Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco

Source of book: I own this

My first choice for Umberto Eco was originally The Name of the Rose. However, my wife found this for next to nothing at a library sale (or maybe on the discard shelf?) So, it was a convenient choice. 

This book is rather on the long side - 641 pages in my edition. For me, that isn’t that long, as books by Anthony Trollope and Henry James tend to run at least 800. So I am used to reading long books. So believe me when I say:

This book is too damn long. 

I think it would have been a great book at one-third the length. So much of the book seems unnecessary and deadly boring, even if it relates to the plot and theme of the book. Let me explain. 

[Spoiler Warning]

Here is the basic plot. Three friends, Belbo, Diotellevi, and Casaubon (the narrator) work for a vanity press company. As part of their work, they screen books by self-funded authors relating to the constellation of conspiracy theories surrounding the Knights Templar. Casaubon wrote a thesis on the Templars back in college, while Diotellevi is a Cabalist. Between the three of them, they go rather down the rabbit hole of interlocking theories. Eventually, they decide to write the mother of all conspiracy theory books, by finding ludicrous connections and metaphors between all kinds of nonsense - literally from ancient history to Mickey Mouse. To assist them, they use Belbo’s computer (this was in the 1980s) to randomly re-assort phrases they feed into it. The result is a bunch of pseudo-profound and utterly ridiculous blither. 

But the problem is, people start believing it. Maybe even the three friends. And eventually, the belief that the three are in reality holding the great secret of the Templars for world domination turns deadly. 

I avoided spoiling all of the ending, but that is in fact most of the plot. The majority of the book is a mess of interconnected conspiracy theories. It starts out well enough, with a history of the Templars, and then the Rosicrucians, and then...well it really goes down the rabbit hole. Anthony Burgess said that the book contained so many esoteric references to alchemy, the kabbalah, and conspiracy theories, that it needed an index. 

To give a feel for the book, it starts with a teaser of the scene near the very end (Casaubon hiding in the Musée des Arts et Métiers, waiting for...something connected with the Foucault Pendulum.) Then we dive into Casaubon’s attempts (eventually successful) to get into the missing Belbo’s computer, then another 90 pages or so of Templar history and theories. It isn’t until a hundred pages in that we actually get to start the story itself and figure out what the heck is going on. And then, after a short bit of plot, where a mysterious Colonel Ardenti claims to have a document with the secret to the Templars, then disappears, suddenly we are in...Brazil, where Casaubon goes chasing a woman he falls in love with. A few years there, and they meet a nut-job, Aglie  who seems to believe he is the Count of St.-Germain (still living hundreds of years later), who leads Casaubon down another series of rabbit trails. Oh, and a weird Afro-Brazillian occult ceremony and more theories. And then, Casaubon breaks up with the woman and goes back to Italy. And now, we are past the halfway point of the book, having spent maybe 30 pages on plot and the rest on conspiracies. 

 The Foucault Pendulum at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles

This was the first one I ever saw, and I still remember it.

Once you get to about page 400, the plot finally starts to move somewhere. Over the final 240 pages, the ratio of plot to conspiracy theories is about 1:2, which is, believe it or not, a real improvement. The ending is pretty exciting, actually, and there are some great moments in that second half. So I am glad I stuck with it. But I really don’t think I remember all that much of the Templar stuff - and have no interest in trying to figure it out. 

Anyway, these quotes will give a bit of the flavor. First is Casaubon’s description of the Templars early in the book. 

“Hughes and the original eight others were probably idealists caught up in the mystique of the Crusade. But later recruits were most likely younger sons seeking adventure. Remember, the new kingdom of Jerusalem was sort of the California of the day, the place you went to make your fortune. Prospects at home were not great, and some of the knights may have been on the run for one reason or another. I think of it as a kind of Foreign Legion. What do you do if you’re in trouble? You join the Templars, see the world, have some fun, do some fighting. They feed you and clothe you, and in the end, as a bonus, you save your soul.”

This, of course, was before things got crazy. (Also, this is page 80, and we are still back on the actual history of the Templars.) I should also mention a deliciously snarky remark by Belbo. Casaubon has mentioned that things got uncomfortable after the Crusades, because soldiers do not easily return to civilian life - particularly as a priestly order. From sleeping with the plundered women to celibacy? Anyway:

“From prohibitions you can tell what people normally do,” Belbo said. “It’s a way of drawing a picture of daily life.” 

Another fascinating insight comes from, of all people, Aglie, describing the Brazilian fish market and the mashup of all these religious and occult symbols. 

“This,” Aglie said, “is the very image of what the ethnology textbooks call Brazilian syncretism. An ugly word, in the official view. But in its loftiest sense, syncretism is the acknowledgement that a single Tradition runs through and nurtures all religion, all learning, all philosophy. The wise man does not discriminate; he gathers together all the shreds of light, from wherever they may come…”

One of my epiphanies of the last few years is that ALL religion, past and present, is syncretistic. There is no such thing as “pure” revealed religion. It has always borrowed from the culture in which it exists, for good or ill. While it is an oversimplification to say that there is a single tradition, Aglie is to a certain degree correct. What runs through all religion, learning, and philosophy is humanity. We are all human, and thus have more in common than different. It is therefore unsurprising to find so much religious commonality. Unlike Aglie, I don’t think there is a single conspiracy involving the Templars, of course. 

One of the subplots of the book is the gradual revelation of Belbo’s childhood, growing up in a small village during World War Two, when his fellow residents were caught between the Fascists and the partisan rebels. How to stay alive and “normal” is a fine dance. There is an exchange between Belbo’s uncle, and Mongo, the rebel leader, which is revealing. 

Mongo said then, “You see, Cavalier, it’s this way, Major: we were informed that you collect taxes for the Fascist government that toadies to the invaders.” “You see, Commander,” Uncle Carlo said, “it’s this way: I have a family and receive a salary from the government, and the government is what it is; I didn’t choose it, and what would you have done in my place?” “My dear Major,” Mongo replied, “in your place, I’d have done what you did, but try at least to collect the taxes slowly; take your time.” “I’ll see what I can do,” Uncle Carlo said. “I have nothing against you men; you, too, are sons of Italy and valiant fighters.” They understood each other, because they both thought of Fatherland with a capital F. 

Eco too grew up under Fascism, and is one of the most perceptive writers about the subject. (See note at the end.) Fascism and Nazism are not synonymous. Nazism is Fascist, but not all Fascists are Nazis. For Italy, it was more complicated. Mussolini wasn’t Hitler. While Italy was complicit, it did not invent the “final solution,” and was no more anti-Semitic than, say, England. 

Around this time, Aglie shows up in Italy, and kind of worms his way in with Belbo’s girlfriend, kind of like he did in Brazil to Casaubon’s girl. He gives her some kind of line about how she is Sophia, the female part of God, and…(I don’t really understand all of that)...but she has this fun line about it. 

“How nice! Does he give that line to all the girls?”

“No, stupid, just to me, because he understands me better than you do. He doesn’t try to create me in his image. He understands I have to be allowed to live my life in my own way. And that’s what Sophia did; she flung herself into making the world. She came up against primordial matter, which was disgusting, probably because it didn’t use a deodorant. And then, I think, she accidentally created the Demi -- how do you say it?”

“You mean the Demiurge?”

Lorenza is a minor character, and seems to exist mostly to be part of the love triangle. Casaubon’s girlfriend (and later baby-mama) Lia, on the other hand, is pretty much the only sane character in the book. She tries on several occasions to talk Casaubon back from the cliff, so to speak. The extended passage in chapter 63 is way too long to quote, but she gives Casaubon a brilliant lecture on how the supposed magic numbers of numerology derive naturally from the body, and from nature. 

Another tour-de-force is the section where Belbo, on a dare from Casaubon, creates a whole argument that the automobile powertrain is a metaphor for the Tree of Life. It’s impressive. And laugh-out-loud ludicrous. I mean, it makes exactly zero sense. But it makes sense within the context of the ridiculous stuff the three are coming up with. This is the strong part of the book: the way Eco taps into the real psychodynamics of conspiracy theories. 

But whatever the rhythm was, luck rewarded us, because, wanting connections, we found connections -- always, everywhere, and between everything. The world exploded into a whirling network of kinships, where everything pointed to everything else, everything explained everything else. . . .

One of the things that they start doing is finding things that have the initials “R. C.” - for Rosicrucians. For instance, Raymond Chandler and Rick of Casablanca. Hey, that reminds me of an R.E.M. song: 

[insert]

 Lenny Bruce is NOT afraid....

That this was unhealthy was something they knew, but refused to admit. 

When we traded the results of our fantasies, it seemed to us -- and rightly -- that we had proceeded by unwarranted associations, by shortcuts so extraordinary that, if anyone had accused us of really believing them, we would have been ashamed. We consoled ourselves with the realization -- unspoken, now, respecting the etiquette of irony -- that we were parodying the logic of our Diabolicals. But during the long intervals in which each of us collected evidence to produce at the plenary meetings, and with the clear conscience of those who accumulate material for a medley of burlesques, our brains grew accustomed to connecting, connecting, connecting everything with everything else, until we did it automatically, out of habit. I believe that you can reach the point where there is no longer any difference between developing the habit of pretending to believe and developing the habit of believing. 

This has a way of happening with any ideology, whether that of Communism or Objectivism. The line between parody and true faith is beyond blurry. 

But all of us were losing that intellectual light that allows you always to tell the similar from the identical, the metaphorical from the real.

And that quote in particular struck me as descriptive of Evangelical theology, which has been so divorced from reality that it can no longer make those distinctions, particularly in its own scripture. 

Once the three bring the Jesuits into things, they have an issue: the Jesuits appear to have been the Templar’s biggest enemies. In coming up with a possible explanation, Casaubon stumbles upon a really interesting idea:

The Jesuits knew that if you want to confound your enemies, the best technique is to create clandestine sects, wait for dangerous enthusiasms to precipitate, then arrest them all. In other words, if you fear a plot, organize one yourself; that way, all those who join it come under your control.

The problem for the three is that they actually have managed to do this -- people are believing their hogwash. Lia finally tells Casaubon off, and she is right. 

Your plan isn’t poetic, it’s grotesque. People don’t get the idea of going back to burn Troy just because they read Homer. With Homer, the burning of Troy became something that it never was and never will be, and yet the Iliad endures, full of meaning, because it’s all clear, limpid. Your Rosicrucian manifestoes are neither clear nor limid; they’re mud, hot air, and promises. This is why so many people have tried to make them come true, each finding in them what he wants to find. In Homer, there’s no secret, but your plan is full of secrets, full of contradictions. For that reason you could find thousands of insecure people ready to identify with it. Throw the whole thing out. Homer wasn’t faking, but you three have been faking. Beware of faking: people will believe you. People believe those who sell lotions that make lost hair grow back. They sense instinctively that the salesman is putting together truths that don’t go together, that he’s not being logical, that he’s not speaking in good faith. But they’ve been told that God is mysterious, unfathomable, so to them incoherence is the closest thing to God. The farfetched is the closest thing to a miracle. You’ve invented hair oil. I don’t like it. It’s a nasty joke. 

It’s a nasty joke with consequences. In real life, this happens too. I am thinking particularly of “Pizzagate,” which came damn close to getting innocent people killed. Or the whole Trump presidency, built on racist and xenophobic conspiracy theories, which have gotten a whole lot of brown-skinned people killed. Think about just the last couple of weeks, with the claim that Covid-19 was somehow a Chinese/Democrat conspiracy to remove Trump from office. That would require the entire rest of the world lying, which is ludicrous. But once you already live in the psychological place where incoherence is proof of truth, that’s where you end up. This is one reason why I consider most of the clergy in this country guilty of gross spiritual malpractice, for feeding conspiratorial thinking, painting science as the enemy, and turning people who are different from them into enemies out to get them. It isn’t funny. And the consequences have been dire. 

Anyway, that’s my take on this book. When it is good, it is great. But it is way too long with too many rabbit trails - you really do need an index. I am glad I stuck with it, though. 

***

Umberto Eco and Fascism:

One of the best long articles I have ever read is Eco’s 1995 article for the New York Review of Books, “Ur-Fascism.” Because Fascism takes different forms around the world, it helpful to see what the Fascism of Hitler and Pinochet, Viktor Orban and Jair Bolsanaro, have in common. It is also a prescient predictor of the rise of Trump. And yes, Trump is a textbook Ur-Fascist. 

It was this article that, when I read it several years back, convinced me that white Evangelicalism in America is proto-Fascist in a number of disturbing ways, starting with their idolatry of a mythical past and their need to believe in dire enemies foreign and domestic. And also their obsession with doctrinal and sexual “purity.” The single greatest reason that Trump appealed so deeply to white Evangelicals is that he spoke the Ur-Fascist language that they already built into their doctrine and psyches. (If you don’t think that Trump uniquely appeals to them, look at the way they lined up to defend him during the impeachment proceedings - they could have had Pence, supposedly their sort of candidate: genuinely devout, conservative, and so on. But what Trump has that Pence will never have, is the ability to speak Ur-Fascism.) 

 In a sense, Foucault’s Pendulum is an extended riff on Fascism and its psychological roots.