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

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

I've also thought that its probably because Brazil has such a strong occult leaning. But besides that, Eco is bringing in some politics too. He is for example, bringing in the whole question of whether its better to remain undeveloped and 'natural', or to become industrialized and lose your link with nature.

I must admit the whole idea has me in a quandary. I like the cushy benefits of modern technology, but what we're doing to nature and our ecosystems kills me inside.

In any case, I've just realized yet again how very ignorant I am re the Spanish civil war (something which I aim to remedy this year.)

I hadn't before realized that ¡No Pasarán! comes from a speech by Dolores Ibárruri, given in regard of the Spanish Civil War, being her 'battlecry appeal for the defense of the Second Spanish Republic, given before press microphones in the Government Ministry Building in Madrid, representing the position of the Spanish Communist Party, which was then a part of the Popular Front Government, on 19 July 1936.'


Workers! Farmers! Anti-fascists! Spanish Patriots! Confronted with the fascist military uprising, all must rise to their feet, to defend the Republic, to defend the people's freedoms as well as their achievements towards democracy! Through the statements by the government and the Popular Front (parties), the people understand the graveness of the moment.

In Morroco, as well as in the Canary Islands, the workers are battling, united with the forces still loyal to the Republic, against the uprising militants and fascists. Under the battlecry 'Fascism shall not pass; the hangmen of October shall not pass!' workers and farmers from all Spanish provinces are joining in the struggle against the enemies of the Republic that have arisen in arms. Communists, Socialists, Anarchists, and Republican Democrats, soldiers and (other) forces remaining loyal to the Republic combined have inflicted the first defeats upon the fascist foe, who drag through the mud the very same honourable military tradition that they have boasted to possess so many times. The whole country cringes in indignation at these heartless barbarians that would hurl our democratic Spain back down into an abyss of terror and death.

However, THEY SHALL NOT PASS!

For all of Spain presents itself for battle. In Madrid, the people are out in the streets in support of the Government and encouraging its decision and fighting spirit so that it shall reach its conclusion in the smashing of the militant and fascist insurrection.

Something I've been wondering, is why Eco decided to take the narrative specifically to Brazil. There must be a reason, but it's not striking me in the face...

Eco seems to be doing the rounds of confidence tricksters in this section what with the Comte de Saint-Germain and Cagliostro...

As Agliè says: That's why the conquering god of that era was Hermes, inventor of all trickery, god of crossroads and thieves. He was also the creator of writing, which is the art of evasion and dissimulation and a navigation that carries us to the end of all boundaries, where everything dissolves into the horizon, where cranes lift stones from the ground and weapons transform life into death, and water pumps make heavy matter float, and philosophy deludes and deceives.... And do you know where Hermes is today? Right here. You passed him when you came through the door. ' They call him Exu, messenger of the gods, go-between, trader, who is ignorant of the difference between good and evil."

There have been requests for a separate plot thread, where we discuss the plot pure and simple as divorced from the extra that we need to look up because we're not walking encyclopedias. :P

Will return soon...

Thread four continues the discussion here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Oh, and the thing with the Pope's chair distracted me from posting a rather horrible link to a reminder that humans can be worse than animals sometimes:

http://www.medievalwarfare.info/tortu...

Oh! I still wanted to ask you what you people thought of Eco's commentary on Brazil... I didn't know Brazil had so much of an "African" focus.

Also, did you believe Belbo that he only found the Cagliostro ritual by chance? It seems a bit of a stretch to believe that it was a pure coincidence...

Jan-Maat wrote: "Are you suggesting one ought to take Ardenti seriously? :) "

Ardenti? No.

Causabon? Perhaps. But I haven't finished the book yet...

J. wrote: "The Pope being examined for maleness is a myth, brought about by the story of the equally mythical Pope Joan. It makes for a nice story, though!"

Hm, interesting. Sources? Especially since I can't now find sources for my comment except on a Wikipedia talk page which states:

" There is also circumstantial evidence difficult to explain if there was never a female Pope. One example is the so-called chair exam, part of the medieval papal consecration ceremony for almost six hundred years. Each newly elected Pope after Joan sat on the sella stercoraria (literally, "dung seat"), pierced in the middle like a toilet, where his genitals were examined to give proof of his manhood. Afterward the examiner solemnly informed the gathered people, "Mas nobis nominus est" -- "Our nominee is a man." Only then was the Pope handed the keys of St. Peter. This ceremony continued until the sixteenth century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AP...

Jan-Maat wrote: "I think he is parodying that kind of story - holy blood holy grail published 1982, Foucault's pendulum was published 1988 and is very much a satire of it, also our propensity to be attracted to those kinds of stories, but through Colonel Ardenti.."

...and yet, there does seem to be some mystique attached to the Templars, who, as Causabon pointed out earlier, all confessed originally without demur. I've personally been wondering if they weren't perhaps offered some kind of 'deal' much as the DA does in modern "Law & Order" movies--as in 'spill the beans on your pals and we'll give you amnesty', kind of thing.

Thread for discussion of Foucault's Pendulum from start of Chapter 28 to end of Chapter 38.

Cool observations.
Ruth, you might be shocked to know that girls were actually subjected to public examinations to find out if she was really a virgin, usually by a midwife underneath her clothing--Joan of Arc was subjected to such an examination (she was indeed a virgin according to the examiner), and I believe the Pope (is?) was felt over before being affirmed, to make sure that he is male and has all his bits present...

It seems that things were taken very literally in those days, besides that people were pretty sexist...

J. wrote: "Ardenti is the perfect conspiracy theorist. Everyone knows that 2+2 is actually 5, therefore 5+5 is obviously 20. So given this we can clearly infer that the year is actually 2011 and the world wil..."

Ha! Yes. I actually knew people like that, once. They believed that in the year 2006, these large spacecraft, which are actually the chariots of God, would come down and pick up the chosen ones before the earth is destroyed.

I'm not sure what they said when this did not happen. Some small miscalculation somewhere? Out by 20 or 200 years, perhaps? :P

..and isn't it obvious that the Grail is linked to the golden fleece, because they are both golden and have miraculous properties, and because the Argonauts saw a cup floating in the sky?

But the most obvious thing of course, is that Jesus was not a Jew, but from an Aryan race, and the story of Jesus from Celtic origin. I mean, just look at pictures of him, it should be obvious to anyone who has the sense to see it. ;)

So what do you think of Colonel Ardenti's convenient large leaps in logic? :D

I was quite interested to see Eco playing around not just with number patterns, but also with symbols. I had always thought of the Holy Grail as a cup or chalice, so the stone connection didn't make all that much sense to me.

Female virgins do seem to universally have some kind of magical symbolic power, don't they? I think they supposedly symbolise purity; and purity was a very powerful quality in medieval religious parlance.

Ruth wrote: "I have been going through and checking the names and places, almost everything checks out, except the info on the maps. Here is a link to Fludd's Utriusque Cosmi Historia. worth a peek but at 700..."

Good grief. Thanks for that, Ruth. I'll be honest in saying that I tend to get stuck at the reference-rich places of the book, when I don't have time to look it all up, so thanks for doing it for us, Ruth. :)

Aside from the references to real people, which I found less interesting, what I had found more interesting in this section (besides the drama with the Colonel, of course!), was all the references to how symbolism from various parts of the world and various cultures tie in with one another. I'm posting from a mobile now, but will say more about that when I get to my PC.

In the meantime, you're welcome to also comment more, of course, and thank you for helping me keep the discussion alive.

Phew, it looks like this discussion has been hijacked by Christmas! I finally have time to get back to it, and now it seems everyone has left the party...

But in any case, just to get my feet back in again, I was thinking how much more effective this book must have been pre- the year 2000. One always looks backs and sniggers a bit at predictions made in books or TV shows about the turn of the millennium, doesn't one? How much the world changed in unexpected ways, but not much in some of the dramatic contexts that 20th century people used to hang on to the peg of that magical millennium number of years, counted from a date, which if you think about it, is probably quite arbitrary (The year 0 )

The other thing I thought to pen down quickly is how intriguing the tunnels under the hill in Provins sounds. I wanna visit that hill and see the tunnels!

*Sigh* and I haven't had a chance yet to check up the veracity of ye olde cryptographers that Eco refers to, but I'm assuming that yet again, he's using historically correct figures here.

The next thread is here, if you people are ready: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Sorry, guys. I got sidetracked. Will get back to this in a few hours; just need to take a short break... I wonder if we should perhaps focus less on fine detail, just to carry us trough, or else we're going to be sick of this before we get to the end? But that may just be my ADD speaking... :(

Oh goodie, you did carry on. I was hoping people would see the link to the new thread themselves. I can't open multiple browser windows on the gym's PC's, and I can't copy and paste, so I can't copy and paste links or anything else, of course...

Oh no.. just as we were really starting to have fun, I have a bit of bad news from my side... our ADSL line is broken, and so our internet is down at home. (Why do these things always happen on a Friday?)

My service provider has just informed me that it will take at least 1 WORKING day to fix, meaning, Monday evening at the soonest... :((((

I went in to my local gym to use their internet to at least let you guys know and apologize for my absence.

I'll come in to the gym again tomorrow morning in order to create our next thread- or wait, it's already created, so you guys must just carry on with it as soon as you're ready, ok?

I'll still come in to the gym anyway, but I wanted to apologise in advance...

Grrr, how frustrating.

Ha! I was wondering who Struwwelpeter was and how bad his hair really was. The gel sounded terrible.



I was also wondering how much of what Belbo writes about himself, is biographical in regard to Eco, who must be around the same age. Born in 1932, so...

Oh! And about the gang. Note that they also had a joining rite, which of course nicely highlights the earlier comments that the Templars might indeed have done some of the things they were accused of, as part of a joining ritual.