Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco

I'm undergoing my second attempt to get through this book (it is *extremely* dense,) but I think I'm starting to get it. All the endless blather about templars and cabals isn't just a more intellectual Dan Brown - it's actually an exploration of the phenomenon that gives rise to books like 'The Da Vinci Code' and their ensuing success. I say an 'exploration', but it's more like constant joshing at the expense of conspiracy theorists and Brown's readers.

I've just got to a part which sums it up nicely. The characters (all publishers,) are contemplating publishing a series of novels based on original conspiracy theories grounded in the mass of literary arcana and dubious subjects that crackpot authors and intellectuals constantly delve into (they've now been visited by at least two authors proposing books that reveal the 'truth' about the templars, the Holy Grail, and the occult sciences). They're basically talking about bringing out books like 'The Da Vinci Code' and 'The Bible Code' in order to hit a particular vein of readers.

"It's a gold mine, alright. I realised that these people will gobble up anything hermetic, as you put it, anything that says the opposite of what they read in books at school."

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, it's true. On the other, the book is kind of adopting the same pomposity that it lampoons whenever another eminent professor shows up with a three chapter argument for his version of a secret truth. I dunno - maybe mankind's affection for preposterous delusion is a healthy thing?