Digging through the Earth element

I don't really like the limitations of reality. Aware of them again. Only so much that I can do. Only so much that a person born at a certain time and place, to a particular family in a particular environment can do. Depends on where the currents are going, where the borders are set.

There are things one can potentially change or achieve - there, too, a lot depends on what one is given from birth, talents and personality and the like. But other places one can go to only if one is born on the right side of the border. There are things I can never be in this lifetime. Of course it doesn't really matter when seen from a broader perspective. Then again, the broader perspective has rarely been favourable for mankind as a whole.

The choices being a second-rate citizen or a speck of dust... in either case evanescent, limited, insignificant. No, I like my fantasies better. There I can be anyone I want.

I guess maybe I'm not so different from J. after all. Perhaps in this one sense he has been more honest to the world than me.

Romance. Who needs the real thing when you've got the ideal in books and movies?

Foucault's Pendulum

Finished reading the book today. I think Eco must've been insane writing it. Then again there's always been a fine line between madness and genius. I kind of like how it is at once an ego trip and mocking self-irony. Though I'm not entirely sure why he needed 533 pages to prove his point. Oh well, I suppose it all depends on what one hopes to find from the book. In my case that something was a good captivating plot, but while the general subject matter appealed somewhat to my occult freak side, the story wasn't exactly a page-turner. In fact, I think with all those lists of names and general language style, the book ranks somewhere close to the Old Testament in reader-friendliness. Then again I wouldn't be surprised if those lists of names were actually an allusion to the Old Testament.

Now, I'm sure his fellow scholars of semiotics and the like may find the whole thing delightful. I do have to say it's brilliant every step of the way as far as the pure complexity of the story is concerned. But how something like that could become an international bestseller is beyond me. Unless reading Eco has really become an intellectual status symbol to that extent. Then again, I suppose that's exactly the case.