This is a book trilogy that would mock me for saying that it helped shaped my political and social ideology as well as attitude about sex. This book also helped shape my political and social ideology as well as attitude about sex. ILLUMINATUS! takes the Right Wing racist conspiracy theories of the 1970s (and today) then proceeds to skewer them with a ruthlessness that Mel Brooks would envy. HP Lovecraft, anarchism, James Bond, Captain Nemo, chaos magic, and just about everything else is run through the wringer.
If you must take away three things from this trilogy, let it be these:
- Nazism/Fascism/Reactionary politics in general is incredibly stupid: It is propped up by people who take silly things very seriously. If its followers had the slightest bit of humor about themselves then no one would follow it.
- Question everything because a lot of people are lying to you for money, power, or because they themselves are idiots: Self-explanatory. It doesn’t take much to say something utterly ridiculous with conviction and convince people you know secret truths.
- Sex is fun and should be had by people having fun: If someone isn’t during it, you’re doing it wrong. Safe, sane, and consensual and none of it anyone else’s business.
Is it wrong to suggest that, at the end of the day, every insane dictator and mad corporate demagogue is just trying to get his rocks off from the power jolt to his nether regions? I mean, the author makes a good cause it really is *that* Freudian. That the more you scream and want about “my way or the highway’, the more you’re covering up some deep insecurity. Anarchism is also shown to be simply, “Don’t take hierarchy seriously and once everyone realizes it’s all costumes and titles, it can’t hurt you.”
As for the actual books, they’re ridiculous, mildly smutty, and sketch comedy akin to THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY except predating it by four years. The Illuminati isn’t real, except it is because so many people believe in it that unfortunately it has a non-zero effect on politics and people regularly convince themselves they’re a part of it or try to claim they’re members or just flat out invent versions for themselves. It’s like my claiming to be a Jedi. It’s ridiculous, except there’s no actual Jedi to dispute it so why not? It actually gives some fascinating insight into fandom as people fight over what is the “real” version of Optimus Prime and what a “real” fan of his looks like.
This trilogy inspired the Steve Jackson card game and ironically caused a bit of a real life bit of confusion as the cards keep the satirical progressive spirit of these books. However, then RPGs of the Nineties took the card game and portrayed the conspiracies as serious–even though they’re parodies of a bunch of racist Far Right idiocy. How do I define Far Right? “You absolutely think this view of the world is the only way to go and everyone who says otherwise should be shot*.”
You may notice I haven’t described the plot because that would be missing the point. It is a book about nothing like Seinfeld, except everything, because everything is crashing weirdness from people trying to find out what the real Illuminati’s plots are. Either because they want them to succeed, to thwart them, or to join them. If you haven’t guessed what the joke about this quest to defeat the Illuminati is by my description, you may want to give this one a skip. There is lots of sex and people acting stupidly but, scarily, not that much different from the people in power today.
Is it fantasy? Well, there’s magic, Atlantis, Cthulhu, undead Nazis, magical rock bands, and politicians who actually do want to make the world a better place (they’re just terrible at it). So jump in your giant battleship-sized yellow submarine and seek the truths of the goddess Eris my friends. Or avoid this book like the plague there’s words in it that might make you question things.
* That’s the Far part.
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