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Copy/paste the text below into your blog. <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17841.Foucault_s_Pendulum?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Foucault's Pendulum" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1166854271m/17841.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17841.Foucault_s_Pendulum?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Foucault's Pendulum</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1730.Umberto_Eco">Umberto Eco</a><br/><br/> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/288638?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a> rating: 4 of 5 stars<br/>If asked, the easiest way to describe Foucault’s Pendulum is to say that it’s a distillation of every conspiracy theory you’ve ever heard into a single novel. I’ve seen many people describe it as the “thinking man’s” Da Vinci Code. Having attempted Angel’s and Demon’s years ago and giving it up after only two chapters – based on Brown’s fumbling with novelization, plotting, pacing, characterization, and even English grammar – I have to conclude that this is an extremely demeaning analogy for Umberto. <br/> <br/>Unlike Brown, Eco’s use of language is deep and rich and filled with allusion. His grasp of the subject is nothing short of unparalleled, and no one could claim that he doesn’t have a unique approach for blending fact, myth, and fiction together in a volatile blend of exposition. <br/> <br/>While the plot may in fact be similar to Brown’s Code, the complexity of Eco’s work is nearly mind boggling in scope. As he attempts to weave conspiracy theory on top of conspiracy theory, you can’t help but notice the care he takes in molding presumed fact into fiction and back into fact again. It’s a dance that Eco is particularly adept with, even when he gets long winded. <br/> <br/>And, unfortunately, he does get long winded. In fact, I put this book aside for a good six months (or more) because somewhere around page 300 he decided the best course to disclose a myriad of theories was through a one hundred-page exchange of dialogue that was nothing short of Faulkner-esque in its execution. If his editor had put his foot down and demanded a smoother, more plot-driven mechanism for this information, it might have resulted in one of the all-time great suspense novels (“thinking man” or otherwise). <br/> <br/>Even with this cumbersome problem, Eco still manages to provide characters you feel for, locations you can see, and a constantly morphing villainy that keeps the reader guessing in a way that reminds me of Arturo Pérez-Reverte. To say that it’s the conspiracy theory novel to end all conspiracy theory novels might be a stretch, but with Eco’s background it would take a Herculean effort to beat his work. <br/> <br/>As it stands, Foucault’s Pendulum will no doubt keep making the reading lists of intellectuals, college students, and conspiracy theorists, even though Eco’s use of vibrant backgrounds and complicated characterizations should appeal to even the summer reader. If someone were interested in Eco, I’d probably recommend they read the Name of the Rose first, before deciding if this is a book they’re interested in tackling. <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/29122?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>