Customer Reviews

The Widow's Son (The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles, Vol 2)

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Robert Anton Wilson almost defines a new genre with this series. His intelligence and witt will leave you in stitches, and the conspiracies make the X-files look boring. The Chronicles series are part conspiracy, part satire, part historical fiction, part philosophical, and completely mind altering. The characters graft themselves to your skin, and you'll never look at history the same. Consider this book sex for the brain.If it were any better they'd have to make it illegal.

The only RAW I had read before picking up this book wasIlluminatus!. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed it (even missing the firstof the trilogy/series). The book is about Sigismundo, an Italian goingto school in Paris, who happens to have...[upset] some very importantpeople. After being attacked, arrested, and going through variousother punishments, he goes through attempted brainwashing by a groupwhich believes he'll be their savior, the prophecized Widow'sSon. Worth buying for the excerpt from the Gospel According to MaryMagdeline alone, it's definitely a great book.

In 1989, I had the privelige to appear in a production of Wilson's play, "Wilhelm Reich in Hell". The play was extreme didacticism, but clever and fun in it's own right. We got to meet, and spend some time with the great Robert Anton Wilson.

I have already reviewed the first book in this series, but thought I would drop in and point out some stuff about this.

Wilson doesn't just walk a fine line here, he engages in metaplot. The story also serves as a platform for a critique on pedagoguery, via the seldom used function of the footnote war. Sigismundo's tale, at the same time, is a ripping adventure, a political diatribe, a lesson in various traditions and several kinds of funny all at the same time.

When the world turns upside down, watch carefully. Wilson moves a player off the board and into the action deftly, and, as always, with great humor. This is a book that you can read a hundred times and always discover something new. Buy all three now while they are available!

fnord
by the way...Robert Anton Wilson passed on earlier this year, and today's rabid conspiracy buffs should always read Wilson. He found humor in the most shocking of things, and dignity and honor in the oddest of places. So should we all.

"The Historical Illuminatus" books are not only historically accuate but extremely playful, in an intellectual sense! Buy this book for the "Gospel according to Thomas" alone! (That's the afterword)

This is Wilson's more adventure-oriented of the three, and is a joy to read. It has the feel of a book more like the Three Musketeers or Treasure Island or something, but it also is certainly a Robert Anton Wilson book. It isn't quite as heady as the other two, but it certainly has its moments. There seems some distance from Sigismundo and the reader this time. Anyway, a great book and a great series. Read them all, if you can find them.

This is the second in the Historical Illuminatus Trilogy, and it's as good as the first one. You will learn some history here, as well as some occult and conspiracy concepts as well. Please, though, if you read this book, please read the first in the series first. Robert Anton Wilson left us on January 11, 2007. He will be sorely missed.

Eheh,

To the illuminated reader with the comment on dope smoking. There's a little more to it than that, as you may well understand, had you the wealth of knowledge that the author of this book has spent his life attatining. "Dope" of various kinds have been historically reffered to with far less right-wing and insulting names throughout history, it is impossible at times to separate much of history and it's narrators from the use of such substances. George Bush would disapprove I know, but then he is an idiot too.

Incidentally, this book is a stunning work, many of the ideas can not be accepted on face value or deemed to be true, but then you can say that about any book of fiction or non fiction.

After Volume One, I expected more of the same and got it. Genuinely human characters and compelling stories. Having learned to be cautious with first opinions of characters from previous RAW works, complexity and moral ambiguities arise. This was one of those books that one wants to rush through, but drags out, not wanting it to end even though there was a volume three. (I recommend getting all 3 together)

As a sequel to The Earth Will Shake, The Widow's Son brings the reader further into the strange world of the Illuminated Seers, the Rosicrucians and renaissance time Italy through the eyes of protagonist Sigismundo Celine. The Widow's Son is a must read for any RAW fan.

One of the smartest men I've ever had the pleasure to read. I threw away my tin foil hat after reading.