Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $5.00 You Save: $2.99 (37%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Foucault's Pendulum
Book Review: A magnificent, inclusive journey
Summary: 5 Stars
I won't pretend this book wasn't a hard slog. It was. It's long, dense and uses words I didn't know existed (and frequently, words that aren't English). But all this is necessary to create the thick, rich tapestry Eco weaves for us. With consummate style, we are taken on a journey of knowledge, culture, religion and philosophy that I, for one, experienced right alongside the book's characters. This book might not change your life, but it certainly changed the way I look at it. It's all what you make of it.Book Review: A mathematical puzzle
Summary: 5 Stars
A great mystery for those who have some interest in esoterica. Everyone and everything is in this book, the Knights Templar, the Jesuits, the Holy Grail, Masons, cabalists, Rosicrucians, Helene Blavatsky, the Compte St. Germain, William Shakespeare, Nazis, secret societies, Marxists, Brazilian spiritual practices & many others all woven together into a mysterious plot. I enjoyed it a lot but I think it's appeal is for a limited audience since you need to speak the language to get the joke.Book Review: A monster
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a thought-provoking thriller. The plot on its own has enough twists and turns to at least keep one up at night, if not mess with one's head.The thought-provoking aspect is most interesting to me. What are rumors? What is myth? What is knowledge? Can we have any knowledge? Is knowledge a good thing? When does fiction affect reality? These are important questions that the book brings up in my mind. There are the arcana of esotericism and hermeticism, the real intrigue is in how this corresponds to the way humanity has built civilization.
Book Review: A novel that sums up our intellectual era
Summary: 4 Stars
I enjoyed reading this book because it gave flesh to the dominant intellectual life of the second half of the 20th century. Joyce did this (for his era)with Ulysses a century ago, but Eco is more transparent than Joyce. Eco's need to explain himself at the end exposes his desire to be understood too clearly. This work is obviously an accomplishment, but in an effort to be the "final word", it attacks itself. It is, to Eco's credit, done well. It achieves its purpose.Book Review: A pompous and inflated masturbatory exercise
Summary: 1 Stars
After reading and enjoying the Name of the Rose, I figured Eco's follow-up would be comparable. However, I found this book a big waste of my time. It is easily the most self-indulging book I've read. To those who would insinuate you need a vast education to appreciate the work, I would beg to differ. I am myself not exactly a stranger to issues of epistemology and pseudoscientific diatribes, and still I found this book PAINFUL to read! And I did read it all, BTW.It's egregiously abysmal!