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Comment by fenomas | Hacker News Reader

Foucault's Pendulum was maybe the most transformative book I've ever read - it changed how I think about literature (and of course the Knights Templar). Ah well, guess it's time to reread it. :(

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It took me four months to get through that thing, what with its weird random digressions. One chapter would be talking about the Knights Templar building treasure-tunnels under France, and suddenly the next chapter would open with a paragraph explaining why a woman's physiology is better suited for playing pinball than a man's.

A compelling read, but I was never quite sure what facts would end up being important to the plot.

(FWIW, the pinball fact was not)

>A compelling read, but I was never quite sure what facts would end up being important to the plot.

The plot is seldom the main point in literature, especially good literature -- it's mostly a vehicle to convey thoughts and observations about life, the universe and everything as opposed to the end goal (as in a (common) detective story or a pulp thriller).

I wish writers (and readers) really understood that. It is so boring to open a book that reads just like a Hollywood movie script and has no depth to justify reading.

Well, yeah. Foucault's Pendulum is to me what Finnegan's Wake is apparently to many others - certainly not a casual read; more something to pick apart slowly and ponder the subtle mysteries of. But even underneath all the digressions and metaphysics, I still find the core story enjoyable as well.

Plus it's as brilliant a takedown of conspiracy-theory-thinking as ever the world will see.

"Plus it's as brilliant a takedown of conspiracy-theory-thinking as ever the world will see."

How does it compare on that score to The Illuminatus Trilogy[1], written more than a decade before Eco's book?

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminatus

The Illuminatus Trilogy is a couple of guys getting stoned and screwing around with various goofy ideas. Like a lot of postmodern stuff, it doesn't take much of anything, especially its subject seriously.

Foucault's Pendulum is a very smart guy who knows a lot, pointing out that, if you peel an onion you won't find anything in the center.

Illuminatus! is a work of satire, so it not taking itself seriously is part of the point. If you want to really get something out of it you have look beyond the psychedelic sillyness, and read up one some of the countless philosophical/occult concepts and historical oddities referenced in the story.

I think there's rather more to the Illuminatus trilogy than that. And I say that as big fan of Eco who has enjoyed his deeply obscure stuff as well as his more well-known works.

Conspiracy thinking is a cancer: it will destroy you.

It's perfect to read them one right after the other.

Another layer to the book is that there were plenty of real conspiracies in Italian politics during the period in which it is set. It was published at around the time that information on Gladio [1] became public.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio

That book made me feel stupid and uneducated. There was hardly a paragraph without a word I had to look up or a reference I couldn't get. The translator utterly defeated me. I never finished it.

Which is the direst critique one can address to any book! It's the book's (and author's) failure, not your own, to be incomprehensible and pedantic.

God bless this way of thinking has come to its end place in the greatest work of American writing ever made: https://xkcd.com/thing-explainer/.

Naa, I was just not the intended audience, and maybe a few decades too young.

If a child cannot understand the scope and themes of, say, Montaigne's Essais, is this a fault of Montaigne's? The Pendulum is similarly loaded with concepts and ideas.

Montaigne isn't pedantic and doesn't use fancy words.

It is a reason for not reading it and worthwhile information.

Your comment however was arrogant and uncalled for.

I guess it's a matter of perspective, but my first read was similar, and it made me feel smart.

I actually listed all the words I had to look up on a 3x5 index card and used it for a bookmark. I no longer have it but I definitely remember "numinous" was on there, along with many others.

I don't know which translation have you read. The fact is that translators rarely understand all the subtleties of Eco's original, translate it incorrectly and thus the translations are much more confusing than they should be.

English readers were very fortunate to have William Weaver as the translator. Umberto Eco himself said --only half in jest-- that Weaver's translation of the Name of the Rose was better than the original.

I also suggest Baudolino. It is a fantastic story exploring the world of war and religion in the Middle Ages.

Also it's freaking hilarious.

I also suggest Baudolino. It is a fantastic story exploring the meaning of truth and lies in a timeless manner.

For me it was the only book ever where, once I'd put it down, I couldn't remember where I had been when I picked it up again (after some time had passed).

That's because it keeps jumping from subject to subject, revisiting some, and sometimes even repeating the same information in different ways. I was completely lost after a while, but I didn't have the heart to start from the beginning. It's a very big book.

I did enjoy it though, in a way because I got so lost in it, that after a while it didn't make any difference where I was and what I'd read. It was a bit like floating into someone's dreams.

Also, it put me off my New Age books for ever - you know the ones, Alistair Crowley, Dion Fortune and the like. I'm much happier with technology than magic, thank you. Thank you professor Eco, that is.

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