Foucault's Pendulum

[HAROLD POSKANZER]

I'll have to agree, too.  As an academic mystery, it was intriguing, but as a 
meta-mystery, it was too cold for me.  The sense of chaos and magic was not 
nearly as overwhelming as GR or The Illuminatus! Trilogy. (Has there been any 
discussion of that here?)  Of course, that's probably not what Eco was trying 
for.  Or, indeed, the only aspect of Pynchon that I like.

-H

_______________________________________________________________________________

Subject: Re: Foucault's Pendulum

From:    <GJensen650 at aol.com> at RAD-INTERNET

Date:    7/15/95  4:12 PM



In a message dated 95-07-14 13:30:18 EDT, oxymoron at waste.org (Oliver Xymoron)
writes:

> 
>

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.

On the other hand, maybe _Foucault's Pendulum_ just didn't work for me.

G.  Jensen