Foulcalt's Pendulum - Umberto Eco

[brownzeroed]

Continuing the 'book club".
Jeff's last post (Signs of the Times) just reminded me of my absolute favorite piece of fiction. GREAT BOOK! Definitely up the alley of the RI inclined. And actually to gauge from Jeff's overall thesis, Umberto and Jeff could actually be the same person without either of them knowing it. If your a dualist, one could argue that if a Canadian Novelist and an Italian Philosopher ever fused together there would never be any need for discourse, in the foreseeable future. To say the least, the room would be clean and women would be around.

Long Wiki script here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault's_Pendulum

The reason I'm bring this up is because I'm looking for books to read along the same lines. Any suggestions?

Anyway, off to a BBQ. Happy Fourth.

[monster]

I just finished Foucault's Pendulum last week... I passed it along to my brother. It definitely reminded me of rigorous intuition.

I can see Jeff as Comte St. Germain, lol.

It really is a brilliant book. It's mostly just a wild, intellectual romp through the occult. I couldn't put it down.

[H_C_E]

"Gravity's Rainbow" - Pynchon.

"Illuminatus" - Shea and Wilson

And while seemingly unrelated, I feel compelled to suggest

"Finnegan's Wake" - Joyce


HCE

[Jeff]

Enjoyed seeing your pendulum gif in general discussion, brownzeroed.

BTW, a couple of years ago I referenced the book in a post discussing the hoax "Voice of the White House":

link

I wouldn't write this today. I don't think VOTWH is worth the attention, not even as a hoax. I still like this, though: "Open questions aren't as satisfying as answers, because they don't provide the sense of being initiated into a secret. But that's more like real life, isn't it? And sometimes they leave us closer to the truth."

Foucault's Pendulum was an important book for me. Also admire the light touch of Travels in Hyperreality.

[sunny]

Foucault's Pendulum was an important book for me.

Me too. Time to re-read.

[brownzeroed]

HCE:

And while seemingly unrelated, I feel compelled to suggest

"Finnegan's Wake" - Joyce

Absolutely related. I try to reread this book every few years. Comes out different every time. IMHO, Joyce is really about as far as we've gotten with fiction for the past hundred years. Joyce was modern fiction. A master of all of the quantifiable dimensions. And post-modernism is still just a reaction to - and further revelation of - his vision. It shouldn't even be considered a movement. It should be seen as Joyce-confounded writer's block.

How's that for a religion!
Sorry, the whiskey is definitely talking. But I mean it. I'll take him over St. Peter.

[brownzeroed]

From Jeff:

"Open questions aren't as satisfying as answers, because they don't provide the sense of being initiated into a secret. But that's more like real life, isn't it? And sometimes they leave us closer to the truth."

That's the danger in a nutshell. But a tough sell.

I should know (learn). I make a living 8 months out of the year helping people avoid real life. The first thing anyone is taught in film school is that the moment the lights go down and the projector springs to life, the audience will always regress itself to the emotional and intellectual capacity of a fourteen year old and we're encouraged to consider this whenever making a film. In my experience, this has turned out to be true more often than not. Every single "documentary" about 9/11 follows this same axiom. Even the ones I agree with. They are all intellectually incomplete and emotionally misleading.

No one is immune to it. The father of the neo-cons claims Perry Mason as one of his greatest influences, for Christ's sake.

Sorry, I'm digressing but it's really worrisome.

[brownzeroed]

Silvio Berlusconi appears in a TV commercial directed by Orson Welles

[H_C_E]

"The first thing anyone is taught in film school is that the moment the lights go down and the projector springs to life, the audience will always regress itself to the emotional and intellectual capacity of a fourteen year old"

I read this and who immediately came to mind? Ta-da! Orson Welles. I understand what you're saying Jeff, and the thing that changed this for me was Orson Welles and Akira Kurosawa. "Citizen Kane" and "F for Fake" completely changed the way I watch and understand films. This set the stage for me to be able to really receive Kurosawa, Cocteau and all of the other great film-makes who followed after, once that door was opened.

Thanks to Brownzeroed for mentioning The Great Round One first, I was pleasantly "Ah-ha'd" upon scrolling down to see him mention Welles.

HCE

[Joe Hillshoist]

You certainly read some good books BZ.

I thought of FP when I saw that pendulum gif btw.

Its not quite on the same level, but there is a great book called Death of a River Guide, by Richard Flannagan. At the moment I am reading (slowly, one page a week or thereabouts) his latest one The Unknown Terrorist.

Its dedicated to formr Guantanamo detainee David Hicks, so thats a start.

[Seamus OBlimey]

The first thing anyone is taught in film school is that the moment the lights go down and the projector springs to life, the audience will always regress itself to the emotional and intellectual capacity of a fourteen year old and we're encouraged to consider this whenever making a film.

Appeal to the lowest common denominator?

[brownzeroed]

Seamus:

Appeal to the lowest common denominator?

Too often. Especially when commerce is involved. But film can also be an excellent medium for exploring abstract intellectual concepts and a way of conveying equally abstract psychological or spiritual realities. There are certain ways of communicating an idea on film that would be next to impossible with the written word. A good example would be Godard's on-going (albeit somewhat nauseating) thesis about relativity or Andrei Tarkovsky's sermons on the "soul". In this respect, they blow Kierkegaard out of the water.

It can be heavy duty stuff. But if someone's looking for the "Ground Truth", she's looking for love in all the wrong places...Bad magic.

Here's a short from AnimalCharm
Mark Roth knows semiotics.

[brownzeroed]

Semiotics for Beginners

Why bother choosing sides if you don't the rules. Too many pre-fab arguments around here.

NOTHING

[Et in Arcadia ego]

I've read Foucault's Pendulum at least 3 times now; highly enjoyable read. Wouldn't mind picking it again, but I need to finish churning through Gravity's Rainbow first.

Discipline, discipline...

[brownzeroed]

I've read Foucault's Pendulum at least 3 times now; highly enjoyable read. Wouldn't mind picking it again, but I need to finish churning through Gravity's Rainbow first.

Here's where I'll look bad. I have to admit, I can never get through Thomas Pynchon's books. I always get bored .

I respect him as a writer and know why folks like him, but it just doesn't do anything for me. Wish it did.
But I do like Nabokov, Stanislaw Lem and Borges. If you put 'em together, it kind of comes out like Pynchon, right? Maybe, I only like ugly writers.

Look at these fish-eyed fools...


(B., L., N.)

Sure, Pynchon looks like he builds dams in his free time,

but he'll do fine w/ his hair...