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Comment by johnhattan | Hacker News Reader

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)

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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.

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.

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.

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

>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.

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