Editing Foucault's Pendulum (section)

== Comparison with other writings ==
''Foucault's Pendulum'' (1988) has been called "the thinking man's ''[[The Da Vinci Code|Da Vinci Code]]''".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Sullivan |first=Jane |date=December 24, 2004 |title=Religious conspiracy? Do me a fervour |url=http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/12/23/1103391886435.html |access-date=April 4, 2006 |work=The Age}}</ref> The parchment that sparks the Plan plays a role which is similar to the parchments in the [[Rennes-le-Château]] story in Brown's novel and in ''[[The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail]]'' (1982), from which Brown drew inspiration. Eco's novel predated the ''Da Vinci'' phenomenon by more than a decade, but both novels are concerned with the Knights Templar, complex conspiracies, secret codes, and even a chase around the monuments of Paris. Eco does so, however, from a much more critical perspective; ''Foucault'' is more a satire on the futility of conspiracy theories and those who believe them, rather than an attempt to proliferate such beliefs.

Eco was asked whether he had read the Brown novel; he replied:<ref>{{Cite news |last=Solomon |first=Deborah | author-link = Deborah Solomon |date=November 25, 2007 |title=Questions for Umberto Eco |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/magazine/25wwln-Q4-t.html}}</ref>
{{Blockquote|I was obliged to read it because everybody was asking me about it. My answer is that Dan Brown is one of the characters in my novel ''Foucault's Pendulum'', which is about people who start believing in occult stuff. ... ''But you yourself seem interested in the kabbalah, alchemy, and other occult practices explored in the novel.'' ... No. In ''Foucault's Pendulum'' I wrote the grotesque representation of these kind of people. So Dan Brown is one of my creatures.}}

Eco was indebted to [[Danilo Kiš]]'s story "The Book of Kings and Fools" in ''[[The Encyclopedia of the Dead]]'' (1983) for the portrayal of [[Sergei Nilus]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hagemeister |first=Michael |author-link=Michael Hagemeister |year=2008 |title=The ''Protocols of the Elders of Zioin'': Between History and fiction |journal=[[New German Critique]] |volume=35 |issue=1 |pages=83–95 |doi=10.1215/0094033X-2007-020}}</ref> ''[[The Boston Globe]]'' claimed that "one can trace a lineage from [[Robert Anton Wilson]]'s ''[[The Illuminatus! Trilogy]]'' to Umberto Eco's ''Foucault's Pendulum''".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Smith |first=Damon |date=March 2, 2001 |title='The business' an unsuccessful venture |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8642737.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121025201353/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8642737.html |archive-date=October 25, 2012 |work=The Boston Globe}}</ref> ''The Illuminatus! Trilogy'' was written 13 years before ''Foucault's Pendulum''. [[George Johnson (writer)|George Johnson]] wrote on the similarity of the two books that "both works were written tongue in cheek, with a high sense of irony."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Johnson |first=George |year=2007 |title=On the Trail of the Illuminati: A Journalist's Search for the "Conspiracy That Rules the World" |url=http://sciwrite.org/glj/Illuminati.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091229105632/http://sciwrite.org/glj/Illuminati.pdf |archive-date=December 29, 2009 |website=Secrets of Angels and Demon}}</ref> Both books are divided into ten segments represented by the ten Sefiroth.

''Foucault's Pendulum'' also bears a number of similarities to Eco's own experiences and writing. The character of Belbo was brought up in the region of [[Piedmont]] in Northern Italy. Eco refers to his own visit to a Candomblé ceremony in Brazil in an article compiled in ''[[Faith in Fakes]]'', reminiscent of the episode in the novel. He also describes French [[ethnologist]] [[Roger Bastide]] who bears a resemblance to the character of Agliè.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Eco |first=Umberto |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/18036417 |title=Travels in hyperreality : essays |date=1987 |publisher=Pan Books in association with Secker & Warburg |isbn=0-330-29667-1 |location=London |oclc=18036417}}</ref> Eco's novel was also a direct inspiration on [[Charles Cecil]] during the development of [[Revolution Software]]'s highly successful [[point and click]] [[adventure game]] ''[[Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars]]'', in which an American tourist and a French journalist must thwart a conspiracy by a shadowy cabal who model themselves on the [[Knights Templar]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Parkin |first=Simon |author-link=Simon Parkin |date=August 9, 2015 |title=Broken Sword and 25 years of Revolution |url=http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-08-09-broken-sword-and-25-years-of-revolution |website=eurogamer}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Revolution Software's Kickstarter page for Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse |url=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/165500047/broken-sword-the-serpents-curse-adventure/posts}}</ref>