Reviews

Einer der ersten "historischen" Romane, die ich je gelesen habe. Ist lange her, und die Qualität, die Recherche und der Plot sind einfach immer noch umwerfend. Ein Buch, dass ich sicherlich schon 6 Mal gelesen habe - es bleibt trotzdem immer gut.
Meine Lieblingsstelle: die Erklärung der okkulten Zahlenlehre anhand eines italienischen Lotto-Kiosks. Unvergessen gut.

charm_spirit's review against another edition

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"Хъм, черен квадрат" ми е мнението за книгата.

motionab's review against another edition

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challenging funny mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

It’s like if an academic wanker wrote The Da Vinci Code and it was interesting.

I can't for the life of me give this book 5 stars because this has been the hardest book l've ever read in my entire life.

Not because the text is difficult, but because it was written in 4000 different languages with approximately 2000 different references to other cultist literature, each and every page. I'm not gonna lie to you at some point. I was legitimately angry at the jargon that was just thrown around so carelessly.

I have never read any of the serious books that the author have written before, but I know that I don't want to now.

I mean, honestly, how much crap can you shove in one page and how many pretentious adjectives can you use to describe a sunset?

That being said, this is probably one of the most interesting plots that I have read in my entire life and I would be a complete liar if I told you that I did not think that this book is a parody of a book at some point while reading it. The incredible research that is presented through it as well as the insane amount of connections that are completely arbitrary, but still very convincing is insane! Reading a book about the history of the Templars while also discussing numerology James Bond villains and the construction of sewers in the same chapter is incredible satire.

I definitely understand why people would call this book a classic because it definitely is something classical because l've never read anything like this before however, it's OK to just read the spoilers and relieve yourself of having to read 640 pages of complete insanity

alexeysidoruk's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

ralphnodon's review against another edition

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It was unreadable.

nicole_reads_everything's review against another edition

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2.0

Around the World Reading Challenge: ITALY
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Fuck, but that was a slog and a half. Frankly, it only started getting bearable around the 75% mark, and it only started to almost approach mildly interesting at the 85% mark. The concept and summary made it sound so interesting, but fuck if the execution didn't nearly bring me to tears of boredom. So goddamn pretentious and over-flowing with minutia and details that it felt like I was reading and incredibly dry history book. Anybody who describes this book as "thrilling" or a "roller-coaster ride" is just flat-out lying. Any sense of excitement and tension is squashed to death by the insufferable prose, and the over-abundance of dialogue and background. Truly, they don't even start ~The Plan~ until about 2/3 of the way through the book--up until then it's entirely set-up, which is nearly 400 pages of set-up, and incredibly uninteresting set-up at that. I've never read Eco but he's been on my list for ages, which made him seem the perfect pick for Italy, despite many people warning me off him--I think I'll take their advice going forward and skip the rest of Eco's works. Not for me.

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