Robert Anton Wilson's
Masks of the Illuminati, while not as well-known as
Illuminatus!, remains one of his more interesting
fiction works. The
style --
stream-of-consciousness, intermixed with "experimental" sections which imitate
radio drama or an
essay, and thoroughly fraught with language-play -- is a moderately gratuitous
imitation of
James Joyce. Perhaps more curiously, Mr. Joyce is also one of the book's chief characters -- along with
Albert Einstein and an especially befuddled young
English nobleman, Sir
John Babcock.
At one level, the book is a psychological mystery story, in which Joyce and Einstein unravel the reasons for which young Babcock has gone quite so batty. At another, it is the story of Babcock's initiation and progression in the occult mysteries of the Golden Dawn. At quite another level, it is R.A.W. explaining rather dramatically his particular interpretation of Thelema and mysticism in general.