Foucault's Pendulum

Bored with their work, three Milanese editors cook up the Plan, a hoax that connects the medieval Knights Templar with other occult groups from ancient to modern times. This produces a map indicating the geographical point from which all the powers of the earth can be controlled—a point located in Paris, France, at Foucault’s Pendulum. But in a fateful turn the joke becomes all too real, and when occult groups, including Satanists, get wind of the Plan, they go so far as to kill one of the editors in their quest to gain control of the earth. Orchestrating these and other diverse characters into his multilayered semiotic adventure, Eco has created a superb cerebral entertainment. Publishers Weekly If a copy (often unread) of The Name of the Rose on the coffee table was a badge of intellectual superiority in 1983, Eco's second novel--also an intellectual blockbuster--should prove more accessible. This complex psychological thriller chronicles the development of a literary joke that plunges its perpetrators into deadly peril. The narrator, Casaubon, an expert on the medieval Knights Templars, and two editors working in a branch of a vanity press publishing house in Milan, are told about a purported coded message revealing a secret plan set in motion by the Knights Templars centuries ago when the society was forced underground. As a lark, the three decide to invent a history of the occult tying a variety of phenomena to the mysterious machinations of the Order. Feeding their inspirations into a computer, they become obsessed with their story, dreaming up links between the Templars and just about every occult manifestation throughout history, and predicting that culmination of the Templars' scheme to take over the world is close at hand. The plan becomes real to them--and eventually to the mysterious They, who want the information the trio has ``discovered.'' Dense, packed with meaning, often startlingly provocative, the novel is a mixture of metaphysical meditation, detective story, computer handbook, introduction to physics and philosophy, historical survey, mathematical puzzle, compendium of religious and cultural mythology, guide to the Torah (Hebrew, rather than Latin contributes to the puzzle here, but is restricted mainly to chapter headings), reference manual to the occult, the hermetic mysteries, the Rosicrucians, the Jesuits, the Freemasons-- ad infinitum . The narrative eventually becomes heavy with the accumulated weight of data and supposition, and overwrought with implication, and its climax may leave readers underwhelmed. Until that point, however, this is an intriguing cerebral exercise in which Eco slyly suggests that intellectual arrogance can come to no good end. KETER 1. When the light of the infinite 2. Wee haue divers curious Clocks HOKHMAH 3. In hanc utilitatem clementes angeli 4. He who attempts to penetrate into the Rose Garden 5. And begin by combining this name 6. Judá Léon se dio a permutaciones BINAH 7. Do not expect too much of the end of the world 8. Having come from the light and from the gods 9. In his right hand he held a golden trumpet 10. And finally nothing is cabalistically inferred 11. His sterility was infinite 12. Sub umbra alarum tuarum 13. Li frere, li mestre du Temple 14. He, if asked, would also confess to killing Our Lord 15. I will go and fetch you help from the Comte D'Anjou 16. He has been in the order only nine months 17. And thus did the knights of the Temple vanish 18. A mass terrifyingly riddled with fissures and caverns 19. The order has never ceased to exist, not for a moment 20. Invisible center, the sovereign who must reawaken 21. The Graal ... is a weight so heavy 22. The knights wanted to face no further questions HESED 23. The analogy of opposites 24. Sauves la faible Aischa 25. These mysterious initiates 26. All the traditions of the earth 27. One day, saying that he had known Pontius Pilate 28. There is a body that enfolds the whole of the world 29. Simply because they change and hide their names 30. And the famous confraternity of the Rosy Cross 31. The majority were in reality only Rosicrucians 32. Valentiniani per ambiguitates bilingues 33. The visions are white, blue, white, pale red GEVURAH 34. Beydelus, Demeyes, Adulex 35. I’ mi son Lia 36. Yet one caution let me give 37. Whoever reflects on four things 38. Prince of Babylon, Knight of the Black Cross 39. Doctor of the Planispheres, Hermetic Philosophers 40. Cowards die many times before their deaths 41. Daath is situated at the point where the abyss 42. We are all in agreement, whatever we say 43. People who meet on the street 44. Invoke the forces 45. And from this springs the extraordinary question 46. You will approach the frog several times 47. The sense alert and the memory clear 48. The volume of the Great Pyramid in cubic inches 49. A spiritual knighthood of initiates 50. For I am the first and the last 51. When therefore a Great Cabalist 52. A colossal chessboard that extends beneath the earth 53. Unable to control destinies on earth openly 54. The prince of darkness 55. I call a theatre 56. He began playing his shining trumpet 57. On every third tree a lantern 58. Alchemy, however, is a chaste prostitute 59. And if such monsters are generated 60. Poor idiot! 61. The Golden Fleece is guarded 62. We consider societies druidic if 63. What does the fish remind you of? TIFERET 64. To dream of living in an unknown city 65. The frame was twenty foot square 66. If our hypothesis is correct 67. Da Rosa, nada digamos agora 68. Let your garments be white 69. Elles deviennent le Diable 70. Let us remember the secret references 71. We do not even know with certainty 72. Nos inuisibles pretendus 73. Another curious case 74. Though his will be good 75. The initiates are at the edge of that path 76. Dilletantism 77. This herb is called Devilbane 78. Surely this monstrous hybrid 79. He opened his coffer 80. When White arrives 81. They could explode the whole surface of our planet 82. The earth is a magnetic body 83. A map is not the territory 84. Following the plans of Verulam 85. Phileas Fogg. A name that is also a signature 86. It was to them that Eiffel turned 87. It is a remarkable coincidence 88. Templarism is Jesuitism 89. In the bosom of the deepest darkness 90. All the outrages attributed to the Templars 91. How well you have unmasked those infernal sects 92. With all the power and terror of Satan 93. Whereas we stay in the wings 94. En avoit-il le moindre soupçon 95. Namely the Jewish Cabalists 96. A cover is always necessary 97. I am that I am 98. Its racist gnosis, its rites and initiations 99. Guenonism plus armored divisions 100. I declare the earth is hollow 101. Qui operatur in Cabala 102. A very thick and high wall 103. Your secret name shall have 36 letters 104. These texts are not addressed to common mortals 105. Delirat lingua, labat mens 106. List No. 5 NEZAH 107. Dost thou see yon black dog? 108. Are there several Powers at work? 109. Saint-Germain . . . very polished and witty 110. They mistook the movements and walked backwards 111. C'est un leçon par la suite HOD 112. Four our Ordinances and Rites 113. Our cause is a secret 114. The ideal pendulum 115. If the eye could see the demons 116. Je voudrais être la tour 117. Madness has an enormous pavilion YESOD 118. The conspiracy theory of society 119. The garland of the trumpet was set afire MALKHUT 120. They hold for certain that they are in the light SUMMARY: "As brilliant and quirky as THE NAME OF THE ROSE, as mischievous and wide-raning....A virtuoso performance."THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLEThree clever book editors, inspired by an extraordinary fable they heard years befoe, decide to have a little fun. Randomly feeding esoteric bits of knowledge into an incredible computer capable of inventing connections between all their entires, they think they are creating a long lazy game--until the game starts taking over....Here is an incredible journey of thought and history, memory and fantasy, a tour de force as enthralling as anything Umberto Eco--or indeed anyone--has ever devised. SUMMARY: "As brilliant and quirky as THE NAME OF THE ROSE, as mischievous and wide-raning....A virtuoso performance."THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLEThree clever book editors, inspired by an extraordinary fable they heard years befoe, decide to have a little fun. Randomly feeding esoteric bits of knowledge into an incredible computer capable of inventing connections between all their entires, they think they are creating a long lazy game--until the game starts taking over....Here is an incredible journey of thought and history, memory and fantasy, a tour de force as enthralling as anything Umberto Eco--or indeed anyone--has ever devised. Literary,Fiction,Historical,Fiction - General,Historical - General,Science Fiction,Suspense,Psychological fiction,Science Fiction - Adventure,Adventure,General & Literary Fiction,Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945),Modern fiction,Occult,Occult fiction,Body; Mind & Spirit,Occult & Supernatural,Alchemists,Alchemy,Occultism,Voodooism,Foucault's pendulum,Thought and thinking,Religions,Idolatry A literary prank leads to deadly danger in this “endlessly diverting” intellectual thriller by the author of The Name of the Rose (Time). Bored with their work, three Milanese book editors cook up an elaborate hoax that connects the medieval Knights Templar with occult groups across the centuries. Becoming obsessed with their own creation, they produce a map indicating the geographical point from which all the powers of the earth can be controlled—a point located in Paris, France, at Foucault's Pendulum. But in a fateful turn the joke becomes all too real. When occult groups, including Satanists, get wind of the Plan, they go so far as to kill one of the editors in their quest to gain control of the earth. Orchestrating these and other diverse characters into his multilayered semiotic adventure, Umberto Eco has created a superb cerebral entertainment.'An intellectual adventure story...sensational, thrilling, and packed with arcana.'—The Washington Post Book World Three clever editors (who have spent altogether too much time reviewing crackpot manuscripts on the occult by fanatics and dilettantes) decide to have a little fun. They are inspired by an extraordinary fable they heard years before from a suspiciously natty colonel, who claimed to know of a mystic source of power greater than atomic energy. On a lark, the editors begin randomly feeding esoteric bits of knowledge into an incredible computer capable of inventing connections between all their entries. What they believe they are creating is a long, lazy game - until the game starts taking over... Here is an incredible journey of thought and history, memory and fantasy, a tour de force as enthralling as anything Umberto Ecoor indeed anyonehas ever devised. *Il pendolo di Foucault* è il secondo romanzo dello scrittore italiano Umberto Eco. Pubblicato nel 1988 dalla casa editrice Bompiani (con cui Eco aveva già un pluridecennale rapporto), è ambientato negli anni della vita dello scrittore, fino ai primi anni ottanta. *Il pendolo di Foucault* è suddiviso in dieci segmenti che rappresentano le dieci Sephirot. Il romanzo è ricco di citazioni esoteriche, dalla Cabala all'alchimia e alla teoria del complotto, così tante che il critico letterario e romanziere Anthony Burgess ha suggerito che sarebbe stato utile un indice. ---------- Extraordinary narrative by Italian semiotician and professor Umberto Eco, who guides us through the darkest corners of history. Three Milan editors, who have spent much time rewriting crackpot manuscripts on the occult, decide to have a little fun. Their plan encompasses the secrets of the solar system, Satanic initiation rites, and Brazilian voodoo. A terrific joke--until people begin to disappear