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{{Infobox book
''Foucault's Pendulum'' is a 1988 novel by [[Umberto Eco]], and a notable work of [[Ancient Conspiracy|conspiracy literature]].▼
| title = Foucault's Pendulum
| original title = Il pendolo di Foucault
| image =
| caption =
| author = Umberto Eco
| central theme = the deconstruction of the [[Conspiracy Theorist]].
| elevator pitch = Three very bored friends create an [[Ancient Conspiracy]] for shit and giggles, then things go to hell when some external people begin to take their bogus theories way too seriously.
| genre = Secret history
| publication date = 1988
| source page exists =
| wiki URL =
| wiki name =
}}
▲'''''Foucault's Pendulum''''' is a 1988 novel by [[Umberto Eco]], and a notable work of [[Ancient Conspiracy|conspiracy literature]].
While ''[[The Da Vinci Code]]'' plays the conspiracy theory view of history completely straight, and ''[[Illuminatus]]!'' subverts it wildly, this novel is an [[Viewers Are Geniuses|elaborate]] and [[Take That|sometimes savage]] [[Deconstruction]].
* Casaubon: Protagonist and narrator. Also an intellectual dilettante and expert on [[The Knights Templar]].
* Belbo: Editor who is haunted by failure and frustrated desires.
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Over Lia's objections, Casaubon and his partners become more and more invested in the Plan they have created, but then unwisely start hinting to Agliè that they possess knowledge he does not. Agliè, Ardenti, and other members of the European occult community decide that they are the ones who are meant to be in control of history, and start chasing after the (completely falsified) secret of the Plan.
{{tropelist}}
* [[Ancient Conspiracy]] / [[Conspiracy Kitchen Sink]] : Played with [[Serial Escalation]]
* [[Ambiguously Jewish]]: Diotallevi
* [[Arc Number]]: 120.
* [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking]]: A really peculiar inversion with the garrulous publisher's habit of starting out hyperbolic in his praise of things and then (apparently without realizing it) taking an abrupt downturn. E.g. "It is a palace! A dwelling fit for kings! I'll put it even more strongly: It's a genuine Piemontese villa!"
** An example done straight is in when Casaubon mentiones the Borborites, who rip out fetuses from women's bodies, crush them in mortars and eat them with honey and pepper. Diotellavi says: "How revolting, honey and pepper!"
* [[Author Avatar]]: A lot of Belbo's stories about his wartime childhood are directly taken from Eco's biography. Especially the trumpet episode.
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* [[Femme Fatale]]: Lorenza, with a few twists.
* [[Genius Bonus]] / [[Shown Their Work]] : After all, it is an [[Umberto Eco]] novel...
* [[Gone Horribly Wrong]] : Belbo, Casaubon and Diotallevi create "The Plan", an elaborate and ridiculously [[Trope Overdosed]] [[Conspiracy Theory]] as nothing more than a fun project for killing some free time and [[Stealth Parody|for mocking]] all the [[Conspiracy Kitchen Sink]] theories and secret histories they were forced to read while editing the manuscripts of various wacko authors for publishing. Their whole prank gradually starts getting out of hand and [[Your Mind Makes It Real|sounding]] [[Paranoia Fuel|far too real]], since it's often even [[Shown Their Work|more convincing]] than all the [[Who Writes This Crap?|pulp conspiracy theories]] it was supposed to make fun of in the first place.
* [[How We Got Here]]: Casaubon's narration
* [[Kabbalah]]: The branches/spheres of the kabbalistic tree of life serve as chapter headings.
* [[Last
* [[Ley Line]]: Part of the conspiracy theory.
* [[No Name Given]]: The first names of Casaubon and Diotallevi are never revealed.
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* [[Shakespeare in Fiction]]: Or in [[Meta Fiction]], at least - Belbo's writings about The Plan include an excessively convoluted theory about Shakespearean authorship.
** Written in a narrative style with Belbo imagining himself as a reincarnation of the true original writer.
* [[Shout
* [[The Password Is Always Swordfish]]: Played with. Casaubon tries to figure out the password to Belbo's computer, which asks: "Do you know the password?" Since Belbo is his close friend, he tries numerous expressions he thinks Belbo could've used, but none of them work. Eventually, he angrily types: "No." This is the password. (There's a deeper reason for this: In order to gain knowledge, you have to admit that you don't know a specific thing.)
* [[There Are Two Kinds of People in
* [[Unreliable Narrator]]: Casaubon, by the end, doubts his own sanity, and questions how much is true of what he had seen.
* [[Victim Falls For Rapist]]: Subverted. When Amparo, as she told, noticed a guy approaching her in the night on the street, and suspected he wanted to rape her, she offered him to have sex. He ran away, because he wanted to hurt women, not sex.
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[[Category:Conspiracy Literature]]
[[Category:The Eighties]]
[[Category:
[[Category:
[[Category:Italian Literature]]
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