Foucault's Pendulum
by Umberto Eco
List Price:
Our Price: $6.34
You Save: $9.61 (60%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $2.84 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Umberto EcoEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-03-05
ISBN: 015603297X
Number of pages: 640
Publisher: Mariner Books
Book Reviews of Foucault's Pendulum
Book Review: A Cosmic Mess
Summary: 2 Stars
I wanted to read this novel for a long, long time. Until I finally got to it. Well, maybe it's not so good to wait so long. As time passes, expectations get higher. You find yourself disappointed. All this to say that I felt Eco and his Foucault's Pendulum let me down. While there are some interesting philosophical and historical effects, there is a pervading self-indulgence and a messiness that kill the charm of Eco's prose.
Possibly it works better in the original Italian. But I doubt it.
The plot? Well, there is no plot per say. Not really. I don't mind this that much. I have, after all, read Beckett's The Unnameable. But there is music and rhythm and something almost mystical in Beckett's writing. Intrinsic to the syntax itself. As if the prose itself were breathing. And it should.
But it never quite picks up with Eco. It jump starts here and there. And there are brilliant moments. The problem is that they get intertwined with useless ones.
The beginning is good. Here is an excerpt from the third page: "The Pendulum told me that, as everything moved --earth, solar system, nebulae and black holes, all the children of the great cosmic expansion --one single point stood still: a pivot, bolt, or hook around which the universe could move. And I was now taking part in that supreme experience."
Here's the irony. This is exactly what happens to the novel. While the world keeps moving, the rest of the plot is like the Pendulum. It stands still. Perhaps that's what Eco wants. But it doesn't work.
And it could have, since the leitmotiv is the history of the Templars. How instead of being destroyed they kept on as secret societies, became along the centuries various branches of freemasonry, might have known the secret the Holy Grail. There are some satanic rituals, the question of the sacred measurements of the Great Pyramid. But it's all disseminated. It could have the structure of a "detective story," as Anthony Burgess' blurb on the back cover suggests, but it fails to captivate the way a good detective story should. Or if it does, it does so intermittently. It navigates between philosophy (Is this all real, or is it all a giant joke?), science (aforementioned measurements) and fiction (friends in the publishing world trying to discover the secret of Templar and freemasonic societies fouled with WWII stories?). The result: a cosmic mess!
Eco writes like a professor (that he is) writing a novel. Seeking effects and cleverness and seldom being respectful of his readership. Is he shying away from entertaining the public? Does he consider entertainment too low a place for his lofty undertakings? I don't know. What I know is that most of the authors who are today in major literary anthologies added a sense of entertainment to their ideas and high creativity ---any good artist seeks the participation of an audience. That's the combo that makes writing interesting. And memorable.
Horror Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Horror Books
Let the Right One In: A Novelby John Ajvide Lindqvist
St. Martin's Griffin; Published: 2008-10-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.99
Price in other shops:
Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus: The 1818 Textby Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
University Of Chicago Press; Published: 1982-03-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.00
Price in other shops:
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Oxford Bookworms S, Stage 4)by Robert Louis Stevenson
Oxford Univ Pr (Sd); Published: 1991-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.79
Price in other shops:
The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales (Oxford Books of Prose)Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2001-11-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $50.00
The Waste Lands (The Dark Tower, Book 3)by Stephen King
Penguin Audio; Published: 2003-08-26; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $149.99
![Thinner [UNABRIDGED] Image](/images/Thinner-UNABRIDGED-0140862668-X.jpg){kind=small}
Thinner [UNABRIDGED]by Stephen King
Penguin Audio; Published: 1996-09-01; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
The Crow: Temple of Nightby S P. Somtow
Harper Paperbacks; Published: 1999-11-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.99
Price in other shops:
Brains: A Zombie Memoirby Robin Becker
Eos; Published: 2010-05-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.23
Price in other shops:
The Strain LP: Book One of The Strain Trilogyby Guillermo Del Toro, Chuck Hogan
HarperLuxe; Published: 2009-06-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.45
Price in other shops:
Prince of Darknessby Barbara Michaels
HarperTorch; Published: 2005-04-26; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.58
Price in other shops:
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
The Name of the Rose (Everyman's Library Classics & Contemporary Classics)by Umberto Eco
Everyman's Library; Published: 2006-09-26; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $16.52
Price in other shops:
The Island of the Day Beforeby Umberto Eco
Mariner Books; Published: 2006-06-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.30
Price in other shops:
Major Trends in Jewish Mysticismby Gershom Scholem
Schocken; Published: 1995-05-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.07
Price in other shops:
Baudolinoby Umberto Eco
Mariner Books; Published: 2003-10-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.86
Price in other shops:
Mumbo Jumboby Ishmael Reed
Scribner; Published: 1996-06-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.52
Price in other shops:
The Hearing Trumpetby Leonora Carrington
Exact Change; Published: 2004-02-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.27
Price in other shops:
On Mysticism (Penguin Classics)by Jorge Luis Borges
Penguin Classics; Published: 2010-06-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.79
Price in other shops:
Faust I & II (Goethe : The Collected Works, Vol 2)by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Princeton University Press; Published: 1994-07-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.95
Price in other shops:
The Name of the Rose: including the Author's Postscriptby Umberto Eco
Harvest Books; Published: 1994-09-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.50
Price in other shops:
The Prague Cemeteryby Umberto Eco
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Trade; Published: 2011-11-08; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.49
Price in other shops: