"Who profits? Who else but the Devil?" he answered rhetorically, giving vent to the kind of unwholesome laugh that makes people move away uncomfortably.

"If you listen to seemingly dull people very closely, you'll see that they're all mad in different and interesting ways, and are merely struggling to hide it."

I read this book when I was in high school and there are passages that still keep me up late at night just thinking about them, even though the last time I read it was maybe about eight years ago. Two years ago, when the NY Times Book Review was trotting out the usual suspects for its list of the greatest novels of the late twentieth century, I said this should have been on it, and I stand by that. Easily the best, most tightly constructed novel Wilson ever wrote.

Here's an extremely short recap: A man walks in on James Joyce and Albert Einstein and, over the course of the story, we learn of the terrors he has suffered at the hands of Aleister Crowley, who even now is closing in on him.

interesting reading on the illuminati, hermetic order of the golden dawn, and satanism, in general. i read this one when i had a lot of time to spare and was exploring links between the french revolution, the illuminati, the freemasons, and the idea of the new world order.

Read this book!

I’m a huge fan of Tom Robbins and this book just goes to the next level, you’ll see.

This has probably become one of my favorite all time reads.

RAW has no right to be this good!

On the surface, everything about this novel appears schlocky and lowgrade. At best a Dan Brown 'Occult thriller' at worst, the kind of pablum lauded by red pill charlatans and conspiracy nuts.

Don't be fooled. This is not a conspiracy novel but rather a novel about conspiracy novels. Why do people continue to crave the occult? How can we trust our own common sense in a world that feels increasingly false? What's the real difference between profundity and pretentiousness?

RAW is intelligent, sophisticated, funny and always absorbing. His ability to flit between different perspectives, to play with the perceptions of his reader is unrivalled. His facility to temper profundity with humour is second only to Vonnegut.

The overall effect of this novel once you've finished is insatiable, eager curiosity. RAW makes you excited and happy to be alive in such a weird and silly world

Synopsis: Sir John Babcock fights the Illuminati with the help of buddies James Joyce and Albert Einstein.

Sorry to say this but I found this boring, disconnected and confusing.
I gave up after around 200 pages as I have so many good books on my "to-read list".

There's really only one vein of Wilsonerei, and you either like it or you don't. I do. RAW was one of my major influences.

As a member of the species, Masks of the Illuminati is less deep and heartwrenching than the Illuminatus! trilogy, but more sound and interesting than Prometheus Rising.

This one involves Jung, Einstein, and Joyce solving an occult mystery and helping a Young Man Who Got In Over His Head. Aleister Crowley makes an appearance.

Wilson's good at fake-Joyce. I enjoy it. He's one of the few people I know who reads Joyce the way I do -- not in hushed voice and on bended knee, but lightly and laughing.

I never found the Golden Dawn/Masonic junk appealing, but if it is crack to you (as it is to many) you'll find plenty of material.

These books need illustrating badly, by some collage-happy guy like Coulthart who knows from Beardsley and Hapshash.

I first read this book in 1999 and decided to read it again to see if it hit me differently. As Jones says, the door opens inward, and it was fun to recall the experience of enjoying this pop-occultist mystery novel. At my current age, the Agatha Christie tropes tickled me more than the transpersonal psychology and religious conspiracies, which were super fun when I was 21. It’s a fun read, even if Wilson mostly has every character speaking from his own voice, and even if you have to trudge through roughly 10% of the book being quasi-nonsensical narratives of nightmares and drug trips mostly told in gibberish.

A clever metaphysical detective story masquerading as a Gothic horror, this book casts James Joyce and Albert Einstein as its super-sleuths, with the two trading off the roles of Sherlock Holmes and Watson as the plot demands it. The sinister Aleister Crowley is also integral to the plot, acting as their Moriarty-like foil.

Though set in pre-WWI Europe, this novel shares many themes and concepts with Wilson's other works (generally set in the mid-to-late twentieth century.) There is the familiar fascination with secret societies and magickal rites, conspiracies and manipulation, the benevolent hidden within the frightening, and scientific illumination masquerading as the supernatural. And, while occasionally dry and drawn out, most of it is also extremely funny.

0,5

The set up is similar to a classic Sherlock Holmes story: a character tells a wild tale of mysterious events, and his listener then sorts out the details of the tale to arrive at the truth behind those events. In Wilson's novel, the tale starts with the reports of a series of shocking deaths, and the discovery that these events may be linked to the activities of a secret society. In this respect, Masks of the Illuminati might remind readers of books like The Da Vinci Code.

Wilson's novel is fun reading for anyone interested in exploring possible connections among such esoteric subjects as Rosicrucianism, the Tarot, Cabala and Jungian archetypes. However, these connections, in Wilson's representation, remain open to question throughout, as there is much in the book that is hard to take seriously. For instance, the "detectives" who take on the work of sifting through illusion to find the reality beneath are no less a pair of personages than James Joyce and Albert Einstein (it is clear both from this novel and from other of his works that Wilson is a fan of Joyce's: if you are familiar with Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, you'll recognize where Wilson has borrowed not only narrative techniques but even memorable lines and phrases from the Irish writer's work for this novel).

Acquired Mar 17, 2006
City Lights Book Shop, London, Ontario