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

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

Yes, we could revive it, Ed!

Yeah, actually a lot of dichotomies around the word cynicism.... the first cynics, as in the Greek school of thought (see http://www.iep.utm.edu/cynics/ ) were actually quite far removed from the modern idea of cynicism, but I still think the word in it's purest form, especially in a philosophical sense, denotes an attitude that questions rather than one that simply blindly accepts.

Part of the dichotomy is that the Enlightenment may have been cynical about myth, religion, superstition and untested folklore, but it was definitely more humanist inclined than had been say, the kind of religious asceticism practiced by the Templars and by other medieval religious orders, who spurned "everything of this world".

Vasilis wrote: "Another question from the same chapter (13).

“The stylite was Saint Simeon,” Belbo said, “and I think he stayed on that column so he could spit on the people who walked below.’’
“The stylite was S..."

Hi Vasilis!
Well, the section of Foucault's Pendulum that you're referring to, deals of course with the asceticism of the Templars, and how aspects of it led people to believe that they were inclined to perform homosexual acts.
Part of their asceticism, had to do with humility and the abasement of the body which was expressed by them never cleaning or grooming themselves.

Their bodies therefore being dirty and filthy and unhygienic, reminded Diotallevi of the ascetic who lived on a pillar (and therefore could not/would not attend to personal hygiene), to which Belbo corrected him regarding the name of the ascetic who had lived thus (being the first stylite, St. Simeon).

It appears as if Belbo makes a sarcastic remark regarding St Simeon's piety, pointing out that although the saint was supposedly humble, his elevation on a pillar gave him a potential opportunity to spit on people, (in other words, it allowed him to "look down" on people and made him appear elevated; therefore not quite as humble as he seemingly wanted himself to appear)--I think this is just basically a remark to denote Belbo's cynicism regarding piety and asceticism.

So, when Diotallevi remarks on the cynicism of the Enlightenment, it appears that he means Belbo's cynicism - remember Diotallevi is the one who believes himself to be a Jew, and Belbo is the cynic, the non-believer.
The Enlightenment, of course, was cynical in the sense that it rejected religion and superstition and promoted rationalism. Belbo represents, therefore, Enlightenment rationalism (and cynicism).

You have me wondering now if there may at all be a possibility that George Eliot was referring back to Isaac Causabon with her own character Causabon; since Eliot's Causabon is himself involved with relatively arcane studies.

Yeah, we did mention "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" somewhere in this labyrinth of threads in the group.

Wow, thanks for joining the discussion, Tim! You're really enriching this discussion for us.

Indeed! Eco does seem to enjoy multiple layers, but besides that, your Causabon certainly seems like a likely character for Eco to have (partly?) based the character on.

Eco also seems to enjoy making abstract models, and reducing objects/systems into "patterns" himself, btw, if his structuralist analysis of the James Bond novels are anything to go by....

Tim wrote: "About "the plan" ... did anyone else wonder whether Eco is making a commentary on religion with this illustration of human's tendency to attribute master plans to every phenomenon?"

Oh yes, but I think more than that.... I personally think he was commenting on the human tendency to not only see 'patterns' in everything, but to attach meaning to those patterns, and also the fact that the meaning that we attach, tends to be subjective as it fits into each individual's internal paradigm or mental model of how the world fits together.

The bit where Causabon's wife turns the whole 'map' or 'plan' into a laundry list illustrated that so nicely to me. :)

Hi guys! Interesting question! I will research it a bit and come back to you later on. :) Maybe some of the other members have a reply to this.

But isn't it amazing how different tranlations of the same book can give you a totally different experience? I noticed this first with books tranlated from Russian.

Jan-Maat wrote: "Well we know that Causabon is crazy from the opening of the book and how he perceives and thinks of the exhibits in the museum.

However I'm inclined to think that the diabolicals are also crazy..."

I'm going to have to re-read that bit again. I think he was at least temporarily crazy by the very end...

..but yeah, they certainly allowed themselves to become mixed up with a bunch of people that I'd be very nervous of. I would have run away from what they were doing much earlier on already. Did they honestly think they were dealing with sane, rational people?

...but like you and previous posters have pointed out, how sane and rational is Casaubon? At least the mother of his child is obviously sane.

I think it really happened, but the point is that although all those people BELIEVE there's a plan, there is no plan. I think Eco makes it quite clear that a lot of people are buying into there being some kind of plan that simply doesn't exist.

I think what he is basically saying is that people tend to be very gullible and that they believe what they have a psychological need to believe.

Different strokes for different folks. ;) I'm a curious cat and history intrigues me. :)

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "I finally finished the book last night..."

Congrats, Derek! I hope you found the ending worth pushing through for. I personally was glad I pushed through, because although I disliked the ending at first, it grew on me, and as you might have gathered, I really liked the Belbo part once I managed to distance myself a bit from the immediacy of the characters.

No, but what I meant was that I'm not so much interested in the other conspiracies and societies, but I am interested in the trial of the Templars, as a curiosity from the annals of history.

Oh, I was still going to post a few nice long posts here. Got sidetracked. I posted that first post when it was all still fresh and raw. :)

Good catch Derek.

...and of course, we'll never know how much of what Casaubon tells is true or not...

But didn't you just love how the trumpet bit illuminated Belbo for us? He had that one moment of glory, where he was the center of attention, where everybody stood to attention and he was in it, creating the fulcrum; and then viola, there it happens again with Belbo's death; and this time, Belbo is actually, in a very clever way, the center of the universe in a manner of speaking.

Note that Casaubon only read about the trumpet AFTER Belbo's death, so I don't think he had made that part up.

He could indeed be paranoid about that they're after him though, because he certainly seemed to suffer from PTSD after he left the museum.

Yes, I imagine this book must be heaven for people interested in the Kabbala, gematria and so on.

I found the political intrigue around the Templars very interesting, and when I find the time for it sometime, I think I'd like to read some more around their trial and the theories as to why they didn't manage to hold their own against the French king.

Actually, when you look at what actually happened, it makes the scenario suggested in Holy Blood, Holy Grail look a bit silly-- if the Templars were really built around the bloodline of Jesus and the French kings derived from that bloodline, why would that king try to destroy them?

Unless the king at that time was from a different bloodline than the one that supposedly goes back to Jesus. But that would actually also mean the the French kings were from semitic/Jewish origin...

Ha, remember how enthusiastic I was when we started out, how I was going to research every little thing? Well, there's just too much to research unless you're a medieval scholar and already know a lot of it, and/or it really interests you a lot.

By the time I reached the end, I realized it wouldn't have made much of a difference to me if I had skimmed the history bits (with the exception of the Shakespeare bits, which I found very amusing) and had just read the bits concerning Casaubon and Belbo's lives with attention.

Well, I was very saddened by the very end. I 'got' what Eco was doing with the Belbo character, and I thought that was cool. But why couldn't he have ended things with a ray of hope for Casaubon? Ugh.

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "I'd read that, and really didn't think it anything to do with the title actually cited by Eco. It's a morality play about a horse. How does that relate to Templars? ."

Because a stanza contained in it:

"Li Frere, Li Mestre du Temple
Qu'estoient rempli et ample
D'or et d'argent et de richesse
Et qui menoient tel noblesse
Ou sont ils? que sont devenu?"

refers to the Templars, and is probably quite apt as an intro for that chapter in FP.

But like Jan-Maat pointed out, since the Templars were all over the place, quoting from any fourteenth century text might have been appropriate... >;D

Jan-Maat wrote: "Traveller wrote: "...Well, I can't help feeling a bit insulted. GR recommended [book:Essential Manners for Men: What to Do, When to Do It, and W..."

Don't be surprised. Afterall "The Templars have something to do with everything." "

I almost snorted my coffee all over my keyboard at that....gulped it down quickly and almost choked.

When I have time, I'll check out those spelling niggles in my treebook.

Well, I can't help feeling a bit insulted. GR recommended Essential Manners for Men: What to Do, When to Do It, and Why to me because I'm reading FP...

I've tried to find that passage here: http://archive.org/stream/leromandure... , but it doesn't seem to be there.

However, this guy http://bishopwulfila.blogspot.com/200... also cites it as being from the Roman de Fauvel, although it is possible that he himself got it from Eco. But the problem seems exactly the same as the one I had complained about earlier; there seems to be slight spelling errors in Eco's titles. All my sources call it Roman de FaUvel, whereas Eco calls it Roman de Favel.