ADVICE:

The book is really worth for its money and it will keep you awake for a few days. You will refuse to close the book until you reach the end. In the beginning you will not understand a thing, what is going on, who are these people, what are they trying to do. Never mind, just carry on. Eco meant the book to be this way! Enjoy the book and if you dont understand some historical remarks never mind, just continue, dont stumble upon the little details and the dates, get the big picture. You will have plenty of time to think about it after you have finished but the main thing is to go entirely through the book and finish it. It will leave you with your mouth open. Dont let yourself think :I cant understand this, I am an idiot therefore I will not continue. No, just finish the book , at the end you will be rewarded as is the case with all of Ecos books. After all there is no such thing as "I dont understand the book", there is only "I didnt let myself free enough to understand it".

Eco writes his books this way, they are only meant for the strong of spirit, people with perseverance that are willing to strugle in order to reach the ultimate truth that only the very few have mastered. His novels are deliberately cryptic but only to the point that they discourage the faint of hurt. For the few strong men that are willing to engage into the battle, all the mysteries and the hypes reveil themselfs at the end,like the petals of a rose in the spring. This is the REWARD, something central on Eco's novels.

IN ORDER TO PROVE MY POINT ECO HIMSELF ADMITTED that he included the first hundred pages of pure history in the "Name of the Rose" just to discourage the readers that would not have the strenght to continue with the book. That was the PRICE! that the readers have to pay in order to reach the monastery up in the mountains that the story takes place. His editor suggested that he should completely remove this big part of the book but Eco denied!

Going back to the PENDULUM, You should never forget that this book is a really mystery book. Not only for the heros of the book but also for you , the reader. There were times that I felt that I was involved in this world conspiracy and I may be in danger like the hero of the book. That is the trully amazing element of Eco. It gets the reader involved. And at the end you will have a completely different point of view about the world.

Eco has said that the ultimate mystery book is the one that the READER is himself the killer!

I definetely recommend the book, it will not dissapoint you.


You'd better have an unabridged dictionary handy....   July 7, 2000
 299 out of 482 found this review helpful

Umberto Eco is a major cause of headaches. Well, he was for me, at least.

About seven years ago, I bought myself a paperback copy of Foucault's Pendulum at the university book store. It looked like an engaging plotline, the reviews were excellent, and it had a really neat cover.

I realize now that most of the reviewers were probably intelligentsia-wannabes who didn't want to admit to the other reviewers they didn't have a clue what Umberto Eco was going on about. I remember seeing pictures of movie stars holding copies of Foucault's Pendulum in order to look brainy.

Expecting some sort of smart cyber tale with a mystical flavour, I started reading. It was the densest prose I'd ever encountered, even worse than the Webster's unabridged dictionary's definition for "existentialism."

Foucault's Pendulum is definitely not a cyber story. A word processor is the only computer, and there aren't any net-running scenes. Nevertheless, the mystical stuff is certainly there. Umberto Eco waxes philosophical for pages upon pages about word processors (and everything else) in a mystical fashion, all the while going off on Rosicrucian and Greater Key of Solomon tangents in languages like Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and medieval French.

I slaved over Foucault's Pendulum for about a year, always making sure I had a copy of Webster's unabridged dictionary on hand. Unfortunately, it didn't help very much. You see, many of the words in the book are not in the dictionary.

I think that in order to truly comprehend the intricacies of Foucault's Pendulum, a reader needs to be a polyglot with several PhDs in history, philosophy, occult studies, and sciences under her/his belt. Oh yes, and the reader should also have more than a passing familiarity with Sam Spade detective novels.

This makes me wonder what sort of man Umberto Eco really is.

The book proved to be too much for me in my undergrad days. I only got about a third of the way into the novel before giving up in consternation.

Some time later, my husband made the cocky assertion he could read any English novel and fully comprehend it. I called his bluff and handed him my dusty copy of Foucault's Pendulum. I don't think he even made it as far as I did before he unceremoniously jammed the book back into its place on the shelf.

Then, about a year or two ago, I watched The Name of the Rose, and the richness of the plot made me want to try reading the book again.

So, I dragged the dusty book out of my bookshelf. I opened to where the bookmark was, and couldn't remember what the hellwas going on. I groaned aloud when I realized I would have to start all over from scratch.

Once again, I began struggling my way through heavily obfuscated prose. The three-volume dictionary did not leave my side. I was determined to finish the book, and finish it I did in a scant month.

Sure, I was irritable and walked around with a perpetual wrinkle ensconced between my eyebrows, but I finished it, darn it! And, with plenty of research on the side, I even understood (most of) it.

Never before have I worked so hard to read a book.

Now I have just begun to read Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln's The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. While reading the forward, I experienced a bit of deja vu. The subject matter is almost identical to the plotline of Foucault's Pendulum, albeit much easier to comprehend.

A few pages later, I read how Umberto Eco was inspired to write his migraine of a novel from The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.

Why couldn't I have read The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail first? It would have saved me a few brain cells.

I guess it's because of the cover. The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail has a rather vanilla cover, and I'm drawn by shiny things. Foucault's Pendulum has the coolest foil embossing.....


Total rubbish.   October 30, 2003
 52 out of 90 found this review helpful

You`ve read the other reviews and have come to this one last saying to yourself, "Should I or shouldn`t I?" Let me give you a simple analogy of what`s in this book.
Normal Author: Beth went to the refrigerator and took out a can of soda which she then opened.
Umberto Eco: Bethania of the Compostia De `Inoragana started to believe her quest was part of the Dementia Sistine Chapel where puritanical sojourns had taken on cyclopean missadermatcals from Alexander Demontis from the fourth century Abontnochriest. Moving with forecast vigilance like that of Christoff Moganoze the chalise in it`s equipage haloperidal of tullage was grasped by it`s cyndrilical base and with a motile operandis of implementation the elixer spewed forth like that of the Fountain Comedatrillite in the Penmontonxualor De Coca`lis.
If your idea of fun is reading 500 plus pages of this?...you`ll love this book.
Another example?: Two of the characters are speaking to a detective when he says, "Not only alcoholic, but arteriosclerotic".
Maybe on planet Bizarro people speak like this. That`s one of the many problems with this "story" besides the fact that there is no plot or character developement. Even if you understood and had a diverse knowledge of all the goobledegook thrown at you it has nothing to do with anything else. You`ve been warned.


My favorite book ever... who knew it was so controversial?   March 2, 2003
 43 out of 47 found this review helpful

I first read Foucoult's Pendulum back in college when it was first published. It was recommended by my bofriend, and I spent half of Spring Break plowing through it. Hard work. One of the few books that absolutely necessitates having a dictionary at hand to really absorb it, and it better be the OED because Webster's doesn't have all the words. Seriously. And in the end, I was floored, absorbed, and used the remaining days of vacation to read it again. I had found a new "Favorite Book Ever!"

I guess I understand why so many are so full of vitriolic loathing when they discuss "Foucault's Pendulum". It isn't really a thriller, nor a consipiracy theory text, nor a philosophical treatise, nor an easy read. If you really want some brain candy (and I certainly do a lot of the time--PG Wodehouse forever!) this is not the book to pick up.

It was, however, probably the first work of fiction I had ever read that made me think about the nature of reality... what is real, what is knowledge, how do we know and who decides. I loved the historical mind games, the twisted conspiracy plots, the flights of fanciful speculation. I found the language dense, yes, but dense like the best kind of rich, dark, brownies--intense and flavorful. For me the climax of the novel had nothing to do with the plot, it was the moment when I went "ah-ha!" and actually "Got It!" An intellectual pleasure in the extreme, but a genuine joy nonetheless.

Twelve years later I own three copies of this book (my tattered original paperback, a hardcover I've read once because I felt this was a book I wanted to own in hardcover, and another paperback for lending out). I've read "Foucault" three additional times... it would be more, but, as I said, it's a tough read and you have to be in the right mood. Every time I've experienced again that first wonderful "Ah-ha!" moment, though perhaps a little less intense since I know it is coming. The boyfriend who recommended it is now my husband. And hundreds of books later, it's still my favorite book.


not really worth the effort   April 2, 2001
 39 out of 55 found this review helpful

Before picking up this tome I was under the impression that I was reasonably well-informed on the subject-matter. Having read fairly widely about conspiracies in general I thought my working knowledge of the Illuminati, Priory of Sion , Albigensian Heresy and the like would give me an advantage in penetrating the dense, often confusing and poorly translated prose. Sadly not. I doff my cap to the other reviewers whose descriptions of a racy romp through paranoia certainly do not tally with my miserable plod through this stodgy dirge of a book. I have never found obscurantism particularly entertaining, and having made it to the end only experienced relief that the ordeal was over. Eco's gentle ridicule of the farther reaches of 20th century belief systems may cause some to reassess their irrationality, but I fear it may inspire more to read Baigent and Leigh's nonsense to find out what on earth this semiologist chap was banging on about. If anybody can direct me to somebody who pretends to understand half of one percent of the obscure allusions I will be glad to pay homage. Eco is almost certainly a towering intellect, but by defying comprehension over several hundred pages I fear he may well become the next Stephen Hawking- his work prominently displayed on the bookshelf and universally lauded but nobody ever gets past page 23. Sad, really.