Masters of Atlantis

De: Charles Portis

Narrado por: Jefferson Mays

Lamar Jimmerson is the 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 the lore of lost Atlantis, convinced that his mission on earth is to administer to and extend the ranks of the noble brotherhood.

©1985 Charles Portis (P)2022 Recorded Books

A dry deadpan humor about cults and conmen.

An underrated good time for those able to discern the humor from a bunch of conmen trying and largely failing to find either deep esoteric wisdom or a good grift.

Weird and hilarious

Another small odd gem from Portis. Nobody depicts losers and weirdos like him. You can absolutely picture every scene.

Bold characters. Flights of fancy. A fun send-up cult wackos that has special relevance today.

Too many marginal characters and meanderings, but wonderfully expressive language. A true Portis romp, however, that his fans will enjoy.

a remarkable book!

Charles Portis was a unique writer and this is one of his best. And the narration was a pleasure. He had a way of writing about the foibles of mankind that laced with very dry humor. There are elements of this book that actually remind me of Gogol, which I mean as a very high compliment.

Jefferson Mays is outstanding

A search for meaning, and a meaningful life, undertaken by fools with an extreme deficit of self-awareness.

Narrated expertly.

Not whatI expected, yet a pleasant surprise.

Great Narrator and Great Author

The comedy was awesome. It felt like something the Coen Brothers would make a movie of. This narrator did a phenomenal job with everything

What if “The Illuminatius Trilogy” was boring?

Great performance of an occasionally chuckle-worthy but largely tedious story that mostly seems to serve as a vehicle for mildly amusing characterizations of eccentrics and con artists. Squanders the potential of its genuinely funny start through episodic nonsense. Seemingly no real affection for any of the characters on the part of the author, though at least some sympathetic glances at the story’s long-suffering women.

Sometimes, a novel is misunderstood and under-appreciated in its time. In this case, I think it got exactly the lukewarm reception it deserved. Later generations inexplicably came to see in it a comic brilliance. This may say more about the paucity of contemporary comic novels than the actual quality of this one.

Brilliant book and performance

If you don’t know Portis, reading him for the first time is shocking - where has Portis been all my life and what the hell else have I been reading?
And of the hundreds of books I’ve listened to I’ve never heard or enjoyed a performance more.

Boring

A boring and dull story that starts slow and goes nowhere
Rather pointless
Extremely dull

boring

Nothing much happens in this book. The story has been told many times. As long as there are gullible people to be duped, there will arise those to do it. His previous stories had more of an arc to them and kept you reading, but not this one.