire year, not being extremely fluent in the language. I absolutely loved it! I remember being swept away by the mysterious possibilities that the book suggests. Mind you, I had at this point only a high school education and very little knowledge of the people/places/things that Eco was writting about. I was, however, familiar with Eco having read the Name of the Rose so many times I had to buy a second copy as the first was dog-eared and loosing pages. I would opine that if you have a good imagination and are open minded to not knowing about absolutely EVERYTHING Eco discusses, you might really enjoy this novel, and perhaps even learn something (although you won't know if its real information or that created by Eco). Just let it take you where it wants to take you. Don't resist it for want of your perception of reason or likelihood or history.
Rating: 
Summary: It works better as a doorstop
Review: This book is my standard for absolute impenetrable dreadfulness. I hated it so much. In the words of Monty Python, Dull! Dull! dreadfully Dull!
Rating:
Summary: Eco System
Review: This is the second time I've read this book. The last time was 15 years ago, and I always knew I wanted to tackle it again. The only thing that stuck out in my first reading was solving the mysteries of the Knights of the Templars. I got so much more out of it again.It is a tour de force of esoteric knowledge. Every conspiracy and occult group gets linked in this implausible but captivating march through 600 years of historical fact and supposition. This frenzied pursuit of the secret of the universe, who had it? The Templars, the Rosicrucians, the followers of the cabala, Francis Bacon, Alamut. It makes one dizzy to keep up with the entire business. Each chapter starts with a quote from ancient writing on the hermetic arts, and then the fun begins. At times, thick and incomprehensible, it generally exploded through the mind with occult possibilities, and ends with a simple account of Belbo's motivation. Was it Rosebud or a trumpet? Why not mention the town in Italy where he lived, I wonder. The ending and resolution were slightly ambiguous. Fevered imagination or just running out of gas, I don't know. For those with a bent to wild flights of imagination, and the Knights of the Templar, saddle up for a magic ride. Hey, what if it's true?
Rating: 
Summary: reader from Israel
Review: I wish I could give this book a stronger review then 2 stars but that is already being generous. Mr. Eco really drew me in with the ' Name of the Rose' and I expected more of the same with this title . Such was not the case. Being a Hebrew speaker and novice cabalist I thought I had a better chance of grasping this work then most others.... perhaps slightly but the overall read was laborious and painful. To say I did not get would be accurate. I have one more book by him to read and I'm hoping that this next one delivers a better rate of return. Mr. Eco is a wonderful writer all in all and if I had to pick someone to be deserted on an island with he would be a good choice.
Rating:
Summary: Worth the Effort
Review: None should pick up this book thinking it will be accessible, unless one happens to be the sort who can, say, cruise through the Friday "New York Times" crossword in under half an hour. Eco consistently violates, in this work, what I normally consider to be the canons of good prose: He chooses long and difficult words over short and clear ones, includes copious foreign phrases (and sometimes whole paragraphs) in no less than three languages besides English, and peppers the text with obscure allusions and long expository monologues. Towards the end of the book he stops even bothering to put quotes around his narrator's paranoid historiographic treatises, and we must occasionally plow through pages at a time of straight theorizing. However, there is a broader and more fundamental stylistic principle that justifies these excesses, in this case, which is that style should suit subject. And the subject of "Foucault's Pendulum"--enlightment through the pursuit of obscure and arcane knowledge--could not be better served than by a style which is itself a bit obscure and arcane. What's more, the protagonist's professorial penchant for polysyllaby serves an important dramatic purpose: If Causabon did not seem to us so intelligent, we probably would not follow him so willingly down the path of madness. But he does, and we do, and the effect Eco achieves at the end of it all is nothing short of exalting. Think of the book itself, then, as a hermetic text, and as one with real secrets to unveil: Invest some effort, read with attention, and resign yourself to a bit of research here and there, and you will be well rewarded.
Rating:
Summary: Not for the faint of brain
Review: One of the more amusing reviews for this phenomenal book refers to Foucault's Pendulum as the kind of 'unintelligible' stuff that erudites claim to understand in order to show off how smart they are. Isn't that just sad? No surprise then that the most anticipated book of recent times was a children's story. Foucault's Pendulum is giddy, dense Fortean fun: an Eternal Golden Braid of fact, folklore, history, and hearsay, where religion, mythology, science, superstition, hermetic lore, and just plain crackpottery get their tendrils tangled by three cynical, data-overloaded scholars and one innocent computer. From this morass of rosy-crossed-references emerges a fantastic meta-conspiracy theory that sets our very unwilling heroes on a feverish journey towards... the truth? Be certain: this book will require some higher education, and will only make sense if you paid attention in class at least once in awhile. But for those who like a little challenge from their reading once in awhile, you'll be well rewarded by Eco.
Rating:
Summary: Literally the worst book I've ever read...
Review: I finished this book with great effort only because it kills me not to complete a book. Every aspect of this book is horrible. Eco drones on way too long in minute details that seem to be there only because they were in his research notes. There are pages of unreadable material, paragraphs they consist of lists of useless items. The characters are 1 dimensional at best and the plot, as it finally unfolds it unremarkable and ridiculous.
Imagine a very brainy history or philosophy professor pouring out whatever popped into his head for hundreds of pages and then a publisher putting it out verbatim without bothering to have an editor take a look at it. If they had done that to this book it would have been a semi-interesting, but unentralling short story.
Run away from this book.
If it's a status symbol to be reading this book, or more impossibly to complete it, then I want nothing to do with the peer group that finds such a tortuous endeavor admirable.
Rating:
Summary: This is NOT a boring book
Review: Foucault's Pendulum is one of my favorite books. I was a C average student and am an art degree type person. I'm only telling you this because for some reason people think reading Umberto Eco is hard work. Ok, from an interview I read he sounds like a lame sno, but the two books of his I read were great, and not as difficult or boring as people make out. I have an interest in the Knights Templar, and Alchemy so perhaps this book struck a chord with me, but it's not as difficult as many other celebrated authors, like Faulkner for example. If you enjoy mysteries, or books like Holy Blood Holy Grail check this out. You may not breeze through 100 pages in one sitting like a harry potter or agatha christie book, but it's is still fun and sucks you in.
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