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Foucault's Pendulum
 
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Foucault's Pendulum (Mass Market Paperback)

by Umberto Eco (Author)
3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (56 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Mass Market Paperback: 560 pages
  • Publisher: Ballantine Books Inc.; Reprint edition (1 Dec 1999)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0345368754
  • ISBN-13: 978-0345368751
  • Product Dimensions: 17.4 x 10.5 x 3.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 500,811 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #50 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > E > Eco, Umberto

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Product Description

Synopsis
Three editors, inspired by an extraordinary fable about a mystic source of power greater than atomic energy, begin feeding esoteric bits of knowledge into a sophisticated computer, creating an incredible game that begins taking over.

From the Publisher
Brilliant
'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 --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Customer Reviews

56 Reviews
5 star:
 (28)
4 star:
 (7)
3 star:
 (7)
2 star:
 (4)
1 star:
 (10)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.7 out of 5 stars (56 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
34 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars The shaggiest shaggy dog story of all., 17 Jun 2006
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.
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant and in a genre of its own, 14 Dec 2004
By Frederico Munoz "fsmunoz" (Portugal) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
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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20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars a masterpiece, 3 April 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: Foucault's Pendulum (Paperback)
Don't start reading this book unless you are prepared for a long and difficult journey. If you are, however, Foucault's Pendulum might be the best, most rewarding book you'll ever read--period. Those who prefer his lighter (if such a word could ever be applied to Eco) "The Name Of The Rose" are simply not up to the challenge. Make no mistake, this book is HEAVY! But very few--if any--writers can make such a deep and intricate plot so amusing. Eco's passion for words and history is always tempered by his sense of irony, and this book demonstrates his mastery of both. If you're lost for the first 100 pages or so (I have to say you can skip over a lot of the history of the Knights of Templar and not miss anything), it will all come together--slowly, but rewardlingly. I had the same problem with "Island of the Day Before", but that book left me cold.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars the perfect antidote to the da vinci code
this is the 3rd eco book i've read , it is a very difficult read like all his books but it is a good book . Read more
Published 16 days ago by D. S. Sample

5.0 out of 5 stars Eco is a polymath . . .
. . . so don't go near this wonderful book if you know that the things you don't know are not worth knowing. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Yellow Duck

2.0 out of 5 stars Too much of a cultural brain dump
I'm really not sure what to make of this - is it a sublimely constructed masterpiece or meaningless drivel? Well, I have given up after ploughing through 40% of it. Read more
Published 4 months ago by John Hopper

1.0 out of 5 stars Pathetic
This book is so poor I find it hard to describe. The language as appalling and makes it so hard to read. This would not be too bad except the book offers no content for this. Read more
Published 5 months ago by J. H. Wilson

4.0 out of 5 stars Difficult to read but worth it
I found this book really challenging to read - I didn't even know what Eco was on about most of the time to be honest. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Tricia B

5.0 out of 5 stars Creating worlds within worlds
This is not an easy book to read but now you have wikipedia at your fingertips at least some of the terminology will not be incomprehensible. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Andrew Dalby

4.0 out of 5 stars Superb Scholarship, a little tiresome.
The authorship is superb, the only fault being 150 pages 3/5s into the book where the endless nuances of hermetic, conspiratorial history do become a little tiresome and could be... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Mr. Oliver Hickman

2.0 out of 5 stars Not a novel, a reference book of science and the occult
This is really not a novel at all, but a kind of narrative reference book that is surely aimed at rather obsessive enthusiasts of science and the occult in the middle ages. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Pat Harvey

4.0 out of 5 stars Engaging but requires keen attention
This is the third of Eco's novels I have read. I am enamoured of his style and ultimately, this is why I enjoy his novels. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Chessman

5.0 out of 5 stars What exactly do theoretical physicists know?
When one starts a review of a book with the words, "I am a theoretical physicist", one instinctively knows that what is to follow can only be regarded as twaddle. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Mr. K. G. Bloor

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