Rating: 
Summary: VERY Hard to Follow, but VERY Good.
Review: Many seem to complain that this book is a waste of time and often times their complaints seem to stem from this books lack of cohesiveness. Pity be to the people who have been so taken by modern, popular, best-selling authors, such that they are unable to appreciate literature because they have to think when they read it. If cohesiveness measures a books quality it makes one wonders why books such as Faulkner's THE SOUND AND THE FURY and Gabriel Garcia-Marquez's ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE are such great works... of course cohesiveness doesn't measure a books quality, nor should it. Indeed, at times, cohesiveness is simply boring. The Illuminatus Trilogy is one of those books that boggles a person's mind that another human was able to write this, and you'll feel smarter after about the third time you read it and finally understand what is going on.
Rating:
Summary: Indeed Fantastic
Review: I don't have much to say except that The Illuminatus Trilogy changed my life. The ideas in the story were incredible, and I thank both Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson for putting these words into print. I had never read anything like The Trilogy and I probably never will again. Thanks for giving me a new perspective on life.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Ideas, Sometimes Amusing, Very Badly Structured
Review: Imagine a world in which all the conspiracy theories are true, and you get the very bizarre alternate universe of the Illuminatus! Trilogy. The book is sometimes very funny, and hits on most of the major conspiracies, letting you know about the "death" of John Dillinger, the pyramid on the back of the dollar bill, the Kennedy Assassination, the theory of George Washington's imposter, and so forth. It was written in the 1970s, so it is a bit dated, and its countercultural viewpoint is somewhat out of place today. It is a very badly structured book -- dozens of characters, hundreds of plot lines, and takes place in many different times and places. The book also will change from one plot to another, mid page, without any type of break letting you know that the story is changing. This is done intentionally to create a "mosaic" in which the various conspiracies and characters can interact, but to a reader it is very maddening. I love conspiracy theories, but rather than be content with existing organizations and places, the authors throw in a few of their own, each with annoying acronyms; as if to show how clever they can be. The men who wrote this are obviously very intelligent and well schooled in conspiracy theory, but the book lacks any kind of coherent structure or editorial discipline. There is a lot of sand and a few pearls. Should be in the library of any conspiracy buff, but it is not on my list of favorites. It also cannot hold a candle to Umberto Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum", which goes over some of the same ground in a much more coherent fashion.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Books Ever Written
Review: Robert Anton Wilson manages to show us that everything we ever thought we knew or believed is up for grabs. The craziest of conspiracy theories seems true. The most real evidence seems questionable. No one is who we think. Everything is upside down and that's good. Or maybe it's not. This is a thinking person's novel. Or maybe it's not. Maybe it's the truth and we never knew it. Or maybe we knew it all along but haven't wanted to admit it. Your head will hurt and you'll never think the same way again. And that's terrific. I think. The guy's a genius and I challenge anyone with an opinion on anything to read this book.
Rating:
Summary: It's amazing what one can do with only letters and paper
Review: I've never read a book quite like this, and I doubt I ever will. The Illuminatus! Trilogy is an odd venture through space and time, much like a drug trip but more coherent and on paper. ... If you're a hippy, an anarchist, a druggie, or someone who is just plain weird, you will like this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Horrid!
Review: Easily the worst book I've ever read. The first 100 or so pages were interesting but it slowly and painfully degraded into an incoherent, disjointed pile of [garbage]. I did finish this book, but only to prove I could. Don't let this book's cult status fool you.
Rating:
Summary: Informative
Review: Many things can be said about Shea's and Wilson's Illuminatus! trilogy. It is not immune to literary criticism, except for its blatently self-acknowledged frivolity. This is a very crafty prophylactic device, leaving critics and apologists alike to identify their own preoccupations in relation to the material content and style of the novel. More importantly, this work presents, through its phenomenally colorful cast of characters and imaginative themes and events, a veritible cornucopia of historical facts and thoughts about the real life of politics, religion, metaphysics, psychology, crime, fanaticism, conservativism, liberalism, etc., and behind-the-scenes activities, real and imaginable, of the major institutions of global culture and civilization. The full reading of this epic novel forces the reader to assimilate such a complex amalgamation of diverse and conflicting, subtly interacting currents of thought and action that it would seem that no imaginable position is left unsatirized. Ultimately, this enables the reader more clearly to understand one's own thoughts and actions within the context of the full blown dimensions of our tumultuous modern/postmodern world. The information download alone makes this book well worth the reading. The great humor employed in the characterizations and blending of known facts and prominent personages makes the assimilation of this historical knowledge a most delightful experience. Victims of our national school systems in America and elsewhere can easily remedy that deficiency to a great degree by the reading of Illuminatus!
Rating:
Summary: Is not without strengths, but deeply flawed.
Review: First off, let me first say that I'm not one of those reviewers who say this book is total garbage. Wilson & Shea are clearly well-read and have quite a breadth of knowledge.
Much of the facts the use to establish the framework are true (Important exception [among several]: The Great Seal of the United States on the back of the dollar does have 13 levels, but there are NOT 72 [or is did they say 73?] sections in the pyramid- there are less than 64, and it doesn't occur to them the 13 stands for the number of colonies that became the US after the revolution! Also, that is not a marijuana plant being held in the eagle's left talon. I understand the book isn't meant to be taken seriously, but the part 've mentioned is possibly the most idiotic part of the book.), even though the plots that are based on them quite often go off the deep end.
I laughed my buns off when the reviewer below actually thought the George Washington "pot farms" were RAW's invention. Even though it's not mentioned in the book, Thomas Jefferson also smoked it, and he even developed a sort of "cotton gin" type device for processing it!
There are many other examples, but the weaknesses of the book and the authors are sufficient to knock it down to two stars. The book sloppily written- the plot has a tendency to ramble.There is little to no character devolopemnt, and when it does occur it is presented unrealistically. There are too many characters, and unlike Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, they aren't very functional. In addition, it's pretty clear that RAW and Robert Shea are classic cases of being intelligent people who know a lot, yet have little or no comprehension of how thing operate (which explains most of their inanities).
The Stream-of-Conscousness(sic) style of writing is abused in a way that blurs determination of context for the reader. In the typewritten format of the book- not in the novel itself, mind you, but in the way the text is actually arranged on the pages of the book- there is no horizontal line to seperate(sic) distict sections within chapters, like in most decently written books.
RAW would probably claim that this is becuase it would destroy the continuity of the novel (a suprising cocern to me, given the Battlefield Earthisms that pervade the plot). However, I believe the true reason for this is due to the fact that the huge need for these divisions in the text to make the book more readable would substantially (sic?) increase the physical number pages required fo the book (by probably 40 or more), and was avoided to use less paper (and therefore keep the book cheaper!) for marketing purposes.
There is a Battlefield Earth like tendency to create major plot threads, but diverge off when creativity runs out. For example, the Ferdinand Poo plot thread that dominates the begining of the 1st Book was clearly intended by the authors to figure heavily in the later plot of the book, but end up ignoring it for several hundred pages before mentioning it again.
It's clearly superior to Hubbard's BE in terms of humor, and I died laughing at some of the more whack inside jokes- like the fact that the reviewer in the book who gives "Illuminatus!" a poor review, Epicene "Eppy" Wildeblood is actually an open parody of Oscar Wilde, the not-quite-hidden revelation that the God's Lightning affiliate KCUF, is F--- reversed, and (I basically died for half hour when I cuaght this more obscure one, at least for non-punk rock fans) the presense of JAMs in the book and the reinterpretation of the phrase "Kick out the jams, brothers and sisters!" This is a quotation from the band MC5 (there's the law of fives again). The quotation is kind of ironic in light of the fact that RAW is actually unaware that "Kick out the jams, brothers and sisters!" is actually quotes an edited sourse record and that in the unedited version of that song, the vocalist shouts the phrase "motherf---ers" in place of "brothers and sisters". What a doofus!
I think the most hilarious moment in the book is near the begining of the 1st chapter of the 3rd book, when they're naming the bands in the Woodstock Europa Festival. My first take was, with the exception of the five groups in that list that were actually real (Steppenwolf, Mick Jagger, Joan Baez, the Zombies and Nirvana), the whole rigamarole looked like a list of names for bad indie rock bands. A side note for you fools who aren't into prog-rock: Long before "Nevermind" broke No. 1 in the U.S., in the late sixties and then the seventies Nirvana was the name of a post-psychedelic experimental rock group from the U.K. and probably the band refered to in the list. It wouldn't be out of character for the author, given the geist of the book. Same reason I know RAW probably knows the Zombies were a real band- he at least heard THE TIME OF THE SEASON! (Laughs without mercy at the puzzled book review lurkers).
Anyway, I've read the whole book except for most of Book III and most of the appendices (the most coherently written part of the book, ironically). It's pretty clear to me that despite actually being pretty funny, and having well-written sex scenes among other things, RAW & company (at least at this stage- the book was written 30 years ago) have no idea how to write round, dynamic characters, with realistic character development, and need to take grade-school level courses in plot developement. It wouldn't hurt this book one bit to SIMPLIFY the plot.
I don't regret reading the book and I intend to finish it, and I'm glad that there are books in this field that are far superior, if the other posts are to be believed. However, despite being quite interesting, the book is just plain miswritten.
Rating:
Summary: Huh?
Review: I guess I just don't get it. This book has it's moments, but they're stuck in between the stream of conciousness style narrative that runs through the whole book. I had high hopes, now I just want to finish it and hope EVERYONE gets killed! I think that it could have been written in about half the pages and not lost anything. 2 stars is being generous. This one is definitely going to the used book store!
Rating:
Summary: The best book since god-emperor of dune
Review: This book is grat. it hs many qualities that deem if worthy to be read. The people who dislike this book obviously have notaste in great literature. The book can be confusing in some parts but anyone with an IQ over 75 should know what's going on most of the time.
|
