Foucault's Pendulum
Jul. 26th, 2007 04:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackEvery few years I reread this and find something new in myself reflected in it.
It's not technically science fiction, but I highly recommend it to anyone who particularly likes Neal Stephenson -- in some respects it feels like Stephenson but more intellectual. The characters feel a lot like me, but world-wearier, and historians rather than mathematicians. Working in a small Milan publishing house, and deal with various mystic dabblers without believing.
I also recommend it to anyone who thought "Da Vinci Code" was stupid. At one point they use a computer to generate a conspiracy theory from random nonsensical sentence fragments, and come up with a plot closely approximating the Holy Blood, Holy Grail theory of Jesus' marriage and descendants, which they nearly dismiss as a ridiculous failure until one points out it was already published. I've said before of Da Vinci Code that it takes a lot to produce a book so ridiculous it's parodied before it's written.
When I was reading Jesuits in Spaaaaace what struck me is Emelio's balance. He *wants* to believe, but *doesn't*. In that case in God. And I felt similar.
But here, something also similar happens. The protagonists are fascinated by the mystical goings on around them, and the characters who indulge in it. But naturally too cynical to believe any of it.
So they try to find a middle ground, playing a game of pretending to believe. Of course, this goes disasterously wrong.
In fact, they're nearly the reverse of Aglie. When you first meet him, Aglie is almost what they want to be; enshrouded in mysticism, but apart from it, respected by mystics, and knowledgeable about it, and playing at being the Comte-de-Saint-Germain, but not mystical himself.
But then he is obsessed with the plot, the same as they are, but they all see the light before they end, whereas, though he survives and they don't, you feel he's given in.
It's not technically science fiction, but I highly recommend it to anyone who particularly likes Neal Stephenson -- in some respects it feels like Stephenson but more intellectual. The characters feel a lot like me, but world-wearier, and historians rather than mathematicians. Working in a small Milan publishing house, and deal with various mystic dabblers without believing.
I also recommend it to anyone who thought "Da Vinci Code" was stupid. At one point they use a computer to generate a conspiracy theory from random nonsensical sentence fragments, and come up with a plot closely approximating the Holy Blood, Holy Grail theory of Jesus' marriage and descendants, which they nearly dismiss as a ridiculous failure until one points out it was already published. I've said before of Da Vinci Code that it takes a lot to produce a book so ridiculous it's parodied before it's written.
When I was reading Jesuits in Spaaaaace what struck me is Emelio's balance. He *wants* to believe, but *doesn't*. In that case in God. And I felt similar.
But here, something also similar happens. The protagonists are fascinated by the mystical goings on around them, and the characters who indulge in it. But naturally too cynical to believe any of it.
So they try to find a middle ground, playing a game of pretending to believe. Of course, this goes disasterously wrong.
In fact, they're nearly the reverse of Aglie. When you first meet him, Aglie is almost what they want to be; enshrouded in mysticism, but apart from it, respected by mystics, and knowledgeable about it, and playing at being the Comte-de-Saint-Germain, but not mystical himself.
But then he is obsessed with the plot, the same as they are, but they all see the light before they end, whereas, though he survives and they don't, you feel he's given in.