Opinions on pic related/rec similar books.

Does anyone know what books i need to read before going for this?

>>8856203
I didn't read any of the shit the Eco quotes from and I still had a good time. Yeah, I missed references. You'd need like three fucking Ph.D.s to cover everything, so I didn't even try.

>>8855798

> Opinions on pic related

Quite good, though I think The Name of the Rose is Eco's masterpiece. The middle of FP can be somewhat tedious but it's all for a good cause and the last 100 pages pack a wallop. The book is definitely enhanced with some staring knowledge of conspiracy theories like the Templars and Rosicrucians. Just don't get too bogged down in the details the first time and extract as much as you can with what you know. On subsequent read-throughs try to mine more with the historical detail and allusions.

> Similar books

The Crying of Lot 49 and portions of Gravity's Rainbow are quite similar.

>>8856203
You don't have to get the references to understand Eco's work. I think a basic understanding of world history (and I mean really basic) is all you really need.

>>8855798
Ive read 3-4 of his books and this was my favorite.

I actually used to work at a vanity publisher and they really did send us ridiculous tracts of similar content. I thought the parts on esoteric knowledge were equally well done as the more personal parts on the protagonist and his professional and relationship development.

Really really good. Of all of Eco's books I've read, it's still probably my least favorite (I just found Baudolino and The Name of the Rose to be more fun), but imo it's probably his masterpiece. Just accept the fact that you will not get even half of the references and puns he's making (they're pretty funny tho). It's definitely a book for academics or people who've been in college or academia and know what Eco's driving at. The ending was really good too.

Overall it's really good but slower and a little less fun than Eco's other works. But definitely worth a read.

>>8856203
Haven't read Foucalt's Pendulum yet, but I always read Eco with my phone out so I can look up anything that sounds interesting or that I should probably know.

I keep rereading every now and then,
Lately I started opening it at a random chapter, and every time I get regularly sucked in till the end.
I also find it funny that I've seen this book popping up /x/ reccomended books lists. I mean did the people making that list even read it?

Anyway I encourage everyone reading The Cemetery of Prague, since it's like a magnifying lens on a plausible (but fictional) protagonist of the Plan, the guy is also literally /pol/

Bloated mass of references, with central weak messages of "religion is bad, existence is meaningless lmao"

>>8857507
How is Baudolino? Thinking of picking it up soon. Really enjoyed both Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum. The strange medieval creatures sound fascinating.

>>8857658
it's FUN

>>8855798
I expected a da vinci code, and I get a mix between autistim and fun that make me want more.

It is great

>>8855798
I got about 2/3rds of the way through and dropped it. I really liked the core of the book and the writing, but the romance was incredibly cringey, and felt like it took an unnessecarily large role.

The Illuminatus Trilogy is similar but not as intelligent.

The payoff in the last fifth or so was fantastic, the way that all the different things included in the book up to that point (including bits of Casaubon's life that seemed like digressions upon first reading) were justified by resonating with what was going on.
It also feels ridiculously relevant now, with the amount of conspiracy theories increasing exponentially with the information age and practically becoming people's gods.

>>8857656

...maybe, MAYBE, there are hints of nihilism at the very, very end. I would not say it's a nihilistic book, though. The whole last entry from Belbo's diary is actually him having a semi-religious experience that reveals a purpose in life.

I don't know where the "religion is bad" message is coming from. The conspirators scapegoat some religious groups but that can hardly be taken as some condemnation of religion. It's actually more poking fun of people who use religion as a means of creating conspiracy.

>>8855798
Foucault's ... seems to me, when I read it for the first time, like a kind of ''joke'' from Eco for those author's who made novels and write some history papers that's like the ''untold history'' or things like that.
It's funny because Dan Brown,years later,make sucess with de Da Vinci Code and crap like that.

>>8859739
>It's funny because Dan Brown,years later,make sucess with de Da Vinci Code and crap like that.

It's even funnier, in that Dan Brown took stuff from FP, and mucked it up - for example, near the end of chapter 20, he (or rather Langdon) says that "The Romans actually referred to the study of anagrams as ars magna—"the great art", but that's a wordplay that relies on the English form "anagrams", of which "ars magna" is an anagram, and which the Romans simply could not have known. Eco uses the same bit of wordplay in chapter 105, but of course doesn't make the same illiterate error.