Foucault's Pendulum: Difference between revisions

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{{work}}
{{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]].
 
== The main characters are: ==
* 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}}
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=== This book contains examples of the following tropes : ===
 
* [[Ancient Conspiracy]] / [[Conspiracy Kitchen Sink]] : Played with [[Serial Escalation]]
* [[Ambiguously Jewish]]: Diotallevi
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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 -Out]]: Hundreds if not thousands of them. Belbo's files are especially crammed: one reads like a crazy [[Troperiffic]] pastiche in which each paragraph (maybe each line) references a different nineteenth century adventure, mystery or conspiracy story. Did we say [[Genius Bonus]]?
* [[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 Thethe World]]: When Casaubon and Belbo meet for the first time, Belbo talks about how there are four kinds of people in the world: "cretins, fools, morons, and lunatics."
* [[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:FoucaultsFoucault's Pendulum]]
[[Category:Literature of the 1980s]]
[[Category:Italian Literature]]