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'Brilliant...A novel that is deeper and richer that The Name of the Rose' New York Times
'Brilliant, funny, encompassing everything you ever wanted to know about practically everything (including numerology, James Bond's foes, and the construction of sewers), this book is both extraordinarily learned and well plotted' Sunday Times
'Endlessly diverting...Even more intricate and absorbing than his international bestseller The Name of the Rose' Time
Three book editors, jaded by reading far too many crackpot manuscripts on the mystic and the occult, are inspired to have some fun by an extraordinary conspiracy story told to them by a strange colonel. They start feeding random bits of information into a powerful computer capable of inventing connections between the entries, thinking they are creating nothing more than an amusing game, but then their game starts to take over, the deaths start mounting, and they are forced into a frantic search for the truth.
'An intellectual adventure story, as ensational, thrilling and packed with arcana as Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Count of Monte Cristo' Washington Post Book World
'Umberto Eco is literature's great magician...He offers us many passages of brilliance, and treats us to a Shakespearean alternation of paroxysm and intimacy, madness and wisdom. There is something here for everyone. His genius affords his readers a selection of delights that will make their heads spin' Le Monde
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
56 of 59 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The shaggiest shaggy dog story of all.,
By
This review is from: Foucault's Pendulum (Paperback)
This is not an easy read, indeed the first forty pages or so make some of the most intense demands on the reader of any book I have ever read, but if you have a love of the mysterious, the obscure and the sinister it is well worth persisting with. The way the story unfolds is quite ingenious and you will, if nothing else, learn a huge amount of obscure history along the way.
The basic premise of the plot is actually quite simple: three editors in a Milan publishing house specializing in wildly whacky works on the mystical and the occult begin, for their own amusement, to make speculative connections between the various way-out theories put forward in the manuscripts submitted for publication. To their amazement it soon transpires that they might be on to something, something so important that their own lives are suddenly put at risk. Eco clearly had great fun with this, throwing every crack-pot theory and esoteric religious belief into the mix. The Templars are there, of course, as are the Rosicrucians, the darker branches of the Catholic church and the Masons. The Hollow Earth theory is given a spin, Khabbala is discussed, Dr Dee puts in an appearance and the measurements of the great pyramids in Egypt provide the answers to nearly everything. It is all beautifully explained, so outlandishly implausible that maybe, just maybe, it has to be true...... For a novel which is primarily about obscure branches of knowledge and the play of ideas the characters are actually surprisingly well drawn: Casaubon, the narrator of the story wondering just what it is they have stumbled upon; Belbo with his melancholy sense of the colourful road not travelled; Diotallevi, mild and knowledgeable, getting slightly drunk on mineral water, and the mysterious Aglie, who appears to have all the answers. Or, perhaps, all the answers bar one... If you're looking for something imaginative and challenging, something which could perhaps be described as the Da Vinci Code's immeasurably smarter brother, then this could be for you. Demanding, but well worth the effort.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stick with it!,
By London Writer (London, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Foucault's Pendulum (Paperback)
Foucault's Pendulum is very dense at the beginning and you wonder if you need wikipedia open to accompany your reading, but important concepts become clear as you're reading. The beauty of the novel is that it makes you question what is real, what is fiction, what is science and what is psychology and as you approach the end of the novel, everything ties together in what is beautiful, shocking and will stay with you for the rest of your life.
20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant and in a genre of its own,
By
This review is from: Foucault's Pendulum (Paperback)
In a day were the "The Da Vinci Code" is the bed time book of scores of families -- and other books are riding the popularity of it -- "Foucaults' Pendulum" remains the undisputed and unmatched book on "conspiration theories" and alternative christian interpretation. It's interesting that a work plainly marked as fiction and that doesn't pose for anything else is more well researched and backed than books that try to sell an "authoritary" look. This book, while not without some small shortcomings, is adictive and extremely compelling. The Templars, the Priory, Christ, R+C, the Cathars, the FM, the Grail, all this and much, much more is connected in a game-like manner by the main characters in the book. The dialogues are witty and the characters well-developed. It's harder to read than other books of the genre, but in a way "Foucault's Pendulum" is in it's own genre... the sheer ammount of information presented, the use of several languages, the use of unheard of symbols and facts, all combines to make the book a bit dense but very rewarding. Eco, at the same time he exposes the leaps of faith and logic that some theories make in the way of reaching a suitable conclusion, shows the joy and motivation in the process of contructing alternative theories and even fleshes out some extremely interesting historic connections.
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