ABSTRACT
In spring 1991 Umberto Eco gave three public lectures in the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford. The subject of these lectures, which were introduced and chaired by John Woodhouse, was the history of man's search for the perfect language. This was the theme of Eco's forthcoming publication for the international multilingual publishing venture, The Making of Europe. Eco's second novel is in many respects very different from Il nome della rosa and certainly provoked a perplexed reaction in many of the readers who had devoured that first novel. Even at a superficial level the connections between the two works are easily discernible. Uniquely among Eco's novels, Il Pendolo is divided into sections, named from the ten divisions of the Sefirot. The centrality of Eco's biography in terms of lived experience within the seemingly fragmented narrative of Il Pendolo, is most evident in what is apparently the most exotic section of the novel, the part of the narrative set in Brazil.
