Traveller’s Comments (group member since Sep 15, 2013)

Traveller’s comments from the Foucault's Pendulum group.

Very interesting, thanks for that, Michele! I petered out watching Lost after the third season--it never seemed to get towards any kind of a resolution; though I was very enthusiastic about it at first...

So was the ending satisfying? I wonder if I should rent the whole show bit by bit and watch it over a few months?

People always grow tired of commenting at the end, in my experience, so I'm not going to let that bother me if it happens. :)

But let's see how we go--I guess a lot of it will depend how much depth people want to go into. Also, we have an open structure like the one proposed, in another group, and people are still able to add valuable insights weeks after the frontrunners had moved on to greener pastures. :D

Wonderful, Michele!
Phew, not all books are equal, though. I can read through 500 pages of Stephen King at about 10 times the pace as some Eco of the same length...

Michele wrote: "So, was that a Foucault's Pendulum in "Lost"?"

Interesting question, Michele. I never managed to watch that show to the end.

I'll leave that question to someone else, but I wanted to quickly say something about a quotation that Chapter 3 starts off with.
Eco is soo cryptic, grrr.

Anyway, I've started peeping at the 'problematic' bits, and I'm wondering how many languages are represented by the members on this group, because Eco is pretty multilingual, and we tend to encounter a few languages when reading him.

Well, I hated Latin class, so I shuddered a bit when I saw the following: In hanc utilitatem clementes angeli saepe figuras, characteres,
formas et voces invenerunt proposueruntque nobis mortalibus et
ignotas et stupendas nullius rei iuxta consuetum linguae usum
significativas, sed per rationis nostrae summam admirationem in
assiduam intelligibilium pervestigationem, deinde in illorum ipsorum
venerationem et amorem inductivas

-Johannes Reuchlin, De arte cabalistica, Hagenhau, 1517, III

Some people over here tried to translate that https://groups.google.com/forum/#!top...

I rather preferred this translation because it seemed more flowing:
"To this advantage, clement messengers have discovered designs,
symbols, shapes and spells, and have set before us mortals tokens
both obscure and enormous, in no manner near to the accustomed usage
of speech; but through the highest wonder of our reason, we have
been led over into an earnest examination of intelligible things,
and thereupon to their very reverence and love."

Is there anyone around here who has Latin who would like to give it a go for us? Well, we don't have to do that right now, of course, when we get to this part in the discussion later on this month, I'll link to this post again.

I'm using this thread for making notes. I'm just skimming the text for now, because there's soo much detail that I'll have to research before I know what he's talking about.

Taking into account Derek's caution that we don't have to understand or know about every single allusion to understand what's going on in the narrative, I want to sift out which are necessary or not. Heh, but if I don't even understand a word of a quotation, I can't so that even, so I'm growling a bit at Eco by now... :P

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "Personally, faster is better. Perhaps I don't absorb as much, but I have trouble keeping my attention on a long discussion…"

Yes, I agree, which is why I'm hoping the group will be okay with at least letting us share the research re all his references, and/or letting some of them go unexamined, even.

For discussion of Foucault's Pendulum, Chapter 1 through end of Chapter 6.

Please keep in mind that spoilers are allowed on these threads, so it is advised to at least read a good bit of the section as indicated before venturing into each thread if you are very sensitive to spoilers.

However, members are requested to please keep any spoilers they discuss, limited to the specific section of text under discussion in each thread. We can rather refer back to earlier parts of the book from later threads if correlation between different parts of the book are pertinent.

Our discussion is set to start November 26, keeping in mind though, that some members can only start at the end of November due to NanoWriMo and other commitments... so I suggest we go slow at the start. I'm hoping we won't get too far ahead for those members.

Since these threads will remain open indefinitely, though, please don't hesitate to share your thoughts at your own pace even when it looks as if you may have fallen behind the rest of us. We will always still come back to read your comments and share with you. :)

Jim wrote: "Traveller wrote: "I was actually about to start setting up threads and set the event up formally, Jonfaith, after some discussion with Dolores as to the pace we should be adopting.

I've had a peek..."

Yes, I've been using that format in another group, and it works beautifully.
With such a format, people also tend to wait a bit for the others when they see that they're the only ones around.
For now, I'll set out the threads in any case, and let's see how things resolve.

I was actually about to start setting up threads and set the event up formally, Jonfaith, after some discussion with Dolors as to the pace we should be adopting.

I've had a peek at the text and it is indescribably dense with allusions. I mean, I could write ten pages on some of his single pages, investigating all that he refers to in them... so we might have to decide where we're going to draw the line if we ever want to finish this book before Xmas next year...

Thoughts have been to divide the 120 chapters into ten threads of 12 chapters each, (or better yet, the 640 odd pages into 10 threads of +-65 pages each) since I personally favor an "open time" approach to group discussions where we set a rough time schedule, but divide the work into sections so that latecomers can still comment on threads without being spoiled about events too far ahead in the book.

The big question is how much time we should allocate to each thread. I was hoping to do around two threads, that is around 108 pages per week, which will allow us to finish the book in a nice tidy six weeks. Dolors thinks I'm being too ambitious there, and that we should do the book in about double the time.

Even taking into account that the book is very dense, I tend to have a bit of ADHD with my reading and I think I might struggle to keep my focus on a single book for so long. Even two months for a book feels pretty long to me.

How do other members feel? Six weeks, two months, or longer?
We could put it to the poll, if you like.

Hi guys! *waves*
Yes, we can certainly have a lot of fun using the Eco read as an excuse to read up on all sorts of history!

...and since we have quite a bit of time available to warm up, please feel free to slowly contribute to the background thread , (I see some members have already made contributions-thanks, people) which will operate separately from the discussion threads that discusses the actual novel.

Kalliope wrote: "Hello everyone.. I am not really joining the group since I cannot be reading this now.

But similarly to Dolor's I saw that GOOGLE, at least in Spain (www.google.es) is commemorating the birth of ..."

Hi Kall! Thanks for the link.

The actual Foucault's Pendulum discussion proper will only go full swing on December 1, when the NonoWriMo people can join us, so if you want to pop in then, you're quite welcome. :)

We may fiddle around on this thread in the meantime, but like Derek said, the background is not absolutely essential to enjoyment of the novel.

However, I do think that reading up on it, will make our discussion and experiencing the novel itself, more rich and rewarding.

So, nibble on the additional info as much as your personal inclinations guide you, dear friends, or not, as you desire.

The pendulum is quite a fascinating thing, isn't it?

Thanks so much for all of your interesting contributions, people!

For some reason updates from this thread never reached me, so this is such a nice surprise to find!

Glad to hear that we don't really need that background info, Derek, but we don't have to let that stop us from investigating it anyway, right? ;)

Welcome, Jonfaith! Ha, let's do some kind of bet with Jonfaith to keep him to the end of the discussion, Ulrike.
It's nice that we have people aboard who have already read the novel.

National Novel Writing Month usually takes place in November: http://nanowrimo.org/about/hownanoworks

Ulrike wrote: "Traveller wrote: "Even his chapter names can start off a discussion."

Oh dear. I should lock the book away or maybe it would be safer to return it beneath the stack of unread books where I found i..."

If you want to, have a peep at the background thread, Ulrike, and see if you can see the resemblance with the mystical Kabbalah.

See why I think we'd have plenty to discuss in those first four days while we wait for the NaNoWriMo people?

Having had a look at the first few page or two of the novel, I very much doubt that I'd just start reading and not be able to stop until the end. Very interesting it may be, which is why I want to read it, but its not going to suck me in like a Stephen King short story.

Reading this is much, much more work...

Dolors wrote: "Seems like a perfect plan to me, Trav. ..."
Good, we've moved it on to Nov. 26.

Oh yes! I just remembered that not only had I read The Da Vinci Code, but also Holy Blood, Holy Grail, after which, along with Eco's mention of them in The Name of The Rose, had made me decide that I'd had enough of secret societies and conspiracies for a long time. But the time has come to break the hiatus...

The second thing we could add to our background discussion is the most obvious thing that Eco refers to, being the 10 Sephira or sephiroth from the Tree of Life of the Kabbala wich originated in Judaic mysticism.

Before we even start reading the novel, we see a drawing of something which looks very similar to the 10 sephiroth :


..and then there are the chapter headings too, of course.

Here's a short list of what the sephira represent:

1. Keter-"Crown" (Chapters 1 & 2)
2. Chokhmah/Hohmah-"Wisdom" (Chapters 3 - 6)
3. Binah-"Understanding" (Chapters 7 - 22)
4. Chesed/Hesed-"Kindness"
5. Gevurah-"Severity"
6. Tiferet-"Beauty"
7. Netzach-"Eternity"
8. Hod-"Splendour"
9. Yesod-"Foundation"
10 Malkuth-"Kingship"


Per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_... :

The Tree of Life's symbolic configuration of 10 spiritual principles [...], arranged in 3 columns/pillars, describes the manner in which God creates existence ex nihilo, the nature of revealed divinity, the human soul, and the spiritual path of ascent by man. In this way, Kabbalists developed the symbol into a full model of reality, using the tree to depict a map of Creation.

Derek wrote: "Trav, trav, trav.

Umberto Eco ≠ Dan Brown!"

Of course not! I wouldn't even consider reading this if it had not been written by Umberto. ;) We'll hopefully be going on a bit of a semiotic binge while reading Eco, and much else besides.

Even his chapter names can start off a discussion.

Hi Marina and Kris, nice to see you here! :)

I'm going to be very honest and admit to the same thing as Marina. I enjoyed The Name Of The Rose ages and ages ago, and on the strength of that I'd bought Foucault's Pendulum, but, I'm not big on conspiracy theories; in fact, after Dan Brown's first effort, I'd decided I'd had enough of that. So I've had this book for ages, but I never get down to actually reading it.

Apparently this is much better than Dan Brown though, and besides, it's annoying to see the book on my real and virtual shelves and just have it hovering there, unread...

It will also be interesting to have a Medieval Historian (Kris) coming along with us, even though gender studies is her field of specialty, and not secret societies and conspiracy theories. :)

From that point of view, it would even be interesting to have read The Name of The Rose with Kris, though I'm not motivated enough to do a re-read of that yet.

Oh, hang on! I'd forgotten about NaNoWriMo. Does that go on to the very end of November? Should we schedule this for a week later then to give people who are doing that more time?

What we COULD do is move the start date on to Nov 26, spend the first week on preparation, the first few chapters and getting acquainted with the arcane aspects of the material to give time for latecomers to catch up and then start moving faster from start of December.

Jason wrote: "Thanks, Jen! This happens to be a book I've wanted to read for some time now, but I'll have to see as we get closer whether or not I'll be able to fit it in. What will the schedule look like, if yo..."

We haven't actually decided yet, Jason, since the decision to make a group read out of it happened spontaneously yesterday. I've had a peek at the novel, and it looks long and involved, which probably makes December a good time to read it.

I personally will only have time to start on it seriously in late November, but was thinking that if one did a bit of background research about some of the more involved stuff in advance, it will probably go down easier once we start reading and discussing the text itself.

Why, what did you have in mind? Btw, I've found that making too many threads in a group ends up requiring a lot of navigation, so how about we discuss the proposed schedule right here in this thread before making any final decisions and officially publishing a schedule?