Review: Eco's Echoes: Ironizing the (Post) Modern

Author(s): Linda Hutcheon

Reviewed work(s):
Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco ; William Weaver
Source: Diacritics, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Spring, 1992), pp. 2-16
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/465234
Accessed: 31/10/2008 13:58

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=jhup.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the
scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that
promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The Johns Hopkins University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Diacritics.

http://www.jstor.org
 ECO'S ECHOES:
IRONIZING THE
(POST)MODERN
LINDAHUTCHEON

Umberto Eco. FOUCAULT'SPENDULUM. Trans.WilliamWeaver.New

York:HarcourtBrace Jovanovich,1989.

When one theoristpublishesa book-a novel, at that-which contains in its

title the name of anothertheorist,the academicreaderis likely to be unable
to resist looking for "in-group"ironies. When that novelist-theorist is
UmbertoEco, who just happensto be someone who rarelymentionsMichel
Foucaultby name,puzzlementmayjostle for position with irony,even if we
realize thatJean BernardLeon Foucaultwas a nineteenth-centuryphysicist
whose famous pendulumhangs in the Conservatoiredes Arts et Metiers in
Paris. Nevertheless,I want to arguethatit is almost impossible not to think
of Michel Foucaultwhen readingthis novel. But as the puzzlement dissi-
pates, the ironies remain.
Eco has made it his specialty to write learnednovels, bringingtogether
his two worlds as creative writer and critical theorist, media darling and
dissertationfodder. He has also made it difficult for reviewersand critics to
engage with those novels, despite the tantalizing lures, because he self-
reflexively ironizes the position not only of authorbut also of reader,thus
reminding critical commentatorsof their secondary, even parasitic role.
Giventhat,whatdo we do witha novel likeFoucault'sPendulumthatironizes
all attempts at either deconstructionor constructionof meaning? What
happenswhen pages of contradictionsget welded into a totalized vision of
order,when life imitatesart, when the narrativestructure,while seemingly
loose and baggy, is in fact obsessively orderedaroundthe form of the occult
Tree of the Sefirot? And what has any of this to do with Michel Foucault?
Despite its overttrappingsandpublicityblurbs,Foucault's Pendulumis
not really an adventurestory,a thriller,or a detectivestory,like TheName of
the Rose, Eco's first novel. Foucault's Pendulumends, ratherthanbegins,
with the requisitedeaths. Thereis a plot-or rather,a plethoraof plots-all
broughttogetherintosomethingcalled the"Plan."Insteadof thecausalitywe
have been taughtto expect in traditionalplottingof populargenres,this Plan
is governed by what Eco elsewhere calls "a sort of spiral-like logic of
mutuallysympatheticelements. If the universe is a networkof similitudes
and cosmic sympathies, then there are no privileged causal chains" [The
Limits19]. And thisnovelisticuniverseis just sucha network,as we shallsee.
Michael Holquisthas arguedin "Whodunitand OtherQuestions"[135]
thatthe detectivestoryis to postmodernismwhatmythanddepthpsychology
were to moderism. In Eco's perverseversionof the postmodern,however,
the detective as the metaphorof orderand logic is ironized by the decisive

2 diacritics 22.1: 2-16

presenceof chance or accident(in TheName of theRose) or by hyperbolicexpansionand
inversion (in Foucault's Pendulum). In this latternovel, the "belief thatthe mind, given
enough time, can understandeverything"[Holquist141] is takento an overstated,ironic
extreme: it is the portraitof the totalizing mind imploding. Eco's ultra-contrivedplot
aboutplots operatesmuchlikePynchon's paranoiain Gravity'sRainbow.But it is not the
"scientificallychartedandorganizedfamiliarityof the totalizedworld"[Spanos 155] that
gets ironicallysubvertedhere;ratherit is the flip side of positivism-hermetic thought.
Its self-confirming,circularmode of includingcontradictoryelementsis at the same time
put in motion and called into question. For the mystic adept,every word becomes a sign
of something else, the truthof what is not said. Thereforeone must learn to read with
suspicion,lest somethingbe missed. Irony,of course, is also a sign of somethingelse-
the not said-and to be sensitive to ironyis to readwith suspicion. Foucault's Pendulum
shows what happensto hermeticthoughtwhen it confrontsthe irony that is structurally
its twin.
In 1986 Eco gave a course on hermetic semiosis at the University of Bologna's
Istitutodi Discipline della Comunicazione,in which he studiedthe interpretivepractice
of seeing boththe worldandtexts in termsof relationsof sympathyandresemblance. His
time framerangedfromprehistorictimes to the present.Now, perhaps,we can begin to
see what all of this has to do with Michel Foucault. In The Orderof Things (Les mots et
les choses), Foucault argued that this kind of thought was historically limited, a
Renaissanceparadigmwhich gave way to a modem, scientific one. The epistemological
space up to the end of the sixteenthcenturywas one Foucaultsaw as governedby a rich
"semanticweb of resemblance"[17]. In his courseEco clearly wantedto challenge this
temporalperiodization,to argue that this kind of thoughtnever really disappeared,that
there was no final epistemic break. In his view the hermetic semiosis discernable in
documentsfromtheearlycenturiesof theChristianera(forexample,Corpushermeticum)
developedclandestinelyin the medievalperiod,triumphedin the humanisticrediscovery
of hermetic writings in the Renaissance and Baroque periods, and continues to exist
parallel to the quantitativescience that then developed (often crossing it, more often
opposing it) [Eco, "Introduzione"9-10]. Newton, for example, is known to have
combined moder science and cabalistic speculation. More recently he points out that
GilbertDurand,in Science de l'hommeet la tradition,linked contemporarystructuralist
andpoststructuralistthoughtwith the same logic thatacceptstheplurivocalnatureof both
interpretationand texts. We might recall, in this vein, Derrida'snotion that"[b]etween
rationalismand mysticism there is ... a certaincomplicity" [80]. In other words, the
pendulumhas continuedto swing betweentheextremesof some formof reasonand some
formof mysticism, andthis is one of manymeaningsof the titularpendulum. The others
requiremore context to be understood.
Foucault's Pendulumis narratedby a young Italianscholar,Casaubon,in the hours
following the climax of the Plan's plottingas he awaits whathe imaginesto be his death.
It is in this light-knowing the end of the story, so to speak-that he fills in the
background. He recounts how, while writing a dissertationon the medieval Knights
Templar,he had become an unofficial consultantto Jacopo Belbo and his colleague,
Diotallevi, editors for a small, serious press, when a certainright-wingColonel Ardenti
had approachedthe press aboutpublishinga problematicbook. According to its author,
this book wouldact as a call to pool knowledgeandsolve the mysteryof theTemplarplan
to conquerthe world, a plan thatinvolved a secret about some immense power source.
Such a publicationwould enable contact with others "in the know" that might lead to
picking up the threadof the plot thathadbeen lost because of a missed meeting and thus
a missing piece of the puzzle. Ardenti disappearsunder mysterious circumstances,
possibly murder,and the book remainsunpublished-but its contentslie dormantin the
minds of the editors and their consultant. Casauboncompletes his dissertationon the

diacritics / spring 1992 3

Templars,goes to Brazil, falls in love with the beautiful Amparo, attendssome Afro-
Brazilianreligious rites, and meets a singularSignor Aglie who seems to be the Comte
de Saint-Germainredivivus. It is in Brazil thatCasaubonbegins to be lulled, as he puts
it, by the notion of resemblance, by the feeling that everything might be related to
everythingelse. When he returnsto Italy,he convertsthis "metaphysics"into "mechan-
ics" with the help of Belbo and Diotallevi, who employ him to do research for their
publishinghouse's vanitypress division. Fromhis initial task-finding illustrationsfor
a science book on the historyof metals-Casaubon finds thatmagic and science go hand
in hand;soon he feels he has one foot in the cabalaand the otherin the laboratory.Eco's
pendulumhas begun to swing. The two pressesdecide to publisha new seriesof hermetic
texts,andSignorAglie is broughtin as aconsultantto help themdeal with thevast number
of manuscriptswrittenby what they call their"Diabolicals."
A tripto Portugaland a chance encounterwith the police inspectorin chargeof the
earlierArdenticase remindCasaubonof the theoryof the Templarplot to rule the world.
This leads to the three editors' conceiving "the Plan" out of their formalist (even
moderist) "desireto give shapeto shapelessness,to transforminto fantasizedrealitythat
fantasy that others wanted to be real" [337]. Out of data and desire, with the aid of a
computerprogramto randomizeinformation,they set out deliberatelyand ironically to
deploy-rather than decode-the hermetic semiosis. Feeding hermetic data into the
computer,along with connectives and neutraldata, they randomizethe orderand then
create connections:"Any fact becomes importantwhen it's connected to another. The
connection changes the perspective;it leads you to thinkthatevery detail of the world,
every voice, every word writtenor spoken has more thanits literalmeaning, thatit tells
us ofa Secret. TheRule is simple:Suspect,only suspect"[378]. The ironicplay in English
on E. M. Forster's "Connect,only connect" marks its exaggeration,not its negation.
Starting with Ardenti's notion of the Templar plot, they "narrativize"isolated data,
making connections-causal, temporal, spatial. They start with verifiable facts; the
fictionalizingis in the "orderof things,"so to speak. Soon, everythingfrom the cabala
to Bacon to Shakespeareto the Templarsto the Rosicruciansto the Masons to the Jesuits
to Hitler is linked in a plot whose climax should, by the Plan's reasoning,take place in
Paris at the Conservatoiredes Arts et Metiers (where hangs Foucault's pendulum,the
laboratoryproofof theearth'sdiurnalrotation).Nothingtheydiscuss orconsiderremains
innocent;all is interconnectedonce thishermeticthinkingis set in motion. In tandemwith
thismale creationof artifice,Casaubon'schild is gestatingin thewombof his partner,Lia,
who is endowed with the "wisdom of life and birth"[365]. The pendulumswings.
Parallel to this narrativeis the revelationby Casaubonof the contents of Belbo's
computerfiles. Havingdecidedhe was one of life's spectators,notactors,andthushaving
chosen to be an editor,not a writer,Belbo neverthelessuses his new computerto record
storiesof his childhoodin the wartimeItaliancountryside,to workout his feelings for the
beautiful Lorenza, and to write/create. But what he creates is a parodyof Eco's own
radicalintertextualplay in the novel itself, as we shall see.
The threePlannershave to keep remindingthemselves thatthe idea is to create, not
discover, the Templars' secret and that their Plan is a fake [387; 391]: "We consoled
ourselveswiththerealization-unspoken, now, respectingtheetiquetteof irony-that we
were parodyingthe logic of our Diabolicals"[467]. But the problemis thattheir"brains
grew accustomedto connecting,connecting,connectingeverythingwitheverythingelse,
until [they] did it automatically,out of habit";graduallythey lose the ability to tell the
similarfrom the identical,the metaphoricfrom the real [467; 468]. They come to decide
thattheir"storywas plausible,rational,becauseit was backedby facts, it was true"[493].
Unfortunately,othersdecide likewise: Aglie believes themand,when theywill notreveal
the Secret they claim to know, he disappears.

4
 At this point, things begin to go badly for the Planners.As Belbo works Hitler into
the Plan, Diotallevi (who wants to be Jewish) becomes sick. Convinced that he has
developed cancerbecause they have "sinnedagainst the Word"by mocking knowledge
[564], Diotallevi sees his cancer cells as inventing a Plan of their own in a diabolical
allegory of their hermeticPlan [566]. As Diotallevi lies dying, Belbo falls into the trap
of belief. Desperateto be an actorinsteadof a spectator,an authorinsteadof an editor,
he thinks of himself as a god-like creator:"Inventing,he had created the principle of
reality"[531]. Given the importancethe Plan had grantedto the Conservatoireand the
pendulumin Paris, Belbo leaves to fulfill his destiny on the day of the summersolstice.
A mysteriously interruptedcall from Belbo to Casaubon sends the latter to Belbo's
apartmentto readhis computerfiles and,fromthere,to follow himto Paris,wherehe hides
in a periscope in the Conservatoireand waits for the solstice midnight.
The TRES or the Templi Resurgentes Equites Synarchici-an invention of the
Planners,or so they thought-appear on time and almost the entire cast of charactersof
the novel is to be found among these rebornTemplars.As Casaubonsays, "if you invent
a plan and otherscarryit out, it's as if the Plan exists. At thatpoint it does exist" [619].
Belbo and the pendulumare the center of the bizarreceremony in which, as Casaubon
witnesses, they tryto wrestfromhim the Secret. Since thereis no Secret,of course, Belbo
dies-refusing "to bow to unmeaning"[623]. Early in the novel we had read one of
Belbo's computerfiles in which a slip of the finger is said to have the power to erase
memory:"Ihave no Message to reveal. But lateron-who knows?-I might"[27]. But
if he does have a message, he does not reveal it, even lateron; he dies, hangingfrom the
pendulum. Casaubonflees back to Italy, to Belbo's countryhouse, and waits. He finds
the "KeyText"there,the storyof the most gloriousmomentof Belbo's life. But one way
of interpretingwhathe learnsfromthiskey is thatthereis nothingto learn:he understands
thatthereis nothingto understand.He waits in peace, offering a self-reflexive warning
to thereader(earlierreferredto, in a parodyof Baudelaireby Eliot, as "apocryphelecteur,
monsemblable,monfrere"[200]):"Iwouldlike to writedowneverythingI thoughttoday.
But if They were to readit, They wouldonly deriveanotherdarktheoryandspendanother
eternitytryingto decipherthe secret message hiddenbehind my words. It's impossible,
They would say; he can't only have been makingfun of us. No" [641]. Then he adds:"It
makes no differencewhetherI write or not. They will look for othermeanings, even in
my silence" [641].
And so They will. So do we all: it is thejob of critics andreadersto "deriveanother
darktheory"and "decipherthe secret message hiddenbehind"the words of texts. This
is what I meantby the notion thatEco makes his works hardto writeabout. But I would
still argue that, although this is a novel about connections and resemblances that is
structured,obsessively so, on connectionsand resemblances,it is irony-the cankeror
cancer beneath overt resemblance-that makes Eco's plot different from Casaubon's
Plan. Withoutirony,Eco's novel wouldbe an exemplarof hermeticsemiosis; with irony,
it becomes simultaneouslyboth an examplarand a critique.
This is "both/and"thinkingof the first order. As the temporalpendulum swings,
medieval hermeticism and contemporarypostmodernismshare the ability to juggle
"complexityand contradiction"in what postmodernarchitectRobertVenturicalls "the
difficult unityof inclusion"[16]. Foucault's Pendulum-structuredas tightly,as rigidly
as any modernistnovel-carries structureto suchan extremethatit implodes: it ironically
turnsin on itself andmetamorphosesintoan"open"work,by Eco's own definition. Itboth
continuesand contravenesthe modernistproject. The pendulumswings, and it is irony
that provides the magnetic field to make it swing. In calling The Name of the Rose
postmodern, Eco himself once foregrounded this double-talking trope: "Irony,
metalinguisticplay, enunciationsquared. Thus, with the modern,anyone who does not
understandthe game can only reject it, but with the postmodern,it is possible not to

diacritics / spring 1992 5

understandthe game and yet to takeit seriously. Which is, afterall, the quality(the risk)
of irony"[Postscript68]. InFoucault's Pendulumit is the ironizingof the twin modernist
elements of reflexivity and intertextualitythat activates the particulargame of resem-
blances and connections.
Textualreflexivity operateson manylevels in this novel. Eachof the 120 sections of
the work begins with a citation-presumably one of the 120 that Casaubonfound in
Belbo's computerfiles andin the light of which he interprets"thewhole story"[43]. The
120 sections aredividedinto 10 chaptersof unevenlength,each labelledaccordingto one
of the partsof the mystic Treeof the Sefirotandeach explainedwithinthe text itself. The
first (Keter),for instance,is called "theCrown,the beginning,the primalvoid" [18]; the
second (Hokhmah)is strangelydescribedas the sign of wisdom in a box-strangely, that
is, untilwe realizethatthisis the sectionin whichCasaubonfindsout how to enterBelbo's
computersystem and acquire,if not wisdom, at least information.It is also the sourceof
much of the story line to follow, just as Hokhmahis said to hold "theessence of all that
will emanatefrom it" [41]. This patterningcontinues throughoutthe novel.
Eco actually printed a visual representationof the Tree of the Sefirot as the
frontispieceto the novel [see Fig 1], and not merely to help us follow the order,for that
is not particularlydifficult. It is there,I think,to help us visualize the swing, the rhythm,
for the movement of the order of the named chaptersis, not surprisingly,that of the
horizontalswing fromside to side on thediagram.It also formsan overallellipticalshape
if viewed vertically. The famouspendulumof Foucaultdoes exactly the same thing. In
naminghis novel as he did,Eco was pointingus to multiple,complexlevels of reflexivity.
The actual pendulum, hung from "the only Fixed Point in the universe, eternally
unmoving"[5], but representing,indeeddemonstrating,the workingof time [Vita-Finzi
225; Berardinelli5], is itself as inherentlyparadoxicala symbol as the place in which it
hangs. The Conservatoiredes Arts et Metiersin Paris is a post-revolutionarymuseum,
deliberatelyset up in a church (St.-Martin-des-Champs); it is a run-downmuseum of
industry and technology housed in part in a gothic priory,here used as the setting for a
climacticoccultritual.Itis anaptplace forEco's climaxforotherreasonsthanthese ironic
paradoxes:it is situatedin frontof formerTemplartowers and is historicallyconnected
to a figure importantto the Plan, Bacon, and his House of Solomon in the New Atlantis,
where all the inventionsof humankindare found collected.
Fromthe firstpages of this novel, the pendulumitself is presentedto us in language
both mystic and scientific, bothoverblownand precise, signallingin languagethe swing
between magic and reason. What we might call pendularthinking,oscillating between
opposites, has always characterizedEco's work-both creativeandtheoretical.We need
only rememberthe importanceof nonorderto order and instability to stability in his
semiotictheorizing,orthe undercuttingof reasonby chancein TheNameoftheRose. That
pendularbinariesalso end up moving more or less in circles, like Foucault'spendulum,
is not unrelatedto Eco's theoryof the self-reflexive circularityof semiotic systems in his
Theoryof Semiotics. The titularpendulum,in other words, becomes a plurivalentsign
whose allegoricalmeaningsproliferatein thetextto forma complex setof reflexivemises-
en-abyme. But at the climax of the novel, as Belbo hangsfromthependulum,something
seems to change. While the pendulumis describedin binarytermsbothas Belbo's Sinai
and as his Calvary [600], the ironic paradoxesthathave constitutedits identity seem to
resolve as it is identified with Belbo's momentof understanding.It is describedas "no
symbol, no sign, symptom,allusion, metaphor,or enigma:it was what it was. It did not
stand for anything else" [633]. Yet it is hard not to notice that this resolution into
nonparadox,nonironycomes (ironically)at the momentin whicha literalizationof the so-
called postmoderndeathof the subjectresultsin the affirmationof subjectivity,when the
so-called postmodern crisis in representationis resolved-doubly resolved, in both
literaryand scientific terms. The very next section of the novel opens with a letterfrom

6
Fig. 1. Tree of the Sefirot. From Cesare Evola, De divinis attributis,quae Sephirotab Hebraeis
nuncupantur(Venice: 1589) 102.

a scientistexplainingprecisely how a pendulumwould swing if a man were hangingfrom

it-a literalre-presentationof the scene we havejust read. And yet, what one critic calls
the charmof a pendularmind [Berardinelli4] still seems to endure,no matterwhat the
thematicand structuralresolutionthatmight seem to stop the pendulum'sswing. These
ideological ironies, these undercuttingsof contemporarytheoreticaltruisms,constitute
yet anotherlayer of reflexive mise-en-abyme.
There are still other layers, of course. The naming of characters,as well as of the
novel itself, functions ironically. As we have seen, the Foucault of the title is both the
Frenchphysicist, Jean BernardLeon Foucault (1819-68), and Michel Foucault (1926-
84), the Frenchtheoristof the "orderof things." Casaubon,the text tells us, is the name

diacritics / spring 1992 7

of both a characterin George Eliot's novel Middlemarchand a Renaissancephilologist
[63]. Eliot's "learnedprovincialclergyman"[Eliot 18] bearslittle physical resemblance
to Eco's narrator,who is no "driedbookwormtowardsfifty" [17]. But on anotherlevel,
he may not be unrelatedto the man who says, "My mind is somethinglike the ghost of
an ancient,wanderingaboutthe worldandtryingmentallyto constructit as it used to be,
in spite of ruinand confusing changes"[13]. Eliot ironizes herMr. Casaubonconsider-
ably as the novel proceeds,however. His young wife is forcedto see that"thelargevistas
andwide freshairwhich she haddreamedof findingin herhusband'smindwere replaced
by anteroomsand winding passages which seemed to lead nowhither"[145]. Like the
Planners with their computerfiles, Mr. Casaubonarrangeshis researchdocuments in
pigeonholes [14], and the aim of his work-to find the "Key to all Mythologies"-is
clearly an intertextualcommentaryon the Plan. Eliot's Mr. Casaubonwanted

to show (whatindeedhadbeenattemptedbefore,butnotwiththatthoroughness,
justice of comparison,and effectivenessof arrangementat whichMr. Casaubon
aimed) thatall the mythicalsystemsor erraticmythicalfragmentsin the world
were corruptionsof a traditionoriginally revealed. Having once masteredthe
trueposition and takenafirmfooting there,the vastfield of mythicalconstruc-
tions became intelligible, nay, luminouswith the reflected light of correspon-
dences. [17-18]

This intertextturns back reflexively and ironically upon the Plan of Eco's Casaubon.
Eliot's own explicit ironiesat herCasaubon'sexpensearea warningto thereaderof Eco's
text abouttrustinganything,even the final discovery of whatis ominously referredto as
the "Key"text. Eliot writes of the search for the "Key to all Mythologies":

Mr. Casaubon'stheoryof the elementswhichmade the seed of all traditionwas

not likelyto bruiseitself unawaresagainst discoveries:itfloated amongflexible
conjecturesno moresolid thanthose etymologieswhichseemedstrong because
of likeness in sound, until it was shown that likeness in sound made them
impossible: it was a method of interpretationwhich was not tested by the
necessity offorming anythingwhich had sharper collisions than an elaborate
notion of Gog and Magog: it was as free from interruptionas a plan for
threadingthe stars together. [351]

In explicitly sending his readersto a text thatironizes totalizingthinking,underliningits

"constructedness,"Eco points to the Plan's obvious fabrication. He also signals the
equally suspiciously "constructed"natureof all totalizingsystems of thought-includ-
ing, of course, his own.
The otherseries of culturalintertextsbehindthe name of Casaubonare as ironically
invoked as Eliot's is. The Renaissance philologist Isaac Casaubon(1559-1614) was
known for his appositebut profuseillustrativecommentarieson texts. HereI would like
to think that it is Eco himself as much as his characterwho is being ironized. But the
historical Casaubon also wrote a book which challenged the authenticityof certain
hermetictexts which were crucialto Renaissanceoccultismandalso changedthe idea of
when hermeticthoughtoriginated. With the proliferationof apt intertextualechoes like
these, Eco enacts both what he has called "hermeticdrift" and Peirce's "unlimited
semiosis". In fact, he uses each to ironizethe other. The following is his definitionof the
similarityand difference between the two terms:"Thereis a fundamentalprinciple in
Peirce's semiotics: 'A sign is somethingby knowing which we know somethingmore'
(8.332). On thecontrary,the normof Hermeticsemiosis seems to be: 'A sign is something
by knowing which we know somethingelse"' [TheLimits28]. The ironic literalization

8
and the exaggeration-that is, the not only unlimitedbutrampantsemiosis-of the Plan
provide the "somethingelse" which becomes, to the Planners' shock, the "something
more."
As in TheName of theRose, Peirce's theoriesare importantintertextsto Foucault's
Pendulum,thoughoften in ironicways. Forexample, the immediatecontactof signs and
theirreferentsthatis not partof Peirce's semiotic theoryis what the climax of the novel
is all about:the autonomyof the semiotic system (the Plan) is jeopardizedby the occult
believers' need to link signs and world. The system becomes a "true philosophy"
according to Eco's description in Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language: "A
philosophy is trueinsofaras it satisfies a need to providea coherentform to the world so
as to allow its followers to deal coherentlywith it" [11]. Here, however, thereare fatal
consequences of that urge toward coherent form. The flip side is that the Plan itself
becomes the ironic literalization of the structuralisttheory that sign systems exist
independentlyof realityand are thus autonomousof any referent. The opening parodic
wordsof theprologueof TheName of theRose-"In the beginningwas theWord"[11]-
become ironic in this context.
In this novel, as in his first, thereare so many otherreflexive recalls of Eco's own
theorizing and that of others that it is hard to know where to start. For example, the
Planners'(andEco's) holistic thinkingis relatableto Eco's notionof the encyclopediaand
how we make meaningby tracingunitsof significationthroughwonderfullyvariedand
tangledavenuesof connections. Italso suggests his descriptionof theDeleuzianrhizome:
"Everypathcan be connectedto every otherone. It has no center,no periphery,no exit,
because it is potentiallyinfinite,"for it is "thespace of conjecture"[Postscript57]. Is it
not also possible to readFoucault's Pendulumas an exampleof abductionrunamok,with
the Plannersmakingtoo much meaningby connectionsand relationsbetween signs? It
is certainly an example of what Eco has wittily called "cogito interruptus,"a mode of
thoughtcommon "bothto the insane and to the authorsof a reasoned 'illogic"' [Travels
222] that sees the world as inhabitedby symbols or symptoms.
Inan earlieressay, "DreamingtheMiddleAges,"Eco provideda succinctdescription
of a particularliteraryuse of thatperiod that he links to "so-called Tradition"or occult
philosophy. This descriptionfunctionsas perhapsthe best possible summaryof his own
laternovel. He writes of

an eternal and rather eclectic ramshacklestructure,swarming with Knights

Templars, Rosicrucians, alchemists, Masonic initiates, neo-Kabbalists . . .
mixing up Ren6 Gu6non and Conan the Barbarian. . . . Antiscientific by
definition, these Middle Ages keep going under the banner of the mystical
weddingsof the micro- with the macrocosm,and as a result they convince their
adepts that everythingis the same as anythingelse and that the whole world is
born to convey,in any of its aspects and events,the same Message. Fortunately
the message got lost. [Travels71]

This essay provides not only an example of this kind of ironically reversed thinking
("propterhoc ergo ante hoc"),but a clue to the namingof the narratorof the laternovel:
"It is well known that the Corpus hermeticumwas writtenin the first centuries of the
Christianera but the adepts of the Traditionfirmly maintain(even after the decisive
demonstrationsof Casaubon)thatit was writtenat thetimeof Moses orof Pythagorusand,
in any case, beforePlato"[71-72]. In Foucault's Pendulum,this kind of thinkingby the
adeptsof theoccult,as ironizedandliteralizedby the Planners,turnson resemblancesand
connections. As Casaubonthe narratorclaims,"Nopiece of informationis superiorto any
other. Power lies in having themall on file and then finding the connections. Thereare
always connections;you only have to wantto find them"[225]-or they will find you, as

diacritics / spring 1992 9

he learns. Indeed, Casaubon'sdescriptionof the Plan as "a great feast of analogies, a
Coney Island, a Moscow May Day, a Jubilee Year of analogies"[361] is an apt way to
describeEco's entirenovel.
The purposeof thisproliferationof relationsis not, I think,simply a big joke, despite
Casaubon'shypothesisaboutthe New Testament:"Matthew,Mark,Luke, andJohn are
abunchof practicaljokerswho meetsomewhereanddecideto havea contest. They invent
a character,agree on a few basic facts, and theneach one's free to takeit andrunwith it"
[200]. In castingdoubton the "naturalness"of the narrativeof one of the most sacredof
texts, the Bible, as well as of the infamous Plan, Eco's irony points to the un-natural,
constructednatureof all narrative,includinghis own. ThePlanis anordered,narrativized,
connected account of historical data; the fictionalizing is in the construction, in the
connections-and these are ironicallyman-made(not, significantly,woman-made).As
in manypostmodem"historiographicmetafictions"[Hutcheon5], historyandfiction are
both revealed as constructions,as fictionalizations. In both showing and ironizing the
process of constructionwithin the novel itself, Eco has producedan aesthetically self-
reflexive mise-en-abymeof his own novelistic act and,at the same time, an ideologically
de-naturalizingallegory of the structuralistinsight that languageconstructsratherthan
reflects reality.
Eco not only alludes to but makes ironic (again throughthe device of literalizing)
Foucault's exact descriptionof sixteenth-centurythought:"The heritageof Antiquity,
like natureherself, is a vast space requiringinterpretation;in bothcases thereare signs to
be discoveredand then, little by little, made to speak"[33-34] by using either divinatio
(magic, perhaps fiction) or eruditio (learning, history). Both are part of the same
hermeneutic,however. Accordingto Foucault,the esoterismof the sixteenthcenturyis
a phenomenonof the writtenword. The spoken is seen as the "femalepartof language"
[39], the sign of the passive intellect. In Eco's version the pregnantLia's common-
sensical talkto Casaubonaboutthe "mysteries"of the humanbody providesthe antidote
to the male-generatedPlan. But the irony is that it is Lia who is literally creative and
(re)productive,and not the males, even if the "male principle"of language-that is,
writing-is said to harbour"the truth"[Foucault 139]. But Eco provides yet another
ironic twist here. Given whatFoucaultcalls "a non-distinctionbetween whatis seen and
whatis read"[39], boththePlannersandtheiroccult enemies makethis writingtheirown
"truth."
The very linearformof writingis itself parodiedin thenovel as thePlannersconstruct
theirplot from datadrawnfrom the computer,which they have namedAbulafia. So the
plotting literally moves from a (Abulafia) to b (Belbo, the computer operator) to c
(Casaubon,the narrator)to d (Diotallevi, the man whose cancerousbody enacts its own
diabolical plan). Even Abulafia takes on allegorical and ironic functions. It comes to
standfor the sign of the trueSecretof worldpower: information,not telluriccurrents(as
thePlannersspeculated),is therealsourceof powertoday. An ironizedGrail,information
is what "nourishes,heals, wounds, blinds, strikesdown ..." [141].
The ironicplay on this themedoes not stop there: the computer'sbinarythinkingis
both emblematic of the pendular thought of the novel and tied in with the occult
numerologyof the Plan. And Abulafiahas a role in the ironizingof the Foucaultas well
as thependulumof the title. InTheOrderof Things,Foucaultwrote,"manis only a recent
invention,a figure not yet two centuriesold, a new wrinklein ourknowledge, and... he
will disappearagainas soon as thatknowledgehas discovereda new form"[xxiii]. In the
age of informationtechnology,manyhave wantedto see thecomputeras that"new form"
of knowledge. But, as presentedin the novel, the computercan neverreplace"man,"for
it cannotcreateknowledgebutcan only combineandrandomizeknowledge thatis given
to it-and even thatis done more effectively by a human(the press's assistant,Gudrun
[373]). It is not even used to make cross-referencedconnections:Casaubonuses index

10
cards to help him do that [225]. Belbo, the main user of the computerin the story, says
he will employ it to order,andedit the workof others,not to createor writeabouthimself.
He namesit Abulafiaafterthemanwho dedicatedhis life to thescience of thecombination
of the lettersof God's name,and one of his firstexercises on the computeris to workout
all those 720 combinations-duly printed in the text we read. Despite his stated
intentions, Belbo does use it to write about his own life and even to fictionalize by
parodying,with a kind of Joycean euphoria,the texts of others, including those of Eco
himself. He begins with: "O what a beautifulmorningat the end of November, in the
beginningwas the word,sing to me, goddess, the son of Peleus, Achilles now is the winter
of our discontent"[24].
Perhapsthe greatestFoucaldianirony in the novel's presentationof the computer,
however,is thatits limitations-its abilityto randomize,to use only whatis fed to it-turn
out to be the limits that Foucault ascribes to the mechanisms of resemblance in pre-
seventeenth-centuryhermeticthought.He writesof"theplethoricyetabsolutelypoverty-
strickencharacterof thisknowledge"[30], always workingwith the same things:"Hence
those immense columns of compilation,hence their monotony"[30]. (Some reviewers
havesaid similarthingsaboutFoucault's Pendulum.)ThoughEco, as I mentionedearlier,
rarely refers openly to Michel Foucault's work, the ironic intertextualallusions to that
work in the novel abound:"Knowledge... consisted in relatingone form of languageto
anotherformof language.... Languagecontainsits own innerprincipleof proliferation"
in the Renaissance [Foucault 40], leading to commentaries and interpretationsof
interpretations.Eco's novel literalizesandironizesat the same time manylike statements
aboutoccult thoughtbasedon a theoryof resemblance:thePlanis its literalenactmentand
the irony comes from both its overtnessof constructionand its temporaldislocation. If
Foucault were right, this mode of thought should have died out by the end of the
Renaissance. But has it?
Ironic intertextuality-or parody-is clearly one of the majormodes of reflexivity
in Foucault's Pendulum.Eco is responsiblefor manywonderfulacademicparodies,such
as his Beckettian/Joyceanparody, "My Exagmination Round his Factification for
Incaminationto Reduplicationwith Ridecolationof a Portraitof the Artistas Manzoni"
[in Almansi 125]. The changingof the title of the famousbook on Joyce from"of Work
in Progress"to the ironicsignal of"to Reduplicationwith Ridecolation"is a clue, as is the
parodic"Portraitof the Artistas Manzoni." Furthermore,in the understatedstyle of the
Times LiterarySupplementor AmericanNew Criticism,Eco reads Manzoni's novel I
promessi sposi as if it were a posthumouswork by Joyce. The ironies at the expense of
reviewing and criticism in generalare multiple-and deadly.
This samekindof parodicplay occurson almostevery page of Foucault's Pendulum,
makingthenovel intoan"intertextualcollage"-his termto describethefilm Casablanca.
Likewise his novel could share that film's label as "a palimpsest for futurestudentsof
twentieth-centuryreligiosity, a paramountlaboratoryfor semiotic researchinto textual
strategies"[Travels 197]. It is hardto read any of Eco's essays of the last decade or so
withoutseeing intertextualallusionsorreflexive mises-en-abymeof thenovel he was then
writing. Certainpassages have been fictionalizedanddropped,almostverbatim,into the
novel: the descriptionof two Afro-Brazilianrites he attended,as recountedin "Whose
Side Are the Orixa On?" [Travels 103-12], reappearsin Casaubon's narrative,just as
pages of The Sign of Three found their way into The Name of the Rose. Is it utterly
coincidentalthatEco in TheRoleoftheReaderanalyzedAlphonseAllais's Un dramebien
parisien, in which the characterRaoul goes to a ball disguised as a Templar?
Reviewers have had fun pointingto otherintertextsin the novel besides the author's
own works, making connections to Calvino and Del Giudice [Berardinelli4] as well as
to films featuringboth Sam Spade and IndianaJones. That these latterare overt in the
novel [54,435 and 275 respectively] makes this task somewhat straightforward.Other

diacritics / spring 1992 11

films mentionedby name and usuallycited ironicallyareStar Wars[54]; A Man Called
Horse [114], Gonewiththe Wind[323], Hellzapoppin[328],Rosemary'sBaby [437], and
the Pink Pantherfilms [354]-not all film classics, to be sure,but all equally fodderfor
Eco's broadechoic culturalplay. Popularcultureand high artmeet in all of Eco's work,
theoreticaland novelistic, and in all cases the allusions are not usually hidden. The
intertexualscenariosare repeated,discussed, recalled, inverted. As Casaubonand Eco
know [588], any story about a penduluminevitably suggests Poe's "The Pit and the
Pendulum,"and indeedEco tries to one-upPoe in the macabreand the terrifyinglyfatal.
Similarlyany tale aboutthe occult with referencesto the Tetragrammaton,the names of
Yahweh [31], and the aleph [41] recalls such storiesby JorgeLuis Borges as "Deathand
the Compass"and "TheAleph."
But it is thecharacterBelbo, ratherthanthe narratorCasaubon,who is thepastmaster
of intertextualironies. His computerfiles, obsessively examiningchildhoodmemories,
areappropriatelyfull of referencesto Proust'sfiction [25,64,230,371,495]. At one point
he and Diotallevi try to constructan "arsoblivionalis,"rules for forgetting,but they find
it impossible. It is easy to searchfor lost time, they decide, but impossible "to misplace
time refound"[25]. While readingthose files, Casaubonrealizes thathe is privy to the
story of Belbo's Combray[327]. Indeed,the Plan is conceived by Belbo as a way out of
this: "We'rehereto createa storyof the future,not a remembranceof thingspast"[333].
Therearealso in Belbo's computerfiles directcitationsorironicallusionsto the work
of T. S. Eliot: the opening of The WasteLand [24] and, appropriately,a reference to
"MadameSosostris,the famousclairvoyante"[411]. Conrad'sLordJimandKurtzmake
a numberof appearancesin Belbo's parodicchronicle of cowardice and lost or evaded
opportunities[70,497]. Joyce's "incomprehensiblemessage,"the Wake,is cited several
times as well [24, 416]. While each intertextualecho functions in a different way, the
cumulativereferencesto Proust,Eliot, Conrad,andJoycein Belbo's writingcreatea chain
of allusions to the specifically modernist masters. And one way of looking at the
moderist aestheticand linguistic paradigmis to see it as a combinatoryprocess within
a closed field, where what is importantis the relationsof elements with each other [see
Hugh Kenner]. From this perspective,modernismtoo reveals itself to be modelled on
hermetic semiosis. If Belbo is the modernist,does that make his collaborativereader,
Casaubon, the postmodernist? Certainly he sounds like it at times. He alludes to
Derrideanthemes in associatingHermes,the god of trickery,with "writing,which is the
artof evasion anddissimulation,a navigationthatcarriesus to the end of all boundaries"
[ 185]. At the climax of the novel, Casaubonironicallyrecalls whatRolandBartheshad
proclaimedin his famousessay announcing"TheDeathof the Author":"Theauthorhas
to die in orderfor the readerto become awareof his truth"[633]. In the end, then, Belbo
becomes an author.
One of the featuresthatmakesit difficultto decide precisely whatkindof allegorical
fun Eco is havingwith the tenetsof eithermodernismor postmodernismis the persistent,
scatter-guneffect of his irony. While irony is clearlya frequenttropeof the postmodern
today, it also characterizesmuch modernist writing. I have argued that Foucault's
Pendulumis an obsessively formalistnovel that is aboutthe implosion of formalismin
upon itself. It is also a novel that foregroundsits own ironies. Thematically,irony is
presentedas the stance of detachment,of spectatorship,as willed by Belbo and desired
by Casaubon:"I had to play this ironically... not lettingmyself become involved" [10].
Irony is also literalized in Belbo and Diotallevi's playful syllabus for the School of
ComparativeIrrelevance,with its list of subjectssuch as Adynataor Impossibilia(such
as Morse SyntaxandUrbanPlanningfor Gypsies)andOxymoronics(suchas Heraclitean
Statics and SpartanSybaritics)[75]. Thereare many verbalironies, too many to list, so
a single example will have to suffice: from the perspective of Signor Aglie, a man
hundredsof years old, historicalmaterialismbecomes an "apocalypticcult thatcame out
of the Trierregion" [182].

12
 iii:iisisii?ii;i;ii??ji'-i
iiiii-iiiiieiii:'i'l:-::i:?
i:iiri:?:i-i;iiii:i?iiiiii:?
:i.iiii:-:l:- ::::-:i:::i:i-:::::::i:-ii:i;--:i'iiiza
::ii-i:il':?:"?-'lii'iilili::iii-i:iii-
i-i:i:ii-._--ii_::i::i:i:i_-
:?-:?::::::::::::::s:-i:_:i:: -:r::i::?
-:-:::::::i::::
i:i:i:iii-i'i:jii:i
i:iii_::::_.--__i:i?i?i:i?i:i'il:jiiiiiiiiii
:'::::':':::::::
:::j:_:i
::-:-:::
::::::-
i=-?-i-i aizi-i,iiiii?s:i-: iii?E'?P.
:iiii;-:ili:i:::,--:ii
iiiiiiii-i:::-:i
'il-:??:::: :-iiiii-:-i--r;ili-i-;-i:_
:::i-::::i-:
;i:-:i:jPi:
_:g::--:li :::::-:--:?:s:l
.ii-:ii-=iiaai'iiiilia:l=ii;-ii-i- -i?i-i
i:: r;iX: ::: : :--:i
i-iiiliii:;jl
:::::;::-i:::::-:::::::::
:i:i:ic-::-:?
-::::i::::i:::::::::::::::i::::::::
::::::::::
-::---::--:--:-:-
li:iiiii,iiiii-:---::i:i-i:iii-
-:--:-
i:i:,::::i::-:--:.::ii::ii:i:ii-::::-::
-:.:;:i::i:::::::
::--::----: :ii-i--l:i::i,:-l'iiiiii,
:'::j:i::::::-:a:::::::
:::::: -iii-ilii:iiiiiiiii:':'
':::::':':
-jiiii:i:iii;ilii:i;i-i?i'iiiiii?ii
:i:
:si:X-:::
:::i:i ::::-:-:-
-:::-:-:
:`-:-;:-_:__:.-_--:-::
:_:_:-:-:--:
iii--iiii-ii(iiii
1Bli--iii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-iiii:-i
'''''''.;'i'ii;i-iai
i
i:::::::::::::iii:::::::::::::::::::::::
:::::::
:--_-:-- -_--:i-i:i--i-i-i-i
i
:::::::?:.:-:-::::::--:1:j:::
::::
::::
:::?:-:::::::-:
:::::
:::::::::::::::::::::::_::::::::::::
_:::::::::::::-:-:i
jiiii
:':-:-:--:::-:-:-::::-':::-
-:':-:-:'
::::-:::-:
:-:?: :i--iiiiiiiiiii?-
:iiiiiiiiii.il
i-::i
':::':::::::':'::'::
:I :i:a::::8.:a .ii::
aQiiiii-i:i:ii
:::i---ii:::i
:i:i:i-:-:-i:-i--:-::-i:
-:--:
?:::: iii--i-iiiii
-_j:
;:::: ::
---::: --:-:::
:::::
CLaii :-:_iiiiifiifii
::;:::-:::::::::::?::
Bi
:-:::
::-:
i:i:i::iBi-i
:::::::::::::::::,::,:i:::d':D;'j
:::::-:_:
::::-i:::-:i::
:::::
::::
::::
::::::::
::-:-
:::
_:_
:_:
- --:-ii-
-i-i_iiiii:Fi_-i.'
:i:;:-i-::i-:iiii-i:Xi;
::::-_-:_:_:-:_
::i::
-:-:?:::?
?ii:i?i:-::::::::-::
:::
i:i;:iB:i
-::'::i:::::::'-:
:::-'-'i'?--?-i'-'-':i::--:
:i;:i
i-:.----
':'":':':":;:" :':;;-:
::-:':-i:':;:::::::
::1': :-:::---:i:i:::
_:-
:::-i:::_:::::-:i;-iig.-P'----:-i;:i:i
S:i?i-i:i:--,iii::iii--ili
'i?;::i:::
-?i'i-i:::::?:in:l::::::;:;:::2::_::::- :::::i-:-:
iiii:_j,i
ii-i:iiil:::
iiiii
dii--a:i--iFiiii:iiiJii:_i:i::i--ii-
:-:'::-
-::':
::::':::::
:-::?::::- ::_
-:-- ?iiii:iii
i:iiiiii
ii-i:i?i_
;Si:iB8
:-:-:?::i;:
::::::ijiii:i:j:i:iii'ii:
F: :--?---::_:_:-:---:::::-I:_
-iiiii:ii;i:i:-i:i:iiiii-i'i-i:iii -iii :iiiii-i_i:i:ii-iii
-:: -jjiiijjiijj -::
:-:: i'i-i:i-i-i-i-ii:i:i:i?
::::
::: -i-ii-i::i::-::::?
:::1:::::
:::-
-:-_
:::
::: :::.:::::
_:_:-::::_:::::
::::::::::::::::
::::::::::::::::::::
::::::::::::::::::::::::
-i:i:i.??:iiii'i:iiii:'i-i?:i:i
iiiii:iiil:i-i :: iiii-::?
:::::::::::::::::
I?iiliii:i:?ii::-'-;i
_-i---::
ii.iii- ::::
:::
ijiiiiiii
iiii
-i-i-i._
i:i-i
-i:
-:----:-:---::-
i,iijiiiiijiiiiiji:
:--::---? :::_ -:i::
-:i:
:::::-:::c:-:i:i
::-
':'?:i-i--ii:iixi:ii:iii
i-i-iiiiiiii?
i-i,
iii--(i:i-siiiiiiii:iii
ai?i:i--a ,:::::.::
-:-:- ?:::i:l:::i:-;:
:?::':':---:-:-
-:1:':-:''::j:_
::::::;:::1
iljii:iiiii?iiiiiii
'I-'i?::ii;`i'-'i,--:-:a
:-i::--::?.::--i-
--?:-:_:::::_
:_,i,-?:?::iii:-iii'_-a:'';:
::'-:-I-:::::-':: "::?-
-i:'(::i::i:-:::'):":-:::'-'::::::: BB
iii:ii:ii.j_j'i-::iiiiliiiiii
:i:? -:i-:i.iji:-:-
:?:::?:?: "?-:-:":::1'1:
::::::::::-::::
::,:::::::-:1.:-:
:::::
:::-?:ii:iii:iiii::::
:::::::'::::-
ii:I-liii:,i;;iii'liiiii:i-i-
iil;;?ii:ii;ii-::i::i::
:::::::: ::::::':':':::::
-:i?,ii_iiii!ii:iiiiii
::::::::::
::::-
:::,::: ::l:::-iii-iii-:._:i-::-:
::::::::::_
::::::::::j:ii::: i:i
::::: :?::::::::i::.:::
::j::::,:: :.:
:_:i ::?:
-::::
::::
:iii:i-i-i:iiiii:::i'.:::'::-:"-_::::i::
:::::::-::::::j
jaj:::::-:::::.-i:'-?i:-
lii`i;`-lli-'':--?l'I:: ::::::i:j'-.-

:-:i,:i:i':i::--:-lr?-::i:::::l
:::::::::::::
iji)i,ii:iii:iii;ijiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii2::':::
'''': iiik'iniii'-i'iiiiiilEi,:sl:.:l_ili;
:-s:
 But thereare other,less playful uses for the tropeof the unspoken,as Belbo writes
on his computer:"Ah, irony of language-this gift naturehas given us to keep silent the
secretsof ourspirit!"[500-01 ]. The structuralandthematicironyof this statement,is that
this is a novel in which thereis no final Secret-or is the Secret simply kept silent? The
rugis constantlypulledout fromunderthe figurativefeet of thereader.Chapterepigraphs
thatconventionallylook forwardandguidetheinterpretationof thereaderhereoften look
backwardandcommentironicallyon the last chapter[particularlygood examples arethe
epigraphsto chapters51, 53, 57] or else become totally integratedin and illustratethe
holistic logic of the Plan.
In a novel full of imagesof inversion,of upside-downworldsandmirroredreversals,
it may notbe surprisingto findallegoriesof the hermeneuticsof irony. I mentionedat the
startthatirony demandsan attitudeof suspicionas muchas hermeticthought. Casaubon
describestwo Rosicrucianmanifestoesin termsthatalso functionto allegorize the need
for markersthattell us to interpret,not literallybut ironically: "Takenliterallythese two
textswere a pile of absurdities,riddles,contradictions.Thereforetheycould notbe saying
what they seemed to be saying.... They were a coded message.... I had to read with
mistrust"[394]. If TheName of the Rose is, by Eco's own admission, "ironclad"in its
obvious scaffolding [in Rosso 7], thenFoucault's Pendulummust be "irony-clad."
One of the effects of this pervasiveironyis thatambiguityreigns, even untothe end.
How are we to readBelbo's death? Is it murderor suicide? Is it accidentalor planned?
Even the language of his Conservatoiredeath scene, as narratedby Casaubon, is an
ambivalentone of science overlayedwith magic,as suggestedearlier.Its choice of words
plays off the names of the inventionsof the otherFoucault(afterwhom were namednot
only a pendulum,butmagneticcurrents,mirroringprisms,apolarizer,anda "knife-edge"
test-all of which figurein the languageof the scene). But MichelFoucaultisn't faraway
either. In fact this scene and the remainderof the novel can be read,once again,as ironic
literalizationof the latterFoucault'sdescriptionof the Renaissancesemiosis of resem-
blance, specifically as describedin the chapteron "TheProseof the World"in TheOrder
of Things. In this section Foucaultanalyzes the fourprincipalfigures thatdeterminethe
knowledge of resemblance. The first, spatial adjacencyor resemblanceby contact, is
called "convenientia"andis representedby the imageof an "immense,taut,andvibrating
chain" [19]. In Eco's novel, this is literalized in the pendulum'sphysical form. The
second figure of hermeticknowledge is "aemulatio,"or mirroringacross distances, a
polarizationinto imbalanced weak and strong forces: "Similitude then becomes the
combatof one form againstanother-or ratherof one and the same form separatedfrom
itself by the weight of matteror distancein space"[20]. The importanceof the "one and
the same form"for the novel is clearerin conjunctionwithFoucault'sthirdepistemologi-
cal figure, analogy. Here the principles of resemblance include reversibility and
polyvalency in a universal field of application which is drawn together through a
"privilegedpoint" saturatedwith analogies: man's body, "the fulcrumupon which all
these relationsturn"[22]. Belbo dies by being hangedfrom the pendulumby the neck.
The effect this has on the movementof thependulumis thatit startsto move fromBelbo's
body downward. His body becomes the point of suspension, "theFixed Pin, the Place
from which the vault of the world is hung"[597]. As the scientific epigraphof the next
chapterexplains,a body hangingfroma pendulumbecomes the fulcrum,thusliteralizing
in a horrificimage Foucault's"privilegedpoint." But Belbo's body, at firstjerkedabout
by the pendulum'smovement(thatis, before it becomes its fulcrum),is said to describe
a shape in the air-the shape of the Tree of the Sefirot, the shape that is visible on the
novel's frontispieceand that structuresthe entire novel.
Belbo is not the only one to die at midnighton the summersolstice: Diotallevi also
dies at thatmoment, a victim of the Plan of the cancercells attackinghis body. Earlier,
Diotallevi had warned that the computer was dangerous because, like the historical

14
Abulafia'sscience of thecombinationof thelettersof the nameof God, it riskedbecoming
a tool of magic andpower in the handsof the unscrupulous[33]. As he put it, "everyletter
is boundto a partof the body" [34]. For sinningagainstthis knowledge, he mustpay the
price in and with his own body. He too falls prey to what Foucaultdescribesas thinking
by analogy, drawingconnectionsbetweenthe body andexternalthings,and transmitting
resemblances"backinto the world from which he receives them"[23].
The fourthand final figureof resemblancedescribedin TheOrderof Thingsis called
"sympathies,"thepowerfulplay of the"Same"in a free statethroughoutthe universe:"It
is a principleof mobility:it attractswhatis heavy to the heavinessof the earth"[23]-not
unlike Jean BernardLeon Foucault's eternally moving pendulum. But the figure of
"sympathies"is dangerous: it has the power to assimilate,to make all things the same,
destroying individuality-unless counterbalancedby "antipathy"[23]. The pendular
thoughtof the entirenovel offers countless examplesof this binaryfigureat work,just as
the plot structureopposes the Planners' totalizing assimilationof everything into their
Plan, thanksto the factionalismand divisiveness of the variouscredulousoccult groups.
There is more thanone Foucault's pendulum.
Michel Foucaulthimself turnsironic when discussing the need for visible markers
or "signatures"of these variouskinds of often secretresemblancesoperatingin hermetic
thinking-not accidently,a need sharedby irony itself: "Now there is a possibility that
we might makeour way throughall this marvellousteeming abundanceof resemblances
withouteven suspectingthatit has long been preparedby the orderof the world, for our
greaterbenefit" [26]. In Eco's ironic literalizingof Foucault's irony, the Plan is not
"preparedby the orderof the world"butis preparedvery muchby the orderof man. And
resemblance,as Foucaultdescribesit, becomes the inversionof the tropeof irony:both
"requiresignatures"to be interpreted,so that"thespace inhabited"by both"becomeslike
a vast open book; it bristleswith writtensigns ... All thatremainsis to decipherthem"
[27]. The "signature"image is also used by Eco to describe the interpretivehabit of
hermeticismin a recentessay, butwith no referenceto Foucault:"Itis throughsimilitudes
that the otherwise occult parenthoodbetween things is manifestedand every sublunar
body bearsthe tracesof thatparenthoodimpressedon it as a signature"[TheLimits24].
InEco's hands,ironybecomesa kindof invertedextensionorperversevariantof hermetic
similitude, exploiting the inevitable if "slight degree of non-coincidence between the
resemblances"of which Foucault speaks [30]. This slight degree of noncoincidence
providesthe space for irony. WhatFoucaultwritesconcerningtheprocessof deciphering
similitudealso defines the intentof ironicreading: "To find a way from the visible mark
to that which is being said by it and which, withoutthat mark,would lie like unspoken
speech, dormant"[32].
Eco has been called "anauthorwho has ironyin his soul" [Vita-Finzi618]; his novel
has been dubbeda workof irreverenceand irony [Toscani618], andno doubtthis is what
caused the Pope to get upset at what he saw as a desecrationof faith. But if, as in Eco's
own words,"Lacanis interestingbecause he resumesParmenides"[Travels127], so Eco
is interesting in part because he resumes Foucault-and many others. Though I've
claimed that he rarely discusses Foucault's work in detail, Eco did once define the
postmodernas "theorientationof anyonewho has learnedthe lesson of Foucault,i.e., that
power is not something unitarythat exists outside us" [in Rosso 4]. Foucault was
describinghis own affiliationwhen he talkedaboutthe "greatwarmand tenderFreema-
sonry of useless erudition"[Power 79], but Eco seems to be partof that same cabal.
The pendulumhas come full swing again but with anotherof those "slight degrees
of non-coincidence"thatturnsresemblanceintoirony,hermeticsemiosis intopostmodem
semiosis. Foucault characterizedsixteenth-centurylanguage as that which "simulta-
neously promises and postpones"[Order41], as what offers all signs as "writtenmatter
for furtherdiscourse"[41]. But for Eco the "perennialshift and deferralof any possible

diacritics / spring 1992 15

meaning"[TheLimits27]-the unstoppableslippageof meaning["Introduzione" 14] that
constituted hermetic thought-has become the postmoderndeferral of meaning, the
intertextuallyironic deference to other texts, other commentaries,other discourses. In
Foucault's words, "Itis the traversalof this futile yet fundamentalspace that the text of
literaturetracesfrom day to day" [44]. So too does the text of theory.

WORKS CITED
Almansi, Guido, and Guido Fink. Quasi come. Milan:Bompiani, 1976.
il
Berardinelli,Alfonso. "Eco, o pensieropendolare."Linea d'ombra 31 Oct. 1988, 3-6.
Derrida,Jacques. Of Grammatology.Trans.GayatriSpivak.Baltimore:JohnsHopkins
UP, 1976.
Durand,Gilbert. Science de l'hommeet la tradition. Paris:Berg, 1979.
Eco, Umberto. Foucault's Pendulum. Trans.William Weaver. New York: Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich, 1989.
. "Introduzione:La semiosi ermeticae il 'paradigmadel velame."' L'idea deforme:
interpretazioniesoterichedi Dante. Ed. MariaPiaPozzato. Milan:Bompiani, 1989.
9-37.
. The Limits of Interpretation.Bloomington:IndianaUP, 1990.
. The Name of the Rose. Trans. William Weaver. New York: HarcourtBrace
Jovanovich, 1983.
. Postscriptto TheName of theRose. Trans.WilliamWeaver. New York:Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich, 1983.
. The Role of the Reader. Bloomington:IndianaUP, 1979.
. Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language. Bloomington:IndianaUP, 1984.
-. A Theoryof Semiotics. Bloomington:IndianaUP, 1976.
-. Travelsin Hyperreality:Essays. Trans.William Weaver. New York:Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich, 1986, 1967.
Eliot, George. Middlemarch. Boston: HoughtonMifflin, 1956.
Foucault,Michel. TheOrderof Things:AnArchaeologyof theHumanSciences. London:
Tavistock, 1970.
. Power/Knowledge:Selected Interviewsand OtherWritings,1972-1977. Trans.
Colin Graham,Leo Marshall,John Mepham,and Kate Soper. Ed. Colin Gordon.
New York:Pantheon, 1980.
Holquist,Michael. "Whodunitand OtherQuestions:MetaphysicalDetective Stories in
Post-WarFiction."New LiteraryHistory 3 (1971): 135-56.
Hutcheon,Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism:History, Theory,Fiction. New York:
Routledge, 1988.
Kenner,Hugh. "Artin a Closed Field." VirginiaQuarterlyReview 38 (1962): 397413.
Rosso, Stefano. "A Correspondencewith Umberto Eco." Trans. Carolyn Springer.
Boundary2 12.1 (1983): 1-13.
Spanos,William V. "TheDetective and the Boundary:Some Notes on the Postmodern
LiteraryImagination."Boundary2 1.1 (1972): 147-68.
Tani, Stefano. The Doomed Detective: The Contributionof the Detective Novel to
PostmodernAmericanand ItalianFiction. Carbondale:SouthernIllinois UP, 1984.
Toscani, Claudio. Rev. of llpendolo di Foucault. Criticaletteraria 16 (1988): 617-20.
Venturi,Robert. Complexityand Contradictionin Architecture.New York:Museumof
ModernArt, 1977.
Vita-Finzi, Claudio. "Omnivorousfantasy." Rev. of Il pendolo di Foucault. Times
LiterarySupplement3 March 1989: 225.

16