Illuminatus! Part I: The Eye in the Pyramid

A conspiracy satire. I thought at first it might be a direct retelling of Call of Cthulhu which it isn't... but the Lovecraft influence is strong and not hidden, the necronomicon and lovecraft both appear in the tale but so does everyone else, machen, chambers, james bond, 20,000 leagues and many other things get referenced.
Knowledge of 70's america, the hippies, beats, riots etc all useful as might be watching the Public Enemies movie.

It never takes itself too seriously there's even a couple of reviews of the book in the book complaining about how terrible it is :) , the sections on conspiracy theories and numerology can be boring but again they feel like they are intended to annoy.

The best (and for some people, worse) thing about the show more book is its structure. You know the way some novels have this floaty omniscient narrator, well this story goes one step farther as all the characters are sort of connected on some psychic level and you follow the connection from place to place.
So you might have 5 different characters in different times and places doing different things all within a single paragraph. Or you might have Bleed. You'll be following two detectives in new york while you keep hearing a chant of We Will Not Be Moved, without knowing where its coming from, until the scene suddenly switches and you find yourself at a peace rally 3 years earlier. To make things even odder sometimes the characters themselves start hearing or seeing whats happening to each other.

Its all delightfully chaotic and i don't know whether its to my credit or shame that after a while most of starting making sense :P . If it was a complete story i think it would be five stars. Confusing, witty, filthy, non-pc with some lovecraftian elements and a porpoise named Howard whats not to like :) . show less

I could see how one might dislike this book. In fact, I could see how most people might hate this book. It follows a stream of consciousness pattern, flowing fluidly from the events in one character's life to the thoughts of another completely unrelated character. In this way, a very difficult to navigate narrative is weaved, which is not helped by the sheer number of characters, which seemed to number around a hundred, give or (most likely, as I'm prone to exaggeration) take a few. Once making it past the general awkwardness of the style of writing, however, I found this book to be hilarious and addictive--I could hardly set it down.
Arguably, the main character seems to be Saul Goodman, a cop who stumbles upon a vast system of show more conspiracies when the offices of the left-wing magazine Confrontation is bombed and its editor goes missing. Everything keeps coming back to the infamous Illuminati, but questions keep mounting: who are they? when exactly did they form? are they still around? what is their agenda?...and so on. On top of these questions, there seem to be countless organizations that the Illuminati may or may not have infiltrated, and countless groups of opposition they are up against (that may or may not actually be connected with the Illuminati in secret).
The subject matter of The Eye in the Pyramid is an amalgam of fact, popular conjecture, and pure fiction. The overall message I took from this book: doubt everyone and everything, perhaps even yourself.

And just for fun, here is an excerpt from the book referring to a book review that clearly is of The Eye in the Pyramid 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, I'm sure, and the authors--whom I've never heard of--have the supreme bad taste to introduce real political figures into this mishmash and pretend to be exposing a real conspiracy. You can be sure I won't waste time reading such rubbish, but I'll have a perfectly devastating review ready for you by tomorrow noon." show less

Wow! I had been wanting to read this for several years primarily because one of my best friends indicated the trilogy is his favorite book. But I Had to wait till I could find it in single volumes as the giant tomb would be too much for the way I read. Normally I don't really look at reviews before I read a book, particularly fiction, because spoilers, especially when it's one line this that a friend recommended. However, for whatever reason I did, and I'm glad I did. The writing style is out there. Changing characters in first person many times, even in the same paragraph. He really makes you think you're going crazy by repeating complete paragraphs numerous pages later, making me think I lost my spot. It's certainly not for everyone. show more I just finished, and I think I know what happened, but part of me really wants to read it again to make sure, but that's going to have to wait. I will keep this one in my library for whenever that day comes. Furthermore, I was surprised by the sex scenes. Incredibly detailed, yet it didn't trigger a lustful action, though I admit the description of a black mass complete with desecrating the Holy Eucharistic host by utilizing for cunnilingus on a menstruating woman was disturbing to say the least. My favorite part was a tounge in cheek description of a newspaper man who had to review a terrible book in time for a deadline, clearly describing the book I was reading.

I think I'll read book two but won't run out to do so show less

So for years I've been looking forward to re-reading this in anticipation of understanding all the stuff I didn't get when I was seven. But it turns out I pretty much understood it all. The sign of a first-rate conspiracy yarn.

I was very excited to learn that The Illuminatus!, first published in 1975, is now getting an audiobook treatment. It is narrated with gusto befitting a satirical, science fiction-influenced adventure story weaving together conspiracy theories, counterculture, Aleister Crowley, mythology, etc. with a lot of racy scenes as one would expect from a former Playboy contributor.

The trilogy comprises three parts which contain five books and appendices: The Eye in the Pyramid (first two books), The Golden Apple (third and part of fourth book), Leviathan (part of fourth and all of fifth book, and the appendices). The parts were first published as three separate volumes starting in September 1975. In 1984 they were published as an omnibus edition show more and are now more commonly reprinted in the latter form.

NOTE:. The popularity of the word "fnord" and the 23 enigma can both be attributed to the seminal trilogy. show less

Story: 3 / 10
Characters: 4
Setting: 4
Prose: 1
An altogether useless book. The story and writing are entirely obscure, making it one of the most difficult reads you will encounter. No real value except that the subject matter is concerned with conspiracy theories and the Illuminati.
Fight the urge to read this cult classic.

Well, that's a big Did Not Finish.

Shit, I only got a few pages in and lost all interest. Obviously I need to at least read the first page or two before I purchase.

Sweet jumpin' Jesus, this is bad.