After hearing a lot about the book and hating the idea of carrying around any book that manages to be two inches thick, I found, a few years ago, a paperback copy of "The Eye in the Pyramid," the first book in Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson's "Illuminatus!" trilogy. I first saw it in a friend's dorm room; I read about it when reading up on conspiracy fiction and counter-culture literature. It has a reputation as a cult novel, a crazy libertarian magnum opus.
Towards the end, a very, very minor character, in a sea of single-very minor characters, reviews a book that is a tongue-in-cheek critique of "Illuminatus!" itself:
"It's a dreadfully long monster of a book," Wildeblood says pettishly, "and I certainly won't have time to read it, but I'm giving it a thorough skimming. The authors are utterly incompetent--no sense of style or structure at all. It starts out as a detective story, switches to science-fiction, then goes off into the supernatural, and is full of the most detailed information of dozens of ghastly boring subjects. And the time sequence is all out of order in a very pretentious imitation of Faulkner and Joyce. Worst yet, it has the most raunchy sex scenes, thrown in just to make it sell..."
The self-deprecation is part of the charm, and "Illuminatus!" has a lot of charm. It also has a relatively sympathetic, gonzo sort of political philosophy, hippie liberalism leaning towards anarchy, I suppose you might say.
It's a mess to read, though. Part of this is intentional, if, by the authors' own decree, somewhat pretentious. Other parts are very pretentious: references are thrown out to Melville and Joyce regularly, and also to philosophers from Hegel to Berkeley to Bakunin, although the import of their ideas or the relation of said ideas to the plot of the novel is never explained. The plot is a jumble: it does start out as a kind of detective story, eventually, but the narration jumps around from character to character--
I'm not saying this is a bad book. On the contrary, I think it does what I think its creators wanted it to do: it entertains (maybe not as much as they would have liked) and it provokes and intrigues. It makes you think, at least a little, although seldom about things worth thinking about (like the number 23.) It is charming. I can see how some people would love it.
I found myself disliking it, though--but I also found that it reminded me of "Gravity's Rainbow," by Thomas Pynchon, who is referenced a few times throughout, primarily in terms of Pynchon's earlier "Crying of Lot 49"; "Gravity's Rainbow" came out only a short period before the first volume of "Illuminatus!" and so, presumably, did not have a chance to work its way in.
"Gravity's Rainbow," like "Eye in the Pyramid," has way too many characters, a crazy plot, bounces around from scene to scene and era to era, has a great sense of humor, works in a million references to both very pretentious and rather low-brow culture.
However: there are some differences. Pynchon's characters aren't always deep but they are unique, and not always easily confused; at the very least, with names like Pig Bodine and Pirate Prentice, it's easier to keep them apart. Pynchon, too, actually has villains, or rather, he has characters who aren't just philosophical mouthpieces. There is a kind of rigorous schizophrenia in "Gravity's Rainbow."
The impression I get reading Shea and Wilson is of a stream-of-consciousness, jumping from scene to scene and joke to joke not because it is necessary, but because it's easier and bewildering to the reader, who may be inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. The narrator of "Illuminatus!" is preachy and single-minded. The constant promotion of drugs--which, okay, cool, drugs are fine, whatever--but the constant promotion of drugs in "Illuminatus!" brings to mind an obnoxious, super-high college roommate trying to explain how acid frees your mind, man, so that you can see it's all just a system that's working to keep everything in order, you know? and the only way, man, to fight the system, is with pot and free love and hey--get this--we're gonna, like, take down the Illuminati with a yellow submarine.
On the other hand, while Pynchon may or may not have (but probably did) consumed some illicit, mind-altering substances while composing "Gravity's Rainbow," the tone is more varied. Although a more difficult read, the juxtapositions in "Gravity's Rainbow" between beautiful prose descriptions of war-time London, vaudeville acts, odes to King Kong, discussions of information theory...there are god-complex scientists and perverted Nazis and cartoon Navy men and a lothario G.I. who briefly becomes a superhero in "Gravity's Rainbow." Thomas Pynchon doesn't make it look easy to write a book like that. The structure, the scope--the power of the prose, the density, the goodwill and variety--it all adds up to something insane and difficult, but ultimately engaging and illuminating.
In contrast, "Illuminatus!" is a stoned monologue from the smart guy down the hall who's bought a lot of pretentious books but hasn't read them. This sounds a lot meaner than I want to sound: it seems like a great book to read when you're sixteen. Some books are best read then. And some of those books should be read and left behind.
Post-script
This read a lot grouchier than I intended. It's not a bad book. I admit I grew prejudiced throughout it, frustrated with what I saw as sophomoric philosophizing and juvenile descriptions of sex acts and a monotony of characters. This is one of those cases, as with "The Dark Tower" series and Updike's Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom series, where despite disliking the first book, I may, inexplicably, pick up the second volume.
But hey, screw it. No one reads this blog anyway, and if they did, they surely would have given up before the Post-script. So yeah, I'll go there. I hated reading it.
Towards the end, a very, very minor character, in a sea of single-very minor characters, reviews a book that is a tongue-in-cheek critique of "Illuminatus!" itself:
"It's a dreadfully long monster of a book," Wildeblood says pettishly, "and I certainly won't have time to read it, but I'm giving it a thorough skimming. The authors are utterly incompetent--no sense of style or structure at all. It starts out as a detective story, switches to science-fiction, then goes off into the supernatural, and is full of the most detailed information of dozens of ghastly boring subjects. And the time sequence is all out of order in a very pretentious imitation of Faulkner and Joyce. Worst yet, it has the most raunchy sex scenes, thrown in just to make it sell..."
The self-deprecation is part of the charm, and "Illuminatus!" has a lot of charm. It also has a relatively sympathetic, gonzo sort of political philosophy, hippie liberalism leaning towards anarchy, I suppose you might say.
It's a mess to read, though. Part of this is intentional, if, by the authors' own decree, somewhat pretentious. Other parts are very pretentious: references are thrown out to Melville and Joyce regularly, and also to philosophers from Hegel to Berkeley to Bakunin, although the import of their ideas or the relation of said ideas to the plot of the novel is never explained. The plot is a jumble: it does start out as a kind of detective story, eventually, but the narration jumps around from character to character--
I'm not saying this is a bad book. On the contrary, I think it does what I think its creators wanted it to do: it entertains (maybe not as much as they would have liked) and it provokes and intrigues. It makes you think, at least a little, although seldom about things worth thinking about (like the number 23.) It is charming. I can see how some people would love it.
I found myself disliking it, though--but I also found that it reminded me of "Gravity's Rainbow," by Thomas Pynchon, who is referenced a few times throughout, primarily in terms of Pynchon's earlier "Crying of Lot 49"; "Gravity's Rainbow" came out only a short period before the first volume of "Illuminatus!" and so, presumably, did not have a chance to work its way in.
"Gravity's Rainbow," like "Eye in the Pyramid," has way too many characters, a crazy plot, bounces around from scene to scene and era to era, has a great sense of humor, works in a million references to both very pretentious and rather low-brow culture.
However: there are some differences. Pynchon's characters aren't always deep but they are unique, and not always easily confused; at the very least, with names like Pig Bodine and Pirate Prentice, it's easier to keep them apart. Pynchon, too, actually has villains, or rather, he has characters who aren't just philosophical mouthpieces. There is a kind of rigorous schizophrenia in "Gravity's Rainbow."
Just trust me on this one.
On the other hand, while Pynchon may or may not have (but probably did) consumed some illicit, mind-altering substances while composing "Gravity's Rainbow," the tone is more varied. Although a more difficult read, the juxtapositions in "Gravity's Rainbow" between beautiful prose descriptions of war-time London, vaudeville acts, odes to King Kong, discussions of information theory...there are god-complex scientists and perverted Nazis and cartoon Navy men and a lothario G.I. who briefly becomes a superhero in "Gravity's Rainbow." Thomas Pynchon doesn't make it look easy to write a book like that. The structure, the scope--the power of the prose, the density, the goodwill and variety--it all adds up to something insane and difficult, but ultimately engaging and illuminating.
In contrast, "Illuminatus!" is a stoned monologue from the smart guy down the hall who's bought a lot of pretentious books but hasn't read them. This sounds a lot meaner than I want to sound: it seems like a great book to read when you're sixteen. Some books are best read then. And some of those books should be read and left behind.
Post-script
This read a lot grouchier than I intended. It's not a bad book. I admit I grew prejudiced throughout it, frustrated with what I saw as sophomoric philosophizing and juvenile descriptions of sex acts and a monotony of characters. This is one of those cases, as with "The Dark Tower" series and Updike's Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom series, where despite disliking the first book, I may, inexplicably, pick up the second volume.
But hey, screw it. No one reads this blog anyway, and if they did, they surely would have given up before the Post-script. So yeah, I'll go there. I hated reading it.
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