Illuminatus! Trilogy

[Ysidro]

As an aside, I have a friend who is a self proclaimed Discordian but of the modern pagany wooish kind. He doesn't seem to know who Kerry Thornly is! Or does he? Dun dun duuuuh!

Also, Hastur was Robert Chamber's creation but like most of those folks the idea bounced around various authors' works giving H...err, that guy a touch of verisimilitude.

Personally, I always loved what the Pentagon was "really for". It makes a strange amount of sense, as the best CTs always do.

 

[stilicho]

RAW was amusing at first, but the joke got old after a while, and the obscure references want from intriguing to boring.
And if you think the stream of conciousness writing in Wilson is confusing, wait until you take an English Lit course where the professor is heavily into James Joyce ...

You could erase all English language fiction and make do with Tristram Shandy.

 

[sosekopp]

I read it a few months ago. Loved it. Reading Foucault's Pendulum now. Loving it too.

 

[Piscivore]

RAW said a number of times that he and Shea (who both worked as the Playboy Advisor at the time) got a TON of conspiracy theories from their day job.

I have the April '69 issue in which the letter the book talks about appears.

I've read it twice now, and am also due for a re-read. A lot of it is indeed trite and juvenile, as arth says... but then so am I, mostly.

 

[HawaiiBigSis]

I read it a few months ago. Loved it. Reading Foucault's Pendulum now. Loving it too.

For some reason, I've never read Foucault's Pendulum, although it's been on my to-read list forever. Maybe someday.

 

[ParrotPirate]

You can obtain a special form of consciousness, it's said, by reading RAW with your headphones blaring Hawkwind while drinking a peyote margarita and sitting in the backward facing seat of a VW van hurtling 110 kph down the I-5. Lobster pate with a double helping of dill is optional but not without merit.

You, sir, are awesome! RAW, Hawkwind (Lemmy?) assorted chemicals and crazy driving all at once! Plus a Repo Man quote for a sig!

Haven't read Illuminati in years, but I did get through it 2 or 3 times. A friend of mine has a copy of Principia Discordia that I borrow when I start to feel too sane. Hail Eris!

 

[Didaktylos]

As I've said before on this very board - don't expect to make any sense of it the first five times you read it.

 

[Bitsko]

The only reason I read this hornswoggle was that I was deep into trying to figure out Finnegans Wake at the time and heard he was a character in it. Most laughable aspect -- the idea that a genius like James Joyce needed any creative assistant (spiritual, masonic, or otherwise) to "inspire" his masterpieces. His memories, family, and mass quantities of white wine were all the inspiration that natural-born writer needed.

Never could figure out why so many of my friends read these mundane books, but never bothered picking up a copy of Ulysses and discovering a true artistic voice, one that is unlike any other and besides is funnier than eighty Marx Brothers and one WC Fields put together. (I say one WC Fields because the very thought of more than one WC Fields, like the thought of a hydra-headed Holy Trinity, is just plain unnatural, while the thought of eighty Marx Brothers is somehow inevitable.)

 

[fuelair]

RAW was amusing at first, but the joke got old after a while, and the obscure references want from intriguing to boring.
And if you think the stream of conciousness writing in Wilson is confusing, wait until you take an English Lit course where the professor is heavily into James Joyce ...

Or Joyce Kilmer!!