top of page

Decoding Eco's Pendulum


It took me about 20 years more or less to finally open the figurative front cover of this digital tome and start to dig deep into it's complexities. I've actually just started skimming the surface of Umberto Eco's "Foucault Pendulum" and reached chapter 9 (or 8% as my kindle mockingly reminds me).

For years this big blue book, which both my parents read when it first got published, back in the late 80s, sat on a shelf. It's big imposing spine sticking out among other classics of Italian and French modern literature such as “The Ennui” and “Paolo il Caldo”.

It was daunting. Pure essence of intellectual juice. Way out of reach for my feeble 15 years old mind... And yet it posed a challenge: will I be able to understand it if I tried to pry open its metaphysical locket? I clearly recall asking this very same question to my neurotic teacher. At the time I was attending my local “scuola media” or middle school (the italian equivalent of a junior high I think). Our teacher was in charge of most disciplines, from geography to history, including italian. Knowing how passionately intellectual she was and how often she would divert a lesson in favor of some other topic, if it was somewhat related to the subject at hand and if it provided her an outlet for her repressed sensibilities. I had no doubt that she, if anyone, would be the right person to go and ask for a well informed opinion and maybe even gain some kudos points in the process.

Oh boy, wasn't I primed for disappointment when her resounding answer was a big fat “No”. Often times I would hear her preach to us how important literature was for us and that we should always aim to challenge our small brains with concepts larger than the ones the Nintendo could offer... Or at least I think she did. Well, not this time, quite the opposite in fact. With a disdainful scoff, she looked at me as if I was overstepping my boundaries and gave me a pice of her mind, which I'll try to report here the best I can remember:

“So you think you could read that? Umberto Eco is one of the most highly regarded authors in our country at the moment. Many people have attempted to read The Pendulum and failed. What makes you think you could read it and understand it? Don't you know they even had to publish a dictionary and an addendum to help to understand the book? It is rife with arcane cultural references and mathematical terminology. Read something else instead. How about improving on your latin instead? That would be a better use of your time.”

With hindsight latin was definitely not a better use of my time, but I'll save that up for another post. Her remarks stung me profoundly. My budding pride in my literary capabilities suffered tremendously and for many years I didn't even touched a book. Who knows, maybe this long hiatus was rather due to puberty and adolescence. It is true that for the five years between the age of 15 and 20 I pursued rather adventurous interest which left little or no time for literature... Nevertheless it took me close to 20 years to overcome my intellectual inferiority complex, and undoubtedly her vote of non—confidence at that time didn't help either.

The Pendulum is not the first of Eco's book I'm reading by the way. I've stared off long ago, I can't even remember when, with “The Name of The Rose” and more recently I've read “Prague's Cemetery”. I'm not going to spend much time talking about these two books here because they probably deserve each a post of its own. But let me at least say that after having read a few pages from Pendulum I have once more recognized Eco's love for deciphering and investigation, at least his own very specific kind of investigation, embodied so well by the Franciscan friar William of Baskerville or by the cynical and disagreeable Simone Simonini. So I now know, we're in for another investigative story filled to the brim with otherworldly connections between the most disparates of concepts...

So here we are, dedicating my first blog post to Eco's Pendulum and my first impressions of it.

With this quote, Eco opens his famous book, probably to warn the reader that the book you are holding in your hands is about deciphering and finding meaning where there is apparently none. Thank goodness for the internet! A quick google search and the mystery is revealed:

“When the Light of the Endless was drawn in the form of a straight line in the Void... it was not drawn and extended immediately downwards, indeed it extended slowly — that is to say, at first the Line of Light began to extend and at the very start of its extension in the secret of the Line it was drawn and shaped into a wheel, perfectly circular all around.”

Now I wonder what would have happen if I attempted to read this book back in 1995, when google and wikipedia weren't even an abstract idea?

First off I must admit, as a 15 years old I would not have enjoyed this book as much as I do now. The prose runs svelte and Eco's brilliantly observant eye picks up true to life insightful details which would escape most people but that endow his characters with breathing, living air. For instance his description of Jacopo Belbo standing in a small bar by the counter, drinking with the local communist students (the action takes place in Turin in 1969) dispensing veiled and ambiguous comments over arguments he happens to overhear while holding a small glass of wine at the hip. I simply love how Eco describes Belbo's adding either sarcasm or disbelief to his words depending on the combination of tone of voice and the movement of his eyes across the room. While I was reading it, it made perfect sense!

Probably someone else might say that there are more intriguing passages worthy of note here but those last few paragraphs in chapter eight really reminded me of a few pages in Proust's “Time Regained”, especially when he observes his house servant Françoise... Thats's another book and still in the process of reading and that will definitely deserve a few entries in this blog... stay tuned!

I cannot comment on the story further as it just happens that the first eight chapters are simply introducing the slightly paranoid Casaubon, hiding in a periscope at the Parisian technical museum Musée des Arts et Métiers. There's another example on Eco's multi referential style. Wikipedia tells me that there are at least three different reasons and connections to be made based on the name 'Casaubon'. I'm not going into it at the moment but if you are curious to know jump over to Wikipedia.

Casaubon is waiting to meet some kind of secret agents at the strike of midnight and during his wake we are taken witnesses of his effort to trace the steps that led him in such a bizarre situation. Apparently the Belbo guy I've mentioned before disappears while on an assignment and Casaubon takes it on himself to go find him. I'm gonna reserve the details to avoid spoiling the book for those of you that haven't read it yet. But let me tell you this, Eco has wrote an investigative/conspiracy thriller with a lot of obscure references and he is not shy to use some exotic lexicon. But my old school teacher should fear not these atavistic references! The internet age is here, and with a simple tap you are introduced to more details about “Sefiroth” than you could possibly need to know. And even if these rich references are way beyond the reach of the lay man, such as yours truly, it will in no way dampen my enthusiasm for the book. At least I can say so for the original italian text, no idea who it flows when it is translated. Now come think of it I'm not sure 'thriller' is the best word to describe this book so far, unless you think that hiding in a dusty closet in old museum is a thrilling experience. and also I'm reticent to quickly assign The Pendulum to a literary genre, maybe just out of respect for Umberto Eco.

Overall, so far, I keep thinking of Foucault's Pendulum as the better version of Dan Brown's "The DaVinci Code". Ok, I've never read the DaVinci Code, a few lines from the opening chapter were enough for me, but I do not live under a rock in and from what I understood of the book from endless commentaries and the movie trailer, the two books do share a central theme seeped in hidden cabalistic societies, templars and conspiring OCD intellectuals deciphering messages in whatever hits their retinas.

So wish me good luck and come back and check my blog often, as I proceed through the digital pages of this intellectual gym I will keep you updated with my progress, stay tuned!

Yours truly,

Gabriele

  • Facebook Social Icon
  • Twitter Social Icon
  • Google+ Social Icon
  • YouTube Social  Icon
  • Pinterest Social Icon
  • Instagram Social Icon
Featured Review
Tag Cloud
No tags yet.
bottom of page