Latest Updates - Umberto Eco

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Comment by Magic Marmalade:

Also worth noting, that there is more than one Foucault of historical note.

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Comment by Magic Marmalade:

What a tangled web we weave!

This is one for the conspiracy theorists, especially those who got entangled with the likes of The Da Vinci Code, and The Holy Blood, And The Holy Grail... Except this is work of (overt) fiction is a almost a masterpiece of deadpan satire of conspiracy theories.

In fact, given the author was an absolute master of medievalism (he knew his historical, and indeed his "historical" stuff!), this leaves those other works in the dust, due to his total command of the material in ways others can only dream of.

Essentially, within the framework of the plot, of a trio of cynical, esoteric book publishers who decide to make a little publishing enterprise by concocting a global "masterplan" based on their combined knowledge of all things "secret society", freemason, and Knights Templar etc., they weave a massive web of horseshit for their target audience, built form the accumulated mass of almost every piece of history and "history" not nailed down that you can think of...

(Seriously, almost any historical figure or place you care to mention pops up at some point, and even the most learned or familiar among you will struggle with some of these references)

...Only to discover, once dark events and happenings around them may suggest their created plan may actually be true!

.....And now it seems it may be after them.

There's plenty of twists here, naturally, and I think it may be somewhat too dense with historical reference at times, but that only serves to highlight the psyche of the conspiratorial mind, by taking it, and running further with it that most of them are able, or willing to go. It gets to be like a joke told deadpan, that just keeps going and going, and getting more and more elaborate and funnier, not necessarily because of the content, but due to the absurdity of persistence.

It is also great at breaking this down, and showing the mechanics of conspiracy, and the conspiratorial mind, and how such people are susceptible and vulnerable to such intrigues. So not only a masterpiece of satire of the whole "world" of conspiracy, but actually quite useful for those wishing to seek some objectivity... or indeed... sanity.

Ultimately, there is no conspiracy, and everybody else knows it but you :)

...Or is there?