Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco (Fiction)   Paperback 533 pages (December 1990) Ballantine Books ISBN: 0345368754 Bookshelf Categories Alchemy & Hermeticism

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Synopsis:

A gleeful tour-de-force novel that ridecules every conspiratorial Templar-Rosicrucian-secret society theory there is -- while lovingly embracing them at the same time. At a certain point, you begin to wonder how much is fiction and how much is the author’s own speculative version of history cloaked in fiction. Clearly well-researched, while making fun of the theories that arise in his overactive mind. Worth reading to suggest actual areas of study.

Three clever book editors, inspired by an extraordinary fable they heard years befoe, decide to have a little fun. Randomly feeding esoteric bits of knowledge into an incredible computer capable of inventing connections between all their entires, they think they are creating a long lazy game--until the game starts taking over.... Here is an incredible journey of thought and history, memory and fantasy, a tour de force as enthralling as anything Umberto Eco--or indeed anyone--has ever devised.

Reviews:

Please.... read it!!!	9/4/2000
Reviewer: Julie from Aalborg, Jylland Denmark
This is a must read book - a total masterpiece which draws you into the mystery of the Knights Templars with such force that you cannot put down the book untill you finished reading it!!! Join Casaubon and his friends in their great Plan which is filled with history, myths, legends, mystery and well-hidden secrets! Please, do so!!!

Cheery little Hermetic romp	8/28/2000
Reviewer: gwogga from Seattle, WA United States
Yes, indeed: Eco lays on the 'scholarly gobbledygook' with a trowel, here, and characterization in any real human manner is diverted by some unseen, vaguely alchemical, formula for life. There are a great many unnecessary details about Rosicrucians. In my opinion, that's the best reason to read it. If one is willing to set aside the desire for a traditional character-driven story and relax into the self-moving, arcane dimness of the world Eco presents, one will be showered--yea, showered--with both esoteric trivia and a pleasantly removed distance from the events transpiring. The persepective, for all its first-person accounting, seems rather more some goddish creature observing over the narrator's shoulder, and coolly and elegantly relating the news of the goings-on.

Tastes great, more brain-filling	2/9/2000
Reviewer: villainess from Ithaca, NY
It's true: If you think that the Masons are those guys at the veterans day parade in funny hats, if the phrases 'Knights Templar' or 'Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion' mean nothing to you, and if all you know about Italian history is that they were on the bad guys' side in WWII, this book is going to be quite difficult for you. But, if you have ever been or lived with an occultist; if you got a kick out of Robert Anton Wilson's work and still remember some of it through the drug haze; if you are morbidly fascinated with what the religious impulse and the love of conspiracy theory does to the human mind, this is a must-read. This book is an example of perhaps the most difficult feat of all for a writer - the combining of a genuinely exciting and moving plot with a genuinely fascinating set of ideas. Where Eco does err, he errs on the side of too much idea and too little plot, but in the end, the balance comes out with a fantastic climax.

Total Masterpiece	9/8/1999
Reviewer: A reader from New Hampshire
For better or for worse, this book has changed my life. Not that I have become some paranoid conspiracy theorist, but I was inspired to discover the larger story hidden beneath our "known" history. Many of the reviewers comment on the difficulty of plodding through the density contained in this novel, going so far as to blame it on the writer's sanctimonious ego for its inclusion. I think these people are missing the boat, ignoring the fact that this density is what is require of the novel to make evident its meaning. I was fascinated and entranced by the extensive historical details, insofar as to say it was those aspects were what made this read so pleasurable. The message of the book, exemplified by Abulafia's skill at piecing together esoteric bits of information goes to show us how seemingly incoherent events of time shape our story of history. Eco shows us that the story can be changed, altered, and tailored; an alternate view of history revealed. Does this new history have any less validity than the accepted one? Eco makes the case that it doesn't, but also not to stress over it. This is the final revelation of the protagonist. Enjoy the density, enjoy the history. This is a fantastic opportunity to glimpse back in time.

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