Shea & Wilson - Illuminatus 1: The Eye in the Pyramid

[andydecker]

Robert Shea, Robert Anton Wilson – Illuminatus 1: The Eye in the Pyramid (Dell, 1975, 304 p.; this edition Sphere, 1976, 311 p.)

Cover: Tony Roberts

"It was the year when they finally immanentized the Eschaton."

So begins this novel in three parts, which for many people of their time became a must-read and was a huge influence for many fellow writers and artists. As Wikipedia tells us better as I could do: "Wilson and Shea were both associate editors for Playboy magazine […] they dealt with correspondence from the general public on the subject of civil liberties, much of which involved paranoid rants about imagined conspiracies. The pair began to write a novel with the premise that "all these nuts are right, and every single conspiracy they complain about really exists"."

Sometimes it feels strange that such a dense and complicated narrative was read by so many people, it is not a book for the beach. My memory of the trilogy is hazy at best, and I fear a lot of it has become dated, especially because of the digital revolution and all the ills in its wake. Also sadly the nuts won. Still it is one of those works which seem unpublishable today in era of corporate publishing, which alone makes this an achievement.

The British edition by Sphere has a different cover than the original American edition.

[piglingbland]

I also have hazy recollections of the Illuminatus trilogy... but it was "of its time" and I recall enjoying the complex plots. My Dell edition of volume 1 has a yellow submarine on the cover. The blurb mentions Kurt Vonnegut, who was also one of the writers I enjoyed reading at that time in the mid 70s. There were also spin-off titles - "The Cosmic Trigger", "Shrodinger's Cat", "Masks of the Illuminati", and more, authored by Robert Anton Wilson alone.

[Jojo Lapin X]

This is something I had completely forgotten about. But I had at least the first volume, although I do not think I actually read it.

[Shrink Proof]

Feb 28, 2024 20:56:38 GMT Jojo Lapin X said:

This is something I had completely forgotten about. But I had at least the first volume, although I do not think I actually read it.

Not only did I read it, I saw it live. It was performed as a play, "Illuminatus!", by the Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool at the wonderfully named Liverpool School of Language, Music, Dream and Pun in 1976. Prime mover in this landmark event in the late 70s/early 80s Liverpool neopsychedelic scene was the late, great Ken Campbell. I remember it running from just after breakfast time to just before closing time, by which time we all needed a pint or something more substantial (or more illegal) to recover and process the experience. Quite unlike anything else on the stage.

Four years later Campbell and the Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool entertained Liverpool again, with "The Warp", another theatrical milestone. It had originally been performed in London as one VERY long play - anywhere between 22 and 25 hours, depending on the stamina of the cast and the audience. It's still in the Guiness Book of Records as the longest play ever. It details the journey of a guy called Phil Masters from 50s bohemia through 60s psychedelia to 70s commune living (think Findhorn). The lead actor playing Masters was on stage for all but 10 minutes of it. In Liverpool it was performed as a serial over 10 weeks. Each week had an episode played nightly, moving on to the next episode for the following week and so on. Happy daze...

[andydecker]

Feb 29, 2024 11:00:40 GMT Shrink Proof said:

Not only did I read it, I saw it live. It was performed as a play, "Illuminatus!", by the Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool at the wonderfully named Liverpool School of Language, Music, Dream and Pun in 1976.

That must have been quite an experience. I can't even imagine how to transform this novel into a play, but it must have been fun.

[Shrink Proof]

It was fun. It's impossible to pay full attention all the time for something that lasts a whole day - you tend to drift in and out of it...

Only Ken Campbell could have pulled off converting something like Illuminatus! into a play (not to mention The Warp).