Masters of Atlantis

Literary fiction · Absurdism · Comedy · Picaresque · Satire

Print length: 247 pagesOverlook Press, 2000

Description

In 1917, World War I veteran Lamar Jimmerson receives a cryptic book from a beggar who claims it preserves the lost wisdom of Atlantis. Initiated into the Gnomon Society and sent searching for its master in Malta, Jimmerson soon helps establish rival branches in America and Europe. The movement attracts innocent believers, eccentrics, and opportunists, including con man Austin Popper, whose talent for publicity reshapes its American following. Doctrinal quarrels, suspect mathematics, and competing ambitions steadily fracture the brotherhood, yet its members continue treating riddles and alchemical imagery as practical science, even offering their supposed technology to the U.S. government during World War II. The novel follows decades of elaborate folly in a deadpan satire of secret societies, credulity, institutional power, and the hunger for hidden knowledge.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Descriptive · Direct · Witty

Pace

Moderate

Tone

Absurdist · Detached · Humorous · Satirical

Structure

Episodic · Linear

Focus

Character · Ideas · Plot

Emotional intensity

2 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 3 / 5
Ideas: 3 / 5
Structure: 3 / 5
Background knowledge: 2 / 5

Themes

AmbitionCommunityKnowledge and truthMoralityPowerReligion and faith

About Charles Portis

Charles Portis was an American novelist and former newspaper reporter whose fiction favors stubborn travelers, eccentric talkers, and quests that keep slipping off course. His prose is direct and dialogue-driven, with comedy emerging from exact phrasing, practical disputes, and characters who pursue dubious ideas with unwavering logic. True Grit gives this method unusual momentum through Mattie Ross, an older narrator recalling the manhunt she joined at fourteen. Her precise, dry account keeps frontier heroics subject to her sharp judgments about money, duty, and courage. The Dog of the South turns a pursuit through the American South, Mexico, and Belize into a picaresque chain of detours, unreliable allies, private theories, and failing schemes. In Masters of Atlantis, Portis widens that structure across decades as a secret society fractures over riddles, suspect mathematics, publicity, and institutional ambition. His newspaper experience also extended into journalism and nonfiction later collected with stories and a play in Escape Velocity.

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Overlook Press
Language: English
ISBN: 9781585670215

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