Myth as Reality

Proverbs for Paranoids, 3: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.
-Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

In The Open Work Eco describes artistic creations that are infinite in their possibilities. Every time these works are reinterpreted they are born anew. Interpretation is a tool, used to free the audience from its passivity.

However, in Foucault's Pendulum, the operation works differently. Interpretation is not artistic, but destructive. Interpretation becomes the most vital weapon in the paranoiac's arsenal, and he uses it to transform the world around him. Interpretation now is a destructive, not an artistic, force.

Clearly Eco has great faith in the power of interpretation, but he is also aware of its danger. Every tool can become a weapon.

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