A review by will_cherico
The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson, Robert Shea

adventurous challenging funny mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

What a strange, strange, strange trilogy. I think I quite liked it, although I also know that there was a LOT I didn't understand. Maybe that was intentional? You'd have to have several encyclopedia's worth of knowledge to understand a fifth of the bizarre tangents the Roberts go on in this book. It's unlike anything I'll ever read again. It's this weird, post modernist mishmash of radical leftism, high camp, kinky sex, extreme drug usage, social satire, and philosophical and religious discussion that can't really be sorted into any one, two, or ten schools of thought. I love the way they take things like the eye in the pyramid, detail all this half-true lore about it, then also manage to use it as satire - in this case, how every layer of a hierarchy is blind except for the top, which only looks in one direction. That's so smart! The two authors made use of all these crackpot conspiracy theories to make a jigsaw puzzle of commentary that I'm going to be dissecting for the rest of my life. Despite how jarring it was to read this (it's obviously inspired by James Joyce, and as someone who has largely read books that weren't very experimental this was the equivalent of teaching a baby to swim by dropping it into the middle of the Atlantic) I found myself turning the pages with rapt attention. Did I retain much of it? Honestly, no. Do I think that matters? Not particularly. This is an experience more than a story, and that's why it's different from anything I've ever read in my life. My own words don't do it justice. It's hysterical, it's gripping, it's incoherent, it's incredible. 
Remember Celine's laws:
1. National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity.
2. Accurate communication is possible only in a non-punishing situation.
3. An honest politician is a national calamity.