{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1059", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 1059, "subject": "Eco's tic", "messages": 7, "voices": 6, "first": "1998-08-25T20:21:00+00:00", "last": "1998-09-07T18:40:13+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1998-08-25T20:21:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Eco's tic", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Rostrum,\n\nRe: FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM (which incidentally ties in with PEACE by way\nof NECRONOMICON). I know what you mean in saying \"we want more\nmysteries, not answers,\" and I know you don't mean to be absolutist\nabout it--since there =are= limits: if an author keeps providing\nmysteries without =satisfying= solutions, that's no good either.\n\nBut mainly I want to argue that FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM, which I didn't\nlike very much (agreeing with you, I'm guessing), is on second glance\nrather a lot like THE NAME OF THE ROSE (which I liked better). They\nboth in their conclusions involve a destruction of the \"fiction\"\nwhich has been so carefully built up between the author and the\nreader over the course of the novel.\n\nThis amounts to a visceral \"thumbing of the nose\" or sucker punch\nfrom Eco to reader. Very po-mo.\n\nOr in a different harsh light, one might say it points to a failure\nof artistic vision--at the very least, it suggests that Eco is a one\ntrick pony: the guy can't write an ending; he loses steam and takes\nit out on the reader in his frustration.\n\nSo, IMHO, ILLUMINATUS! and HOLY BLOOD, HOLY GRAIL and THE CRYING OF\nLOT 49 (to name just three works that cover similar territory) are\nsuccessful and satisfying where FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM is not; yet these\nthree works give plenty of answers to the mysteries they pose.\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Derek Bell", "address": "dbell at maths.tcd.ie" }, "date": "1998-08-26T15:55:24+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Eco's tic", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In message <199808252038.NAA10702 at lists1.best.com>, m.driussi at genie.com writes:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But mainly I want to argue that FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM, which I didn't\nlike very much (agreeing with you, I'm guessing), is on second glance\nrather a lot like THE NAME OF THE ROSE (which I liked better). They\nboth in their conclusions involve a destruction of the \"fiction\"\nwhich has been so carefully built up between the author and the\nreader over the course of the novel." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tI think that _Foucault's Pendulum_ deals with matters of\ninterpretation and over-interpretation. At one point the narrator\nmentions that Belbo had a list of 120 quotes from various people. I\nnoticed that there were 120 short sections in the book, each with a\nquote at the start - hmmm... is Eco hinting that these are the quotes\nin Belbo's list?\n\n\tOn the other hand, it could also be read as a book about\nreason being enslaved to an obsession with power.\n\n\tDerek - not a Knight Templar, honest!" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "1998-08-26T14:29:29+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Eco's tic", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tue, 25 Aug 1998 m.driussi at genie.com wrote:\nBut mainly I want to argue that FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM, which I didn't\nlike very much (agreeing with you, I'm guessing), is on second glance\nrather a lot like THE NAME OF THE ROSE (which I liked better). They\nboth in their conclusions involve a destruction of the \"fiction\"\nwhich has been so carefully built up between the author and the\nreader over the course of the novel.\n\nThis amounts to a visceral \"thumbing of the nose\" or sucker punch\nfrom Eco to reader. Very po-mo." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yep. I think FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM is the only novel I've ever read that\ndeliberately bores the reader as a literary device. But when something\nfinally happens near the end, it hit me like a thunderclap. I'm not sure\nthe payoff was worth the rest of the book, which I made my way through\nmostly crusing on goodwill from THE NAME OF THE ROSE.\n\nTHE NAME OF THE ROSE was sort of a Book of Gold for me. I picked it up\neither in late high school or early college expecting nothing more than a\ngood mystery with a novel setting. At that time I had no interest in\n\"literature,\" disliking most books I had to read at school and prefering\nSF along the lines of Asimov and Niven. Eco's book introduced me to\npleasures I hadn't encountered in a novel before, and although I didn't\nimmediately seek out similar books, I think it had some effect on the\ndirection my aesthetic tastes went. Had I taken other paths, I doubt I\nwould have enjoyed Wolfe when I met him in SHADOW OF THE TORTURER.\n\nI think all the pomo stuff went completely over my head. I have a vague\nmemory of thinking the end was weird and not entirely satisfying, but it\nwas overwhelmed by my love for the book as a whole.\n\nI haven't actually reread NAME OF THE ROSE since then. I really should. \nI wonder if I'll be disappointed? (I know, I know, \"You found the Book of\nGold and you only read it once?!?) \n\n-Rostrum" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Peter Grimes", "address": "grimes at waste.org" }, "date": "1998-08-27T08:54:14+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Eco's tic", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tue, 25 Aug 1998 m.driussi at genie.com wrote:\nThis amounts to a visceral \"thumbing of the nose\" or sucker punch\nfrom Eco to reader. Very po-mo.\n\nOr in a different harsh light, one might say it points to a failure\nof artistic vision--at the very least, it suggests that Eco is a one\ntrick pony: the guy can't write an ending; he loses steam and takes\nit out on the reader in his frustration.\n\nSo, IMHO, ILLUMINATUS! and HOLY BLOOD, HOLY GRAIL and THE CRYING OF\nLOT 49 (to name just three works that cover similar territory) are\nsuccessful and satisfying where FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM is not; yet these\nthree works give plenty of answers to the mysteries they pose." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ugh, I just can't let this go by unremarked. Illuminatus is garbage\nwriting. There is not a single female character in the book who is not\nthere solely for the purpose of having sex with one of the male\ncharacters. This is a 1000+ page novel. Pretty pathetic.\n\nPlus, it has the opposite 'problem' of Foucault's Pendulum. Every 40-50\npages you are basically told that everything you had been told before that\npoint was wrong and you are then given another 'explanation'. While this\nis effective the first couple of times it starts to lose its effectiveness\nafter the 700th time.\n\nAND the prose is just plain poor. Wolfe is probably my favorite prose\nwriter (along with a few others) and Eco is definitely in the same league.\nThey are both interestingly in a stylistic sense. Robert Anton Wilson and\nhis co-conspirator are just not terribly good writers.\n\nI agree, Crying of Lot 49 is a great book, although I preferred Foucault's\nPendulum. Pynchon can be a bit self-indulgent in his writing and I get\ntired of his showing the reader how clever he is every few paragraphs\n(This got really annoying about 400 pages into Gravity's Rainbow, at which\npoint I just gave up).\n\nSo what if Foucault kills the conspiracy at the end? That's more or\nless the point of the book. Its about how an obsession with conspiracy\nleads someone to see them everywhere and in fact contributes to their\ncreation.\n\n\n-Dave" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "J. Schultz", "address": "jschultz at wcnet.org" }, "date": "1998-08-28T02:22:30+00:00", "subject": "re:(Urth) Eco's tic", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Apples and Oranges\nor if I may say so.... Golden Apples and Oranges\n\nIlluminatus is \"garbage\" only if you are looking for an Eco book or a Woolfe\nbook. Or if your looking for anything other than what it is.\n\nI'm a huge fan of RAW. Do I think he has the command of language that\nWoolfe has? Not on your life. RAW's purpose in his 1000 pages is to play\nwith ideas and he invites you along. The book DOES NOT continually rehash\nthings that the reader has already been told WITHOUT looking at the events\nwith a different world view.\n\nAs to your comment that all the women are present only to have sex....\nAll the main female characters are aspects of the Godess. Whose religious\nrole is one that is sexual (as the first mother-goddess religions arguably\nwere) ---This doesn't get him off the hook completely because he still is\nrefusing to deal with women as other individuals.\n\nThe story in Illuminatus is secondary, the characters are simply vehicles\nfor ideas.\nRAW has the ability to write a book that causes many readers to question\ntheir own dogmas and beliefs. RAW deals with how we cope with the confusing\nworld around us by constructing our philosophies.\n\nEco's 'trip' is the study of 'how' we attack the unknown. What we as humans\nemploy to understand the confusing world around us. There is a slight\ndifference here. The moral of Focault's P is a simple one. If we act as if\nthere is a huge and ancient conspiracy then it becomes reality. The BIG\nmystery in FP is that THERE IS NO BIG MYSTERY! However, since all those\ninvolved BELIEVE and ACT as if there is a huge conspiracy it might as well\nbe true. (If you believe there is a monster in the basement it doesn't\nmatter if there really is one or not. You will act as if there is a monster\nin the basement. You will never enter the basement. If you ever got the\ncourage to go in the basement every shadow would be that monster comming to\nget you. Any noise you heard would be the monster shuffling his feet.) FP\nsimply says that if we believe that there is a deep, dark secret that people\nwill kill for--- then, people will start killing to find out the deep, dark\nsecret-- wheter it really exists or not. To put it in RAW's terms - if\neveryone believes that paper money is really worth something, then it\nbecomes so. If everyone thinks that RED means stop. Then it does. I don't\nknow if Eco is asking us to question the government's authority over us, or\nquestion the Federal Reserve, but both writers are approaching the same\nsubject.\n\nFocault's P. and Illuminatus! are both warnings against dogma.\nFP is not satisfying because we want to know the truth. FP tells us what it\nis not. Illuminatus fabricates an ellaborate story that we know is not\ntrue, but it's an answer.\n\nOur drive to know the truth, even when applied to fiction, is so strong that\nwe even set up discussion groups to analyze and over analyze a piece of\nfiction as if it were something in the real world that could be tested with\nthe Scientific Method. : )\n(last statement is not an insult, I include myself in this group)" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "1998-09-07T00:58:54+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Eco's tic", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 04:55 PM 8/26/98 +0100, you wrote:\n\nI think that _Foucault's Pendulum_ deals with matters of\ninterpretation and over-interpretation. At one point the narrator\nmentions that Belbo had a list of 120 quotes from various people. I\nnoticed that there were 120 short sections in the book, each with a\nquote at the start - hmmm... is Eco hinting that these are the quotes\nin Belbo's list?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tThe Foucault of FP is not only the inventor of the famous pendulum, which\nswings back and forth, but also the Foucault of deconstructionism, Eco's\nenemy. Eco agrees with the decons to this extent: that the role of the\nreader is very important. But he also insists that any text creates a\nreader who can get it right, if the reader allows the text to speak to him\n(See *Six Walks Through the Fictional Woods*). Literary criticism swings\nback and forth between the supreme authority of the author and the role of\nthe reader.\n\tNow, in FP, the various post-Christian actors deconstruct their own lives\nas they deconstruct the text. The Jewish actor gets cancer, as his own body\ndeconstructs. Belbo, the post-Calvinist, winds up generating the conspiracy\nhe has invented. Thus, in this fantasy novel, the errors men make come to\nlife and kill them. Against this Eco, a devout Catholic, posits the \"public\ngnosis\" of the Christian revelation.\n\tBoth *The Name of the Rose* and FP are very concerned with modern\napproaches to texts, though there is clearly more in both. Especially in\nFP, it is the women who have common sense and are grounded in reality --\nperhaps reflecting a Catholic doctrine of Natural Law, women being more\nclose to nature because of their biology (childbearing, lunar cycles,\netc.). (I'm not arguing that this is correct, only seeking to understand Eco.)\n\tEco's point in *Name* is that the world CAN be understood, something\nBaskerville's disciple fails to learn, but that it cannot be COMPLETELY\nunderstood until we come to the eschaton -- which is why there is something\nright about Burgos's keeping a book of joy reserved until the end of\nhistory. Well, one could discuss both Eco books at length, but:\n\tLike to Wolfe: Jorge Luis Borges as an important character as the\nlibrarian in *Name* and in *Shadow of the Torturer.* Borges is much like\nEco, and in *Name* is not quite as evil as a superficial reading of the\nbook might lead the reader to think. \n\nNutria (James B. Jordan)" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Derek Bell", "address": "dbell at maths.tcd.ie" }, "date": "1998-09-07T18:40:13+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Eco's tic", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tNote, this message contains spoilers for _Foucault's Pendulum_!\nAlso, I'm not claiming to have a definitive argument or interpretation\nof _FP_ or even just a consistent one, I'm just speculating out loud.\n\nIn message <199809070603.XAA00263 at lists1.best.com>, Jim Jordan writes:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The Foucault of FP is not only the inventor of the famous\npendulum, which swings back and forth, but also the Foucault of\ndeconstructionism, Eco's enemy." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tYep - Michel Foucault, IIRC. I know a little of Foucault's\nwork: he was interested in how power produced the subject and I think\nhe tried to write a genealogy of power, similar to Nietzsche's\ngenealogy of morals.\n\n\tThis also brings up the subject of how power is\ndealt with in the novel - Causabon spends ages trying to figure out\nthe password to Belbo's computer, which asks him \"Do you know the\npassword?\" (The password is \"No\".) Similarly, Aglie pretends to have\npowers of a supernatural nature (well, that's my interpretation) and\nuses this as a hook to lead the authors down the garden path, so to\nspeak and lead them into a trap. (Framing them for the bomb on the train.)\n\n\tI think Eco's taking on several postmodernists at once -\nDiotavelli seems like a parody of Derrida. I've heard several comments\non how cabalistic Derrida's work is and Derrida is from a family of\nassimilated Jews. (I can't remember if Diotavelli is actually of a\nsimilar background to Derrida, but there were comments from the other\ncharacters on Diotavelli's obsessive interest in Jewish life - he\nseemed to live vicariously by watching the lives of Jewish men." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Eco agrees with the decons to this extent: that the role of the\nreader is very important. But he also insists that any text creates a\nreader who can get it right, if the reader allows the text to speak to him\n(See *Six Walks Through the Fictional Woods*). Literary criticism swings\nback and forth between the supreme authority of the author and the role of\nthe reader." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tEco doesn't believe in a \"Death of the Author\", he believes in\na two-way relationship, right?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Now, in FP, the various post-Christian actors deconstruct\ntheir own lives as they deconstruct the text. The Jewish actor gets\ncancer, as his own body deconstructs. Belbo, the post-Calvinist,\nwinds up generating the conspiracy he has invented. Thus, in this\nfantasy novel, the errors men make come to life and kill\nthem." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tThis notion of the power of words being cabable of altering\nnature itself seems quite cabalistic! (I know it works on a\npsychological level, the characters either interpreting what befalls\nthem as a result of their \"Plot\" or they start seeing the agents of\nthe \"Plot\" working against them.)\n\n\tAnother Caballistic reference - Belbo named his computer\n\"Abulafia\", after Abraham Abulafia, a 12th century Jewish philosopher\nand Calallist.\n\n\tDerek" } ] } ] }