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I started reading this book a couple months ago by the recommendation of my SubGenius friends. I'm not really a very heavy or fast reader, so I'm only almost halfway through, but what I've read is fantastic. It's a pretty heavy read, not just because it's a bit over 800 pages but because every page seems to be filled with dense inter-weaved plotlines and sometimes two or three conversations going on at once without any specific context between them (or if there is, it takes 30-50 pages to make it clear). It's pretty batshit crazy and I'm just always too impressed that someone pulled it off to be put off by its convoluted execution.

I have no idea how to start a discussion on this book, but it's goddamned marvelous. I'm sure some more learned (or crazier) thumblers might have a lot to say or share about it.

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I think I fnord read it but it was so utterly insane that I fnord cannot remember a bit of fnord it.

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Fair enough. But like I said, it's hard to figure where to start discussion on Illuminatus!, and it's almost as hard just to describe what it's about.

I would tell you the basic plot premise but as far as I can tell it doesn't have one. It definitely has at least a few dozen.

I'd tell you it's philosophical bend but I think it's even more batshit than any ideology.

So the best I can tell you is that it has a general overarching presence of conspiracy and madness of all kinds. Illuminati. Atlantis. Satanists. Homosexual Christian Communists. It's all there. And it's all so wound up and self-contradictory it's hard to say (at least so far as I've gotten) if anyone really has control over anything or if they're all just bullshitting their way through massive global catastrophes and claiming they pulled it off in the end. Wikipedia says "The trilogy is a satirical, postmodern, science fiction-influenced adventure story; a drug-, sex-, and magic-laden trek through a number of conspiracy theories, both historical and imaginary, related to the authors' version of the Illuminati," and that's as good a description as any. It's also an influential book in many joke religions/religions of jokery such as Discordianism and The Church of the SubGenius (and it heavily references the former).

Subbes my dear sir, the fnords are not actually spelled fnord. In fact I inserted a few dozen true fnords in my post to prove the point.

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... every page seems to be filled with dense inter-weaved plotlines and sometimes two or three conversations going on at once without any specific context between them...

Read their Schrodinger's Cat trilogy next, and watch your mind explode when all of that gets twisted around even more because the narration's point of view shifts between not only multiple characters, but also third-person omniscient, and weird stream-of-consciousness right in the middle of a page.

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Fairly certain that happens quite a lot in the Illuminatus trilogy as well, but it's been a while since I've read it.

One particular conversation between Saul and Barney seems to stand out, where perspective changed back and forth between them.

That confused the hell out of me.

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Fairly certain that happens quite a lot in the Illuminatus trilogy as well, but it's been a while since I've read it.

One particular conversation between Saul and Barney seems to stand out, where perspective changed back and forth between them.

That confused the hell out of me.

I don't remember the book much at all (have no idea who Saul and Barney were), but then it's been like 20 years or more since I read it. I do remember however hopping between one character's first person POV to another's in mid-chapter which confused me the first time I encountered it (probably because it is also the first time I encountered it when reading anything for that matter).

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It's been a while since I read either trilogy, so I could be confusing the two, Schrodinger's Cat sticks out in my mind as the one that did it often and strangely enough to be remembered. Maybe it's because of all the multidimensional craziness in that one.

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The Illuminatus! Trilogy is just ambling pre-waffle to the real waffle, The Principia Discordia.

Still good though.

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I remember feeling an obligation as a dork to read it, but I never did. I have read some of Robert Anton Wilson's pseudoscientific non-fiction crap; it's stupid as hell.

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Read Illuminatus trilogy last year. My word, did I not give a shit about what was happening by the end. It spent so much time trying to confound me that I then just read it like the long drawn out acid trip waffle that it was. I can pick out moments that sort of stood out but really, I stopped caring about half way through and just let it happen (a bit like an acid trip).

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This series caused my grip on reality to loosen for a little while, but then I snapped out of it.

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I own this book and I've tried to read it a couple of times. But every time I give the book a chance I give up. I'm not quite sure what it is, but after reading it for awhile I just don't want to pick it up and continue reading.

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I liked the Illuminatus! Trilogy a lot. The plot style is great if you like it...different threads of stories intermixed. And boy do I love the conspiracy ideas. The humour is great...never read anything funnier. Beats modern bullcrap fantasy  novels. The meta-theories are not to be taken seriously of-course.

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This is annoying, I'm honestly curious! I think some information ought to be provided in the OP.

 

Basically, imagine every wild-eyed paranoid conspiracy theory up through whenever these books were written (the 70s, I think) was true simultaneously, along with a ton of wonky New Age ideology and various other insanity. Wrap all this into a sort of loosely coherent narrative, liberally dose with mind-altering drugs and a wicked sense of humor, and you pretty much have the Illuminatus! Trilogy.

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