Foucault's Pendulum

[grip at netcom.com]

On Sat, 15 Jul 1995 GJensen650 at aol.com wrote:

> I, too, was left cold by _Foucault's Pendulum_.   The "conspiracy" Eco so
> desperately throws together is so bland and academic that whatever is left of
> this novel seems to me very artifical and contrived, from the perspective of
> it being an actual story that engages the reader's interest beyond its
> schlocky post-modern agenda.  I'll be honest, I felt used after I had
> finished the book.  Because of that experience, I haven't given Eco a second
> chance, and maybe I should have.   But to compare his efforts, at least as
> far as _Foucault's Pendulum_ is concerned, to Pynchon seems absurd to me.  As
> a novel, I found _Foucault's Pendulum_ to be humorless and barely human,
> whereas Pynchon proves again and again that he at least gives a damn about
> the little creatures scurrying through the dark labyrinths of his stories and
> novels.  And I never get the impression, except for, perhaps,  "Entropy",
> that his characters are there solely to push some lame academic exercise on
> the reader that disgraces that act of storytelling in the first place.

One of the things I most enjoy about reading the comments on this list is 
that frequently I see explicitly written out good and solid reasons for 
what before was a gut level instinct. After reading the above I kept 
saying, "Yes. Right on, bother." to my self.  I suppose that given the 
celebrity status of Eco, I kept thinking it was me, rather than his 
writing that was the problem. Now I know better. I gave up on FP after 
about 100 pages or so spread out over a few weeks. Now I'm glad I did.

grip