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A literary prank leads to deadly danger in this "endlessly diverting" intellectual thriller by the author of The Name of the Rose (Time).
Bored with their work, three Milanese book editors cook up an elaborate hoax that connects the medieval Knights Templar with occult groups across the centuries. Becoming obsessed with their own creation, they produce a map indicating the geographical point from which all the powers of the earth can be controlled??a point located in Paris, France, at Foucault's Pendulum.
But in a fateful turn the joke becomes all too real. When occult groups, including Satanists, get wind of the Plan, they go so far as to kill one of the editors in their quest to gain control of the earth. Orchestrating these and other diverse characters into his multilayered semiotic adventure, Umberto Eco has created a superb cerebral entertainment.
"An intellectual adventure story...sensational, thrilling, and packed with arcana."??The Washington Post Book World… (more)
P_S_Patrick: These books have a fair bit in common. They are both intense and thrilling mysteries, involving the occult, conspiracies, books, murders, and are both set mainly in Europe. What The Club Dumas does, Foucalt's Pendulum does better, but that is just my opinion. I have known people give up on reading Foucalt's Pendulum because of its length, its abundance of complicated detail, and its demands on the readers concentration, but any serious reader who enjoyed the Club Dumas should enjoy this more. Anyone who enjoyed Eco's story, likewise, should enjoy the other book, but don't expect it to be quite as good, though I don't think there is a surplus of work in this genre that can compare, with this being more or less the next best thing that I have read.… (more)
freddlerabbit: See the Name of the Rose recommendation above - I find Foucault's even more analogous here because Name of the Rose is a bit more plot-driven than the other two, where Foucault's and Anathem both have as much as 40% pure theory-disguised-as-dialogue.… (more)
ursula: Alamut tells the story of the assassins of the Alamut fortress reference in Foucault's Pendulum. It also has a philosophical bent that will probably appeal.
P_S_Patrick: These two books have a fair bit in common. Both are dense, demanding, historical, and are thick with intrigue, conspiracy, and foul play. Thrilling stuff.
Eco presupposes whatever information available to a person at any point in time is open to multiple valid interpretations. This is true both of a small number of facts and an archive of complex detail. Certain characters evidently do not see the world quite the same way, leaving themselves vulnerable to all manner of conspiracy theory, and the consequences of treating such conspiracies as true. Perhaps more interesting, even characters who begin from Eco's cautionary position eventually prove vulnerable despite -- or because of -- their intent to manipulate their gullible peers.
Eco's byzantine plot explores conspiracy theories historically and psychologically through various machinations, diversions, and escalating fear of and among characters. Connections and confusion proliferate as more historical events are considered, by characters and reader. Eco further implicates the reader in employing various literary devices and historical allusions within his descriptions of character and plot. (LTer Grunin provides a succinct and vivid example, but instances are legion: "This book deliberately messes with your head.") The character of Gudrun seems to offer an alternative to the unfounded conspiracy and paranoia on display: along with hermeneutic intent, a person does well in bringing a certain psychological outlook to bear.
This re-reading was prompted both by fond (admittedly vague) memories of a solid historical summary of the Knights Templar, and curiosity as to whether Eco's theme would shed light on our prevailing culture of disinformation and antifoundationalism. I also held out hope Eco may have treated of esoteric traditions beyond the Templar, as well, which I had simply forgotten since my first reading: perhaps Freemasonry, Ordo Templi Orientis, Golden Dawn, Thelema? Foucault's Pendulum did not disappoint. ( )
Read this several years ago while traveling through France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria. Perfect matching of time, place, and book. The Eco-esque conductor / philosopher on the train from Thun to Genoa stepped directly out of the book. ( )
Umberto Eco has launched a novel that is even more intricate and absorbing than his international best seller The Name of the Rose. Unlike its predecessor, Foucault's Pendulum does not restrict its range of interests to monastic, medieval arcana. This time Eco's framework is vast -- capacious enough to embrace reams of ancient, abstruse writings and a host of contemporary references or allusions... True believers, skeptics, those waffling in between: all are in for a scarifying shock of recognition.
You may call the book an intellectual triumph, if not a fictional one. No man should know so much. It is the work not of a literary man but of one who accepts the democracy of signs. .... To see what Mr. Eco is really getting at, the reader of his fiction or pseudofiction should consult his scholarly works, where observation and interpretation are not disguised as entertainment. I don't think ''Foucault's Pendulum'' is entertainment any more than was ''The Name of the Rose.'' It will appeal to readers who have a puritanical tinge - those who think they are vaguely sinning if they are having a good time with a book. To be informed, however, is holy.
I doubt if we will see a more exhilarating novel published this year, and you don't have to take a reviewer's word for it: can 600,000 Italians be wrong?
U ovom delu Eko se lucidno podsmehnuo svim teorijama zavere od srednjeg veka do danas. Posle čitanja ovog romana sigurno je da će mnogi čitaoci pohrliti da obogate svoja saznanja o alhemiji, kabali i srednjovekovnim tajnim društvima. U ovom romanu Eko se lucidno podsmehnuo svim teorijama zavere od srednjeg veka do danas.
U ovom delu Eko se lucidno podsmehnuo svim teorijama zavere od srednjeg veka do danas. Posle čitanja ovog romana sigurno je da će mnogi čitaoci pohrliti da obogate svoja saznanja o alhemiji, kabali i srednjovekovnim tajnim društvima. U ovom romanu Eko se lucidno podsmehnuo svim teorijama zavere od srednjeg veka do danas.
Only for you, children of doctrine and learning, have we written this work. Examine this book, ponder the meaning we have dispersed in various places and gathered again; what we have concealed in one place we have disclosed in another, that it may be understood by your wisdom.
—Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, De occulta philosophia, 3, 65
Superstition brings bad luck.
—Raymond Smullyan, 5000 B.C. 1.3.8
Dedication
First words
That was when I saw the Pendulum.
Quotations
I am not for one moment denying the presence in your house of alien entities; it's the most natural thing in the world, but with a little common sense it could all be explained as a poltergeist.
It was becoming harder for me to keep apart the world of magic and what today we call the world of facts. Men I had studied in school as bearers of mathematical and physical enlightenment now turned up amid the murk of superstition, for I discovered they had worked with one foot in cabala and the other in the laboratory.
ISBN 9781593972165 is an abridged audiobook edition of Foucault's Pendulum narrated by Tim Curry. It is 6 hours and 38 minutes long which is approximately only 1/3rd of the original work. This edition should not be combined with unabridged editions of Foucault's Pendulum. Thank you.
A literary prank leads to deadly danger in this "endlessly diverting" intellectual thriller by the author of The Name of the Rose (Time).
Bored with their work, three Milanese book editors cook up an elaborate hoax that connects the medieval Knights Templar with occult groups across the centuries. Becoming obsessed with their own creation, they produce a map indicating the geographical point from which all the powers of the earth can be controlled??a point located in Paris, France, at Foucault's Pendulum.
But in a fateful turn the joke becomes all too real. When occult groups, including Satanists, get wind of the Plan, they go so far as to kill one of the editors in their quest to gain control of the earth. Orchestrating these and other diverse characters into his multilayered semiotic adventure, Umberto Eco has created a superb cerebral entertainment.
"An intellectual adventure story...sensational, thrilling, and packed with arcana."??The Washington Post Book World
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Eco's byzantine plot explores conspiracy theories historically and psychologically through various machinations, diversions, and escalating fear of and among characters. Connections and confusion proliferate as more historical events are considered, by characters and reader. Eco further implicates the reader in employing various literary devices and historical allusions within his descriptions of character and plot. (LTer Grunin provides a succinct and vivid example, but instances are legion: "This book deliberately messes with your head.") The character of Gudrun seems to offer an alternative to the unfounded conspiracy and paranoia on display: along with hermeneutic intent, a person does well in bringing a certain psychological outlook to bear.
This re-reading was prompted both by fond (admittedly vague) memories of a solid historical summary of the Knights Templar, and curiosity as to whether Eco's theme would shed light on our prevailing culture of disinformation and antifoundationalism. I also held out hope Eco may have treated of esoteric traditions beyond the Templar, as well, which I had simply forgotten since my first reading: perhaps Freemasonry, Ordo Templi Orientis, Golden Dawn, Thelema? Foucault's Pendulum did not disappoint. (