If a reader tried to track down every reference, they'd be going to wikipedia three and four times per page and likely lose the thread of the story entirely. I treated the book like I treat life, following those threads which seemed, to me, to be the most fruitful, and refusing to become bogged down in the fact that I can't know everything. Some didn't intrigue me as much, and I was happy to let them lie. If one piqued my interest, I looked it up and more often than not, learned something entirely new.
Unlike other reviewers, I did not find the numerous asides and allusions to be distracting. Some parts were better than others, but there are many parts to be considered. I can certainly say I liked it, but it's hard to say how much. There are so many aspects which one could address, so many points of divergence, ideas, philosophies, and influences, but at it's heart, it's a rollicking adventure story that, despite it's many political and social themes, rarely takes itself too seriously. Ī sprawling, many-faceted, satirical series, Illuminatus! is difficult to rate and more difficult to review. Confusing, witty, filthy, non-pc with some lovecraftian elements and a porpoise named Howard whats not to like :). If it was a complete story i think it would be five stars. Its all delightfully chaotic and i don't know whether its to my credit or shame that after a while most of starting making sense :P. To make things even odder sometimes the characters themselves start hearing or seeing whats happening to each other. You'll be following two detectives in new york while you keep hearing a chant of We Will Not Be Moved, without knowing where its coming from, until the scene suddenly switches and you find yourself at a peace rally 3 years earlier. So you might have 5 different characters in different times and places doing different things all within a single paragraph. You know the way some novels have this floaty omniscient narrator, well this story goes one step farther as all the characters are sort of connected on some psychic level and you follow the connection from place to place. The best (and for some people, worse) thing about the book is its structure. It never takes itself too seriously there's even a couple of reviews of the book in the book complaining about how terrible it is :), the sections on conspiracy theories and numerology can be boring but again they feel like they are intended to annoy. Knowledge of 70's america, the hippies, beats, riots etc all useful as might be watching the Public Enemies movie.
but the Lovecraft influence is strong and not hidden, the necronomicon and lovecraft both appear in the tale but so does everyone else, machen, chambers, james bond, 20,000 leagues and many other things get referenced. I thought at first it might be a direct retelling of Call of Cthulhu which it isn't.
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