Masters of Atlantis

Name: Masters of Atlantis
Brand: Recorded Books
Availability: InStock
Author: Charles Portis
ISBN: 9781980025597

Author: Charles Portis

Narrator: Jefferson Mays

Unabridged: 9 hr 15 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 05/10/2022

Categories: Fiction, Suspense & Thriller

Synopsis

Charles Portis’s quintessential comic masterpiece centers on Lamar Jimmerson, leader of the Gnomon Society, the international fraternal order dedicated to preserving the arcane wisdom of the lost city of Atlantis. Stationed in France in 1917, Jimmerson comes across a little book crammed with
Atlantean puzzles, Egyptian riddles, and extended alchemical metaphors. It’s the Codex Pappus—the sacred Gnomon text. Soon he is basking in its lore, convinced that his mission on Earth is to extend the ranks of this noble brotherhood.

Taking us through the publication of Jimmerson’s own Gnomic texts, to the schism that rocks the Gnomic community, to Jimmerson’s disastrous bid to become the governor of Indiana, and finally to the fateful gathering of the Gnomons in a
mobile-home park in East Texas, Masters of Atlantis is a cockeyed journey into an America of misfits, con men, and innocents.

About Charles Portis

Charles Portis (1933–2020) was an American author best known for his classic Western True Grit and the novel Norwood, both of which were made into major motion pictures. He served in the US Marine Corps during the Korean War and then attended the University of Arkansas. As a reporter, he wrote for the New York Herald Tribune and was also its London bureau chief. His first novel, Norwood, was published in 1966 and True Grit in 1968. His other novels include Masters of Atlantis, The Dog of the South, and Gringos.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Sam on September 20, 2016

A couple of gullible fools are conned into believing a book of gibberish contains the mysteries of the universe. They establish a secret society based around the text and spend the rest of their lives being idiots. Charles Portis’ Masters of Atlantis is a light comedy/satire on cults and secret socie......more

Goodreads review by Krok Zero on August 07, 2011

My favorite Portis, I think. Such perfect command of tone: stone-face deadpan treatment of screwball-nutty material, like the prose equivalent of a Buster Keaton film. The nominal subject is cults and secret societies, but that's just Portis' entry point into the same kind of earnest eccentrics that......more

Goodreads review by David on May 20, 2024

What a treat! What a find! Portis' next-to-last of his 5 novels is simply hilarious from start to finish; sheer entertainment of the highest order - a wildly eccentric satire that never lets up and never lets down! I'm not recalling how I have once again happened upon Portis' path. I know I read 'Tr......more

Goodreads review by Tom on February 22, 2019

Lamar Jimmerson accidentally starts a thriving secret society. Silliness ensues. Lampooning the already wacky conspiracy literature genre doesn't take too much effort, since the whole subset of books is generally weird and wild to start with (see also the Illuminatus! trilogy, a personal favorite of......more

Goodreads review by Tim on March 08, 2011

About 70 pages into his fourth novel, Charles Portis seems to decide to turn up the heat on his simmering cauldron of fun and set the whole mess to bubbling and popping, cleanup be damned. "Masters of Atlantis" (4.5 stars) thereafter goes from a quite enjoyable, fairly amusing tale to just about as......more