This is the third Charles Portis book I've read in a row. (The previous two were "The Dog of the South" and "True Grit.") I've loved them all for different reasons, but I am going to take a break now before I read the others. For one thing, there's only five novels (and an odds-and-ends anthology) in total, so I might just as well conserve my thrills. Also, with really distinctive writers like this and Kurt Vonnegut and Samuel Beckett, long immersion in that voice leads to one becoming inured to what are really very interesting approaches and tricks. Sure, you get a sense of the through-lines of their work by steep immersion, but you also get kind of burned out. I came to "Masters of Atlantis" expecting (based on reviews from friends who have read it) for it to be my favorite of three. It wasn't, but it's definitely second-favorite with some upward momentum. I still give "The Dog of the South" the nod, because of the personal tone of the narrative, the distinctive first-person voice of Ray Midge, which, like Mattie Ross, was one of the best-drawn characters I've met in a book. "Masters of Atlantis" is intentionally written in a somewhat formal third-person, as if it's an "official" narrative about the history of the organization, and I think it pushes us away from the characters just a little. Not a lot, but it's a significant break in tone from the others, the omniscient narrator rather than the flummoxed Midge or steel-eyed Ross.But that's a minor quibble. What "Masters of Atlantis" does better than either is create a span of history, and a unique corner of the world that pops with strange details. It's simultaneously pitched for both pathos and slapstick (which is a form of pathos, especially if someone acts the way you'd actually act if you slipped on a banana peel or were slapped by someone you knew). I don't want to spoil the joy of revealing the plot, which is pretty winding and goes from 1917 until the present day (mid-'80s when the book was written). However, the stuff I want to talk about is more of a structural spoiler (i.e. I talk about underlying motivations), so maybe stop reading this if you haven't read the book yet. Or jump to the last paragraph. Or ruin it for yourself, what do I give a shit?What I loved about the book was its submission to inertia. The book starts at a low-energy place, builds up just enough speed to pull out of the station, and then spends the rest of its time pretty much coasting downhill. It's a story about an invented religion (or secret society, or cult, or whatever you want to call it), but it doesn't hit a lot of the common touchstones that religious parodies hit. First of all, the Gnomon teachings. We never really find out what they are. The opening pages suggest that the man that gave Jimmerson the book was a confidence trickster (given the weeks of free meals and $200 for "official rainments"), but we never really find out where the text came from. I expected that we might find out that it was just a poorly translated Greek travel book or something -- the standard touchstone of "isn't crazy the way religious people worship a blah that actually stands for blah blah," but Portis isn't interested in any of that. To him, the "Codex Pappas" is just the "Codex Pappas." We know all we need to know. Pletho Pappas comes for a visit a few times, and is brusquely turned away each time. Would he have explained more? Was he real? Is any of this "Real"? Doesn't matter to Portis. He just wants to watch his characters trudge through their entropic lives.After a brief burst of activity in Europe (and even less in the States), membership in the Gnomon faith dwindles to nearly nothing. The Temple stands between two highways, and the old men sleep in the comfy chairs of the Red Room, as the rest of the house becomes dilapidated. There's a "charismatic frontman" in Austin Popper, but he spends most of his time drunk and fucking up. The failed Gnomon who becomes an investigator is always almost about to catch Popper, but never quite does. The Congressmen of Texas are deeply concerned about the Gnomon influence on "The elderly, college students, and other people with impaired thinking," and launch an investigation, not realizing that the church has not picked up a new disciple in decades, and may never. (The Congressional hearing on Gnomonism genuinely made me laugh out loud.)There's quiet nihilism to the whole story, kind of like Robert Downey's film "Greaser's Palace." It takes all the pieces of religious allegory and just rubs them together, suggesting something worse than "there is no god," that "the slow, boring process of religious may prevent us for looking for god." But maybe that's not even it. If ever there was a book that has more fastidiously avoided telegraphing its point, I don't know what it could be. "Masters of Atlantis" lays itself out for us without rhyme or reason. "The Dog of the South" spent every page longing for sense in a nonsensical world. "Masters of Atlantis" seems to be fine with no answers, and even dwindling questions. It's less Mark Twain and more Samuel Beckett in that sense. We don't come away with "religion is stupid" or "they hung their faith on trifles even they didn't understand." It was something closer to "my obsession looks completely ridiculous to others." That said, the world created by Portis in this book was better and more detailed than any I've seen so far. It was the world I most hated leaving of the three, the one I wished would continue for a few hundred more pages, the one I felt most "in." I might dock it a half a star (4.5) for some moments where the characters get unrealistically buffoonish. "I've got a meeting for you with this booster group. They will help restore our standing in the community." "What time is the meeting?" "2:00." "We can't...that's my nap time." Also, the booster group were these over-the-top caricatures who had meetings with names like "Plundering In Broad Daylight" and "Exploiting Others Without Remorse." For such a deft satirist, there were some surprisingly on-the-nose moments. These are quibbles, sure, but when you have three books each of which you'd award the five-star rating to, it's only the tiny details that keep you from putting all three uncomfortably on the gold-medal pedestal.Like everything I've read from Portis, this is unquestionably recommended. But don't forget to read "The Dog of the South," too.
When I was an undergraduate searching for belief systems (or for denunciations of belief systems - they are essentially the same thing) I came across a curious book in the Main Library. The book was called Lawsonomy and it was a wacky introduction to a early 20th century "philosophy" of Alfred Lawson. "Lawsonomy" was self-published and must have been donated to the library at some point. In any case, the all-encompassing claims, magical thinking and off-the-wall screwiness (the "zig-zag" theory of the universe for example) quickly cured me of any momentary lapse of falling into any belief system.And that is one of the points of Masters of Atlantis - that any system of thought or beliefs usually just comes out of the noggin of some screwy bastard. The novel concentrates on Gnomony - but if you look closely, just about every kind of belief or organization is satirized by Portis. Religion and cults (of course), government, law, academics, business, get-rich-quick schemes, get-healthy-quick schemes, self-improvement, self-abasement - they all get their brief shot of sanitizing satirical sunlight in Portis' gentle comic novel. At the end, though, all that matters is human company and how we deal with each other - and the Masters of Atlantis finally get a moment of grace in their new giant, yellow mobile home with "cathedral roof and shingles of incorruptible polysterene"
Do You like book Masters Of Atlantis (2000)?
If you have at least a passing interest in all those strange cults, secret societies and self-help programs of dubious origin and worth that seem to travel with humans like fleas with dogs, and you enjoy humor in your writing, then you're lying about at least one of those preferences if you don't enjoy this novel.Stretching from the waning days of WWI to presumably the '80s (specific dates are mentioned infrequently, but the book was published in '85 and the timing fits), it's another quick, fun, yet moving read from a largely unsung master of quick, fun, yet moving reads. And like all of Portis' novels, the narrative is moved along by people who are searching for something -- and may or may or may not realize that they were more fulfilled by the search than the finding.Only downside to this one is what feels like too much exposition and not enough dialogue. Portis is great at writing both, but given my druthers I'd rather read his dialogue. Wait, one more downside: I've now read all five of Portis' published novels, and given his age and the fact that his last book was published in '91, it means I'll probably never have the pleasure of reading a "new" Portis novel again. Sigh.
—Nate Shelton
The novel doesn't have a lot of action, and it isn't laugh-out-loud funny. It's consistenly amusing the whole way, though, and Portis shows in a very entertaining way how absurd secret societies like this one are. At the same time, though, he's not unkind, and the ending is so sweet, absurd, tragic, and, at the same time, uplifting, that I didn't know exactly what to feel, but I felt it a lot. It's an ending I'll never forget, and certainly one of my favorites of all time. Link to Full Review
—David Peterson
I'm now 4/5 on the Portis-spree I've been on since December now - this Portis novel is definitely the funniest - something in his delivery of sly little jokes will certainly remind you of the Coen Brothers, Conan O'Brien AND the Simpsons all at once. I am pretty sure the guys who wrote the great Stonecutters Simpsons episode must have loved the heck out of this book about a Atlantean secret society called the Gnomons...that seems completely fradulent & imagined - and yet, completely real in terms of fraudulent, imagined socities. Masters of Atlantis is full of shysters, scholars, scholarly-shysters and extremely talkative dreamers all drawn to one Lamar Jimmerson, the first person to translate the "Codux Pappus," the Gnomons' secret book of knowledge - which to everyone else, looks like a bewildering assortment of theorems and triangles. I didn't think you could get so much comedy mileage out of laughing at triangles, but here we are. I have one Portis book left to read and I am sad about it.
—Sherrie
