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jeannemixon's review against another edition
5.0
I read this about 20 years ago and had completely forgotten the plot and all of the details except that it was a paranoid conspiracy. Really held up after all this time.
laurenlibrarian's review against another edition
3.0
Phew, this was a tough one to get through. Lots of Wiki rabbit holes to search down.
loyaultemelie's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
While I wouldn't call this book enjoyable to read necessarily, I did find it incredibly compelling. More importantly, this is one of those books that everyone should read. A true reflection of the way that conspiracy theories can latch onto people, slowly, without them even realizing it. Belbo, Casaubon, and Diotallevi are not uneducated people. Too smart for their own good, they're all nevertheless dissatisfied with their lives. With the sheer mundane nature of it. No opportunity to be a hero, no sense of direction. So what do you do when life doesn't give you a direction? You can blame it, or God. You can also embrace what you think is the void, and try to even laugh at it.
This book proves to me the fact that it's almost impossible to 'jokingly' believe in a conspiracy. Once you start training your brain to see everything as part of a pattern, it will continue to do so. No matter how much you claim it's only for your own amusement, your brain is still fundamentally working in that conspiratorial pattern. Perhaps the most heartbreaking part of this book is to see the characters struggle against the neural pathways they themselves have created. Their heads bob barely above water, as they insist that they are still tethered to reality. Even at the end, Casaubon cannot totally escape the way he has wired his brain.
Perhaps more importantly, Foucault's Pendulum shows the lengths that people who believe in a conspiracy will go not only to make it reality, but to reveal the secret of their conspiracy.Despite a lower body count in actuality, this book feels much more violent than Eco's previous the Name of the Rose. The sheer glee that the Diabolicals take in their murder of Lorenza and Belbo is staggering. The image of a body swinging as the inert point of a pendulum is sickening.
The end of the book combines these themes so perfectly.Is Casaubon being paranoid, is he about to die for a secret that doesn't exist? It's a sobering thought - matched only by the stripped down beauty of Casaubon's final thoughts. Perhaps he hasn't found peace, as he hoped he would, but as the audience there is certainly this bittersweet sense of closure.
Lastly I want to say, though this book definitely deserves its five stars, wow Eco can't write women better than most literary men. RIP, one day we'll find a man who doesn't do men writing women. Also though this book is again amazing, there is definitely something about how Eco bastardizes kabbalah despite also being upfront about the artificial and manipulative nature of antisemitism that strikes a discordant chord. How much Eco succeeded in dodging falling into the very pitfall he's pointing out is up for debate.
This book proves to me the fact that it's almost impossible to 'jokingly' believe in a conspiracy. Once you start training your brain to see everything as part of a pattern, it will continue to do so. No matter how much you claim it's only for your own amusement, your brain is still fundamentally working in that conspiratorial pattern. Perhaps the most heartbreaking part of this book is to see the characters struggle against the neural pathways they themselves have created. Their heads bob barely above water, as they insist that they are still tethered to reality.
Perhaps more importantly, Foucault's Pendulum shows the lengths that people who believe in a conspiracy will go not only to make it reality, but to reveal the secret of their conspiracy.
The end of the book combines these themes so perfectly.
Lastly I want to say, though this book definitely deserves its five stars, wow Eco can't write women better than most literary men. RIP, one day we'll find a man who doesn't do men writing women. Also though this book is again amazing, there is definitely something about how Eco bastardizes kabbalah despite also being upfront about the artificial and manipulative nature of antisemitism that strikes a discordant chord. How much Eco succeeded in dodging falling into the very pitfall he's pointing out is up for debate.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Antisemitism, Murder, and War
jessebalster's review against another edition
2.0
The first dozens of pages got me really excited because they hinted at an epic novel that thoroughly examines the relation between science and mysticism. But the interesting themes and exciting plot of the novel got lost in a swamp of hundreds of pages of mystical stories and speculation. I admire this book for its ambition and uniqueness but it is not a pleasant read at all.
queenseelie's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
llimllib's review against another edition
3.0
I was disappointed by this book, though I hold Name of the Rose in such high regard that it would have been difficult to top.
The middle section of this book is much too long and quite boring. I was only able to keep pushing through because Eco is a superlative writer, and it's at least always fun to read. (If that's possible, for it to be simultaneously fun to read but boring? But what I mean is that he's a delightful technical writer, though the plot suffers for his fun sometimes.)
The middle section of this book is much too long and quite boring. I was only able to keep pushing through because Eco is a superlative writer, and it's at least always fun to read. (If that's possible, for it to be simultaneously fun to read but boring? But what I mean is that he's a delightful technical writer, though the plot suffers for his fun sometimes.)
korrick's review against another edition
3.0
2.5/5
I have a particular dislike of the trope of time travel in my fiction reading. As someone who enjoys historical fiction as well as a health dose of nonfiction, I find the whole premise too much of a muddle to trust that the author isn't either copping out or otherwise giving their internal biases too much wiggle room. This book may technically concern itself with merely a decade or so (longer if you take into account the narrator's borderline homoerotic obsession with another man's tea-soaked madeleine excursions among his childhood days spent in WWII Italy), but there's so much near copy paste of entire tracts from pre-Wikipedia with only the thinnest film of dialogic structure to excuse its appearance in a purportedly fictional narrative that I needed a healthy dose of end-notes or at least a footnote to tie me down. Alas, all this desiccated mass market paperback, complete with a worryingly dark stain spanning across the bottom portion of its pages, had to give me were sections where the font became even smaller when recreating text files of white boy worrying pulled out of an early computer. Still, when the text stopped vomiting facts and actually started paying attention to the human and the technology on the basis of experience rather than theory crafting, it had some interesting things to say about people connecting the dots without paying attention to the soul (why conspiracy theorists so often turn antisemitic, if not straight up fascist), computers generating the hidden secrets of all religions and then some (not sure if Eco would have lost it with this latest "AI" business or been disappointed by all the technofeudalist grifters), and all those rebels inventing themselves a cause. It's hardly going to swerve me in my path from armchair critic to union steward (or convince me to read another Eco), but I'm just glad I got something out of this book what wasn't memetic metafiction oroborousing itself into an early grave.
P.S. Fans of this book should check out this online game called 'Infinite Craft,' see if they can find the secret lexicon of ultimate power at the heart of that one.
I have a particular dislike of the trope of time travel in my fiction reading. As someone who enjoys historical fiction as well as a health dose of nonfiction, I find the whole premise too much of a muddle to trust that the author isn't either copping out or otherwise giving their internal biases too much wiggle room. This book may technically concern itself with merely a decade or so (longer if you take into account the narrator's borderline homoerotic obsession with another man's tea-soaked madeleine excursions among his childhood days spent in WWII Italy), but there's so much near copy paste of entire tracts from pre-Wikipedia with only the thinnest film of dialogic structure to excuse its appearance in a purportedly fictional narrative that I needed a healthy dose of end-notes or at least a footnote to tie me down. Alas, all this desiccated mass market paperback, complete with a worryingly dark stain spanning across the bottom portion of its pages, had to give me were sections where the font became even smaller when recreating text files of white boy worrying pulled out of an early computer. Still, when the text stopped vomiting facts and actually started paying attention to the human and the technology on the basis of experience rather than theory crafting, it had some interesting things to say about people connecting the dots without paying attention to the soul (why conspiracy theorists so often turn antisemitic, if not straight up fascist), computers generating the hidden secrets of all religions and then some (not sure if Eco would have lost it with this latest "AI" business or been disappointed by all the technofeudalist grifters), and all those rebels inventing themselves a cause. It's hardly going to swerve me in my path from armchair critic to union steward (or convince me to read another Eco), but I'm just glad I got something out of this book what wasn't memetic metafiction oroborousing itself into an early grave.
P.S. Fans of this book should check out this online game called 'Infinite Craft,' see if they can find the secret lexicon of ultimate power at the heart of that one.