The Dizzying Web of Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco 

To me, the whole point is that the sort of knowledge the characters obsess over in the first 500 pages is just finite vanity. Knowledge does not bring understanding. The characters are driven mad by the human need to see patterns where patterns don't exist, to see significance and meaning in a world that Eco (through Casaubon) explicitly refers to as a "harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as if it had an underlying truth". Once he sees Belbo murdered, Casaubon has his realizations in the denoument. Faith means NOT looking for signs of God. Beauty and his son are what matters. Belbo's transcendent moment was the simple trumpet-playing moment in his youth. Wisdom lies in recognizing this, not in agglomerating facts.

Half of the pleasure of reading this book, and Eco’s other novels, is the extra information rabbit wholes you fall into. Personal, this ‘story’ was more of an experience and an education that a ‘plot’. You really need the time and patience to find pleasure in deepening your knowledge with the historical, occult, human references. To my memory, Eco states in an interview he does not write his books with the intention of being ‘easy’ for people to follow or understand. It is a harsh motivation, but it (and his books) push you out of your intellectual comfort zone.

Foucault's Pendulum is my favorite book ever. It's a book I read already may be 8 times because every time I read it It's different. This book have a soo much layers that you will never uncover all of them. For me book itself is biggest secret as stories inside. And you need to be in some mental state to be able to read this book. And that long start is to synchronize you with the clock of author mind.

Eric I just finished FP your analysis is spot on. I am an Eco devotee so naturally I was going to love the book. You can get lost in the minutia of names and places. But I think Eco proves his point that if you want to create mythos/legend lore it's really not to difficult.

Lia is awesome and the best of all of us. When she tears apart the secret is one of the few places where my attention was effectively grabbed. I just finished this book last night (7/5/2022) and I skimmed a LOT of the last hundred-ish pages. Because of how bloated the novel is, there are some really interesting and affecting emotional beats that don't get a chance to resonate: Belbo's search for courage and Diotallevi's fatal lesson. Ultimately, I think the novel is "The Secret(tm) (for Straight Boys)."

I have just found (as weird as it sounds) humour in reading the parts I did not understand a lot.

Have you read the Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson? It’s structured a bit like Foucaults pendulum.

I find several parallels between Foucault's Pendulum and Moby Dick to much to explain in a few lines.

6 Minutes into this and I’m already snoring. As Belbo would say: Ma gavte la nata!. You gotta read it again and find the charm you erased from it.

I felt that Lia was the iron hand of realism swatting down the musings of Casaubon and friends. Though I must say she seemed kind; poor things, maybe wanted to celebrate the feast day by making themselves nice little hats of roses. She seemed fully grounded. Casaubon, on the other hand, was living dangerously between two worlds, Lia's and the Plan's. It speaks well of you that Lia is your favorite character.

I read Foucault's Pendulum (twice!) in 1989 - 90, so it's been a while. I really loved it back then and found the thriller aspect with the diabolicals engrossing. I remember a co-worker read it around then and said they learned a lot from the book, which I was kind of shocked by as all the connections they come up with for the Plan were invented. The Da Vinci Code was a watered down version of Foucault's Pendulum. I should give it another go.

it took me literally 20 years to read it, started with somewhere in the 90's. Stopped. Started again. Stopped. Repeat that process 3 or 4 times. Then, as I got older and my sight deteriorated a bit, I bought a hardcover with larger letters , as I has a small paperback version. That helped, I finally finished it. Indeed one reads it more for the encyclopedic bombardment of facts, mystery and lore and old history . I did like Casaubon, he has the emotional distance that a good narrator has and I liked the banter between him and Belbo and Diotallevi. To be honest the deeper philosophical meanings went beyond my head, but I'm glad I finished it any way.

I loved this book the second time reading as much as the first. i spent much time googling the stuff I was fuzzy on or oblivious to but that made the second read a wonderful journey. I have read all of his novels and marvel at the depth of scholarship exhibited. No, they are not for everyone but to me, each one is a masterpiece. Incidentally, the final chapter of Foucault's Pendulum was most gratifying as well as edifying with tension and his typical departure by leaving to our imaginations, the very last syllable. Bravo to those who dare and do read his works and despair Umberto's shuffling of this mortal coil. i expect to read all of his books a second and third time just to wallow in their intellectual depth and breadth of learning.

Hi Eric. I really appreciate this review. You've pretty much described it really, really well. I read the book entirely in approximately 1994. For me, it was totally awesome. I used it to journey into further research...took a fair while to read it all. It got me 'living the life'...going in to our 'State Library'...I don't read much! Many books I try to read disappoint. I do regard it as the most enjoyable thing I've ever read. Wasn't going to comment, but since you asked for input from anyone who really enjoyed the book...I'm in. Cheers from Sunny Australia.

Vous etes fou. Such a simple line, but wraps the plot so well. Also contains my favorite passage ever written, about the moron, the fool, the creton, and the lunatic. And crowd psychology in the Sahara 😂😂 guy is funny as well as thorough.

Read childhoods end based on a recommendation from this channel and loved it. Literally couldn’t find the channel yesterday because I forgot the name. Won’t forget again! Will watch this video later 👌🏿

I completely understand where you are coming from with your analysis. I had a very similar experience the first time I read FP. At the time, it required a much greater commitment from me, as a reader, than I was able to commit. About two years later, during a vacation, I read it again and was able to commit more of my time and intellect into the read and I was able to get much more out of it and a much better reading experience.

I started listening to the audiobook recently. I read The Name of the Rose, when I was younger and I was somewhat put off by the long-winded discussions, but in the meantime I came to appreciate Eco's breadth of knowledge, his ability to pour it into a book without it losing its cohesion and indeed his verbosity, although some of the long expositions have me lose my focus. Furthermore, I am interested in conspiracy theories (not that I would believe in them afaik, but I find them a fascinating subject of study) and Eco in this book offers a view into a conspiracy mindset while also delivering something like an overview and „best-of“ of the history of conspiracy theories involving secret societies.

To anyone that appreciates such a book but would also appreciate a more literary book which has a more beautiful plot I would highly recommend ‘The discovery of heaven’ by Harry mulisch. It is quite simple but beautiful and an absolute experience to read through.

Strange that nobody mentions The Illuminatus Trilogy by Wilson and Shea, a satirical take on conspiracy theories, also includes a detective, a computer etc, clearly elements that Eco used for fhis book, which is also a satire.

I keep reading this book over and over again over the years. It never bores me and I always doscover something new.

A year ago, after discouraging a friend from tarot, I was asked to argue my point in writing, which I did, in what snowballed into 200 pages of wading through 19th century occultism, various mesmerisms, rosicrucianism, numerology, angelology, and assorted kabbalisms and various precursors all the way back to the bronze age. So it was flattering to get the references in the book, although I f*cking hated the subject. But I think it is a bad book as far as books go. First of all, most people who are justifiably unwilling to study so much nonsense, will not get most of the references, and the show of erudition may even strike one as vanity. Secondly, it is a -very- slow book that will keep its payoff until several hundred pages into it. Then there are the characters, who feel more like paper-thin plot devices than real people, especially the women. The dialogues are so forced that if actual people talked like that in public someone would be tempted to slap them. And a lot of dialogues and jokes are so specific to Italian language and (broadly left-wing post-68) culture that they translate very poorly for foreigners. I do appreciate Eco's intention in writing this and it certainly wasn't an easy book to write. I just think it's not a good book to read, either.

300 pages too much. Interesting topics, but Causabon is a stiff protagonist. Belbo’s supposed to be the protagonist but he gets into dire straits, and then the rest of the book you are waiting for the moment the book begins to happen so the book can proceed, haha. The Templar history list is very cool that they make when re-establishing history, but I agree with your assessment that there is no plot. The rest is filler.

Concise analysis

Please don’t spend too much time looking up references and connections when you read this book for the first time! The point isn’t to get all the references and understand everything the first time. The point is to overwhelm you with loosely connected erudition to the point where you become like the characters and start to see connections where there aren’t any. It’s designed to make you paranoid about conspiracies, so the ending completely destroys you. It’s actually a better read the second time, with Lia’s explanation at the back of your mind.

This was a great read, but if you feel unsatisfied with the ending then the jokes on you. You kind of missed the point of the book. You wont get a satisfactory ending, because its a "mystery box" story like lost but intentional. I give you credit for not giving up the secret though.

I enjoyed the book but told myself I will read it again when I had time to Google the references in every other paragraph.

I’ve had this book on my shelf for over 13 years and I still haven’t finished it lol

I am a retired technical writer. Do you think I would like this book?

My lesson from this book is to be more careful about sacred knowledge.

The book is fantastic due to references and connections between minds

I’m about to delve in.. wish me luck 😂

Hi Eric, Thanks for doing this video. I'm always interested in hearing different interpretations of this book. The book has some subtle humor (mostly exposing some follies of blind reading, a method that was overused during the 60s and 70s in some academic literary criticism). And is filled with parodies on arguments like "no text is an island." The book as a novel may be less frustrating for casual reading if the reader also has some interest in postmodern literary theories. I think The Prague Cemetery is more of a novel one could read with less frustration.

Infinite Jest is the only book I really loved but couldn’t finish - I made it about a quarter through and was exhausted. Really felt like your Jazz comparison - it was a great ride but so dense I needed a break after reading it. Compared to that, Foucaults Pendulum is pretty straightforward, there’s enough humor to break up any dry bits, and he tries to tell history in a relatable way, to various levels of success (love the characterization of kinghts Templar told over whiskeys near the beginning for example) Surprised that you put War and Peace in that list of “big book flexes” - well it’s long and not much happens in the foreground but the characters are just so well fleshed out that the book feels really alive, found it easier than FP - though I enjoy characters more than plots so I may not be the typical reader

Because I've never read a book, I've never read this book - however, about 2 years ago a part of the plot of FP manifested in my life

I've read it twice now, and on both reads, I found the ending to be so good that it redeemed the entire book. The idea it talks about of their being a vacuum is my jumping off point. It feels to me as if each of the three characters have a yearning to find meaning, particularly Belbo. He's a failed writer and turns to Abulafia to fill that need, writing self-indulgent diatribes and making up stories. The stories we get of his past, particularly the trumpet scene, really make us see where that feeling of malaise comes from for Belbo, and I feel like he got closure on that at the end. I won't say any more for fear of plot spoilers. Diotallevi does seem rather superfluous throughout. He's just a foil for Belbo and Casaubon to bounce ideas off. There were large chunks of the novel where I zoned out and I even found myself skipping pages where I could see big info dumps that didn't move the plot along at all. I'm not quite learned enough to get what most of it was referring to, and I'm actually in the masonic order of Knights Templar myself, as well as being quite advanced in some other masonic degrees. I was going to like your video, but I saw it had 333 likes and thought I'd better not!

I read this book for the first time years ago, and it had taken me 6 months to finish. Fast-forward to this year, I've read it 4 times and I'm reading it for the fifth time this year. It intimidated me the first time I read it, but few days after I had finished it, I kept thinking about the characters and I wanted to re-visit them again. One thing I noticed after my third read was that the first part is like a disorienting summary of the whole book and it was then when I "understood" that part better. This novel revolves around so many things, namely and not limited to: philosophy, history, esoteric doctrines, alchemy, kabbalah... It is not a light read because of all the references sprinkled here and there, but since it's a character driven narrative, it makes it exciting (to some extent).

What camera, setting and post-processing did you do for this video?

Not having read that book and just having heard from the commentator "Eric the Read", I can say that I truly enjoyed that review of it. I have read previously a collection of conferences by Eco (1977-198x) and enjoyed them, as much as I could understand them... Admittedly Eco's encyclopedic knowledge is overwhelming to me but challenging, which is a good thing!.

Foucault's is a book that will challenge the reader. Don't read it unless you want your mind to grow, either in knowledge of history - specifically obscure European schools of mysticism (which I found incredibly fascinating) or as a six hundred page meditation on the dialectic between knowledge and belief to create 'meaning' - the ancient distinction first voiced by Plato that is the foundation for all western thought. Between the two lies the realm that humans call 'Magic' and it permeates every culture, for magic exists as a byproduct of human consciousness itself as a means to justify one's own place in the world so full of infinite questions. Eric is right, this book is DENSE, and at times it feels like Eco is crushing the reader beneath such multitudes of knowledge, but that is the point. The characters are playing genius games and attempting to recontextualize all human history according to a hidden Plan. But what happens if the Plan if real? What does it even mean for something to be Real?

I listened to the audiobook and I admit there were times I was zoning out but overall I loved it. I’d been researching secret societies and the occult for a while and I very much appreciated Echo’s kind of birds-eye perspective on it all, as well as the often snarky attitude towards it all that bleeds through the pages. (All while being very accurate and in a way respectful of the history and concepts). I mean a lot of the stuff they talk about is really weird and out there (like the whole section on alchemy) and i enjoyed the characters’ musings on it all.. but it’s all up my alley and yeah the climax was crazy but it worked for me. It’s an accurate portrayal of the madness and chaos that can result in messing around too deeply in conspiracy theories and the occult

Oookay I must say, War and peace, with all the French fragments (how is it translated for you guys, is the half of the book also in French? Because the original is), was definitely easier to read. I couldn’t finish Eco for around NINE months. War and peace was maybe around a months on summer vacation, and it was a completely different kind of “hard”, was hard to follow the storyline, but not Brain-burning hard 😂 my point is: Tolstoi is not a bookshelf flex!

I consider this maybe my favorite book. When I read it... about 20 years ago now (so it might need a rereading at some point), I read it when I really had a lot of time on my hands in a place where I didn't know the local language and just decided to run down all those rabbit holes. I was a lot of fun learning about all the various groups mentioned in the book and enjoyed the story. I can see as I type this that my grasp of explaining why I love the book so much is similar to when I describe my favorite wine, I like it... taste good and I'm never picking out notes of oak or whatever... I just enjoyed it. I can tell you why I did love other books though.. like The Count of Monte Cristo or the Idiot... but, maybe its just because this was so long ago.. I just remember I loved it. I just said a lot of nothing maybe.

I adored this book. For me it is conspiracy theory sina qua non and the point was they made a conspiracy theory so good that THEY bought it. Conspiracy theorists may be mad, bad or jokesters but they all end up crazy

Dude! You look exactly like a young Marlon Brando! :-) Thanks for the analysis, it really helped me go for reading the book.

Great review. I’m currently reading and enjoying the rabbit holes it seems to go down, but I am finding it difficult to follow the narrative, it requires careful reading to pick out important plot points from the other (interesting) tidbits. I’m also working my way through Ulysses and have noticed a few similar references in Foucault’s Pendulum. I will go on.

Have you ever considered reviewing Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" ?

It’s my favorite book. Have read it multiple times. Audiobook is good too. Narrated by Tim Curry.

I was making a reference over it, picked it up, and fell in love with it once again. Born again, the book and I..

Sounds very interesting. Thank you man.

Humans have not changed much. We have imagination and like creating narratives that give a purpose to our lives. In short, if we found a book from 3,000 years ago talking of aliens or robots, it doesn't mean people then had contact with aliens or made robots. It only means they also had science fiction. By the way, the oldest robot in myth are the mechanical crafting tables created by Hepahestus in ancient Greek myth, able to follow the craftsman around carrying his tools, like sentient beings. The story is well over 3,000 years old.

Wanna see something????

Easily one of my top ten favorite books. My understanding of it was that Belbo & Co.'s cynicism (among other things) led them to create 'the Plan', which in turn affected people who were so much slaves to tradition that they blindly believed it no matter how illogical aspects of it were. And I think while the ending may not be to everyone's satisfaction, I drew two conclusions from it: no one gets answers to all their questions, and the issues don't always get resolved.

Don't forget that Eco, apart from being a philosopher and dealing with semiotics, was also an extremely knowledgeable medievalist and for me the way he juggles all those pieces of information from real source materials to make up this patchwork of ideas and clues is in itself quite entertaining - also because it is all done with generous amount of humor, wit and irony which makes me think that the author must have had great time while composing the novel. I first read this book long time ago, when I was about 17 y.o. and that wasn't probably the best idea. Now, at almost 40, I just started again. I'm over 200 pages into the book and will report back when finished.

I have been reading and had to stop and look for an explanation on what I was reading. I have highlighted over 100 words to look up. It's definitely for a Master's level reading.

The book was trash

The best way to read this book is in Kindle, so you can look up the historical context.