king of the swingers (Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco)

Member Name: eraserhead

Product:	Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco
Date:	04/07/02 (628 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: good, stuff, baby

Disadvantages: yeah, love, it

Suppose the course of human history in the last 500 years has been secretly directed towards the completion of a colossal master plan by global occult powers. The Templar Knights, the Rosicrucians, the Assassins, the Freemasons and most other conspiracy-theorist favourites were indeed involved. For ‘Foucault’s Pendulum’, Umberto Eco has concocted such a plot in convincing detail.

This long novel follows the recollections of a young academic in Milan, Causabon, who believes he has uncovered a grand hermetic plan. With two colleagues at a book publishing house Causabon constructs a huge theory that combines and explains many existing theories. By their deduction, a momentous conventicle with disastrous possibilities is approaching. If they are correct, they are in great danger. But what if their theory is bollocks?

Early on the narrator boasts of his skills in writing great bibliographies. No doubt this is a quality Umberto Eco shares. He starts each of the 120 chapters with a relevant historical quote. Sometimes two. The depth of research behind this work is astounding, especially since it all supports a fictional plot. However the high academia is woven into a great adventure, as if Indiana Jones solved his mysteries in the library rather than the jungle.

Eco proves he’s ‘hip’ with references to contemporary culture, although much of the book’s weight wades through historical fact and conjecture. This is exciting when tackling known people and places, but there are frequent references to obscure hermetic texts that are harder to regard significant. Several chapters in the book's final quarter mumble by in the written equivalent of the teacher's voice in Peanuts- even towards the climax.

Nevertheless ‘Foucault’s Pendulum’ is an insightful and exciting challenge on the creation and use of belief systems. If you don’t like the textbook treatment, try Robert Ant
on Wilson’s jollier Illuminatus trilogy. And if you want my advice, never trust a Goth: they obviously know too much.

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