Başlarken çok umudum yoktu açıkçası, başlayıp yarıda bıraktığını söyleyenlerden tutun da sevemedim diyenlere kadar negatif yorum yapan dostların etkisiyle sanırım, çekimserdim ilk sayfalarda.

Okumaya düşüneceklere ilk önerim eseri basılı olarak değil, e kitap şeklinde okumaları yönünde olacak, bu şekilde yaparak kitabın sonunda bulunan "açıklamalar" kısmına gitme çilesinde kurtulabilirsiniz. Zira yoğun şekilde arkadaki açıklamalara ihtiyaç duyacaksınız.

Kitaba dair fikirlerimi yazmadan önce spoiler teşkil etmeyeceğini düşündüğümden gizleme gereği duymadığım alıntılarımı paylaşayım:

#1 Gerçek büyücü, hiçbir şey anlamadan işleri yüzüne gözüne bulaştıran, gözleri korkulu adam değildir. Maddenin gizlerini bulup ortaya çıkaran bilim adamıdır.

#2 Claudicat ingenium, delirat lingua, labat mens... - Zeka bocalar, dil sürçer, zihin tökezler.

#3 Dinin yetersiz kaldığı yerde sanat başlar.

#4 En olmayacak şey, mucizeye en çok benzeyen şeydir.

#5 İn humane dignitatis opprobrium - Insan onurunun utanci

#6 Historia magistra vitae - Tarih yasamin ogretmenidir!

#7 Aptal gibi davranırsan sonsuza dek gizemli olursun.

#8 Suçluluk duygusu dostluğu zehirler.

#9 Bilinçaltı kendi bekçilerini de ısırır.

#10 Işık az ama öyle olması gerekir. Çünkü sezmek görmekten daha iyidir.

#11 Anahtarı olmadan filozofların gül bahçesine girmeye çalışan kişi, ayakları olmadan yürümeye kalkan birine benzer.

Bunlar yer imi koyduğum alıntılardan sadece bazıları... Okuyacağınız bir roman, hem de en sürükleyicisinden, en öğreticisinden...

Öyle akıcı ki, sayfaların nasıl aktığını anlamadı.

Ölmeden önce bu eseri okumazsanız büyük kayıptasınız bence bilin istedim...

Micro-recensioni per questo e per altri libri in questo post sul mio blog.

Ho letto, per alimentare la mia nota (e probabilmente patologica) passione per i complotti, Sarà vero e Non ce lo dicono di Errico Bonanno, La Q di complotto, di Wu Ming 1 e, dopo averci provato invano quando avevo sedici o diciassette anni, Il pendolo di Focault di Eco. Tutti, a modo loro, mi hanno insegnato qualcosa, e mi hanno confermato nell'idea che il complottismo, in tutte le sue forme, è una questione estremamente seria, estremamente difficile da affrontare ed estremamente pericolosa.

Perhaps the funniest part about this very wry look at conspiracy theorists is that it actually predates all that Dan Brown nonsense. Oh, and the writer of Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen gets a namecheck.

Lately I’ve been slipping into the trap of resemblance, the feeling that everything is somehow the same or at least connected. Dissonantly, it has also seemed (seems) obvious that nothing is the same, or ever could be. This book may have rescued me from the depths of connectedness, returning me to the plateau of knowing-nothing.

What is the meaning of meaning? As I understand it, meaning can only be understood as the connection(s) I create between two things. Anything more than that, and I find too many exceptions to my definition too quickly. There are no inherent meanings, there are only meanings I subjectively assign or accept. From this premise stems the expansive world of connectedness. Why not connect the number 5 with the patterns of traffic? Further, I figured, is not my spontaneous creation of meaning an ongoing force of creativity, and thus beauty?

But there is apparently little art in these raw acts of creation. Creativity is not necessarily artful, beautiful, or even useful. The wrong creativity can produce significant negative externalities on the producer, the people around them, the world around them. Anyone can produce meaning (in fact, everyone DOES produce meaning, constantly), but a lazy, cynical, disordered batch of production is just that, nothing more.

So I appreciated that about this book, very much. Nothing else before this had been able to change my mind on this topic.

But, I think the book lacked in form. Much of the content of the middle sections (like, the 400 middle pages out of 520 total pages) was tedious and tiring. It wasn’t old info, which was nice, but it was just a lot of no-movement, a lot of listing of names and dates and places and texts. This meant that the experience of reading was itself tedious and tiring, at least some of the time.

It also was frustrating to have to spend so much time on Google Translate. I think there were at least 5 or 6 different languages used in this.

Many of the references flew over my head too, especially references to Jewish spirituality. Eco neared that Joyce, Nabokov, Borges territory of intertextual genius.

It was overall a positive experience, but I’ll be taking a break from Eco for a while. I did preemptively buy The Name of the Rose, which I look forward to eventually reading.

One of the best, funniest and most clever books I have read so far. After a first 50 pages quite difficult to get into, the story and the characters completely sucked me in. I loved the fact that the main character gets caught up in his own scam and you barely see it coming. Mr Eco is a genius.

I believe that you can reach the point where there is no longer any difference between developing the habit of pretending to believe and developing the habit of believing.

Perhaps I have lived my life as if it was within the pages of this novel? If I do ascribe to a metanarraive, despite my Nietzschean education, it is this powerful novel: a handbook for the cynically perplexed. I wasn't sure of anything and reading this confirmed it. I've grown to love how the scenes parallel one another, how the publishing coterie embody the types they deride. I love how life obstructs all the grandeur, all the purity and the nutters accept it all as gospel.

Umberto Eco's "Foucoult's Pendulum" was an interesting read. Dealing with Templars, illuminati, Rosicrutians... The book had plenty of potential for interesting mysteries. Even the premesis, several publishers getting together and creating their own version of the development of the Templar's "Great scheme" could have been wildly creative. Umberto Eco often got bogged down in the history and his text became somewhat repetitive and odious in that he was constantly rephrasing more difficult words for an audience not used to little phrases in french, latin, or even, in difficult english. There were moments where his characters would get started on a tangent and it would go from tangent to tangent to tangent until the reader found themselves wanting to skip on and tell the characters to get to the point. (All this from a reader who is typically a lover of detail...) Ultimately, while Eco's book started with good potential, the book rambled a bit and tended to lose the point, getting wrapped up quickly at the end, ruining the tempo of the book and making it look like something that had been hashed over smoky thoughts.

It took me almost a full month to read Foucault's Pendulum. Part of the reason might be that I rarely read in Swedish anymore, but I think it's mostly because of how dense it is. Don't get me wrong, it's an interesting and engrossing read, but there is so much occult and secret society history and fact in there, that it simply takes awhile to process. In the end I stopped trying to look up references (I know a fair bit on this topic, but no way near enough to get even half the references, I fear), except for trying to refresh my knowledge of the Sephiroth, which is what the book is structured on.

I suspect I could analyse this book for years, and the chapters on the Knights Templar is a brilliantly readable account of their history.