Reviews for Valis

The average rating for Valis based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-07-16 00:00:00 Benedict Santos "A question we had to learn to deal with during the dope decade was, How do you break the news to someone that his brains are fried?" So says the first-person narrator in VALIS, Philip K. Dick's autobiographical novel of spiritual odyssey, a novel where the narrator begins by laying out the major issues he must deal with as he attempts to gain a measure of sanity along with a sense of purpose and the meaning of life: drugs, a desire to help others, the pull of insanity, suicide and death, time and place (Northern California in the 60s), split-identity (the narrator alternately identifies and disidentifies with one Horselover Fat), God and occlusion (he receives otherworldly messages via a beam of pink light prompting him to explore ancient Gnosticism) - all in all a 60s California-style version of the novels of Hermann Hesse, novels like Siddhartha, Damion and Steppenwolf. What a wild ride. For example, here is a list of what I see as the top ten conundrums we are asked to ponder: One - Theophany The narrator explains how a theophany is self-disclosure by the divine, in other words, a theophany isn't something we do; rather, a theophany is something the divine - the God or gods, the higher powers - does to us. The intense pink beam of light experienced by the narrator's persona Horselover Fat was just such a theophany. But, then, the question invariably arises: how are we to know if we received a true theophany or are suffering from an illusion? Two - When your theophany goes against the grain of the conventional One of the most fascinating and hilarious parts of the novel is the narrator's therapy session with Maurice, a Hasidic Jew. In his session, Horselover Fat contrasts the 'true' God, the God of the Gnostics, the God of his pink ray of light, with the 'flawed' God of Genesis. Maurice's reaction to such an esoteric explanation of the universe makes for lively reading, a high point of insight into the rocky spiritual challenges faced by our narrator. Three - When your discover others share your theophany Turns out, there are a number of other people who have had a similar theophany from the true Gnostic God. Horselover Fat's encounter with these men and women challenges his very idea of sanity since he observes just how far zealots will go in their zealotry. Four - How to deal with your theophany once it starts to wear off From the novel: "They ought to make it a binding clause that if you find God you get to keep him. For Fat, finding God (if indeed he did find God) became, ultimately, a bummer, a constantly diminishing supply of joy, sinking lower and lower like the contents of a bag of uppers." Darn, if only God were as readily available as drugs. Five - When you encounter the many sides of you As Harry Haller of Hesse's Steppenwolf experiences the many facets of his personal identity in the Magic Theater, so, in the course this novel, PKD (yes, again, a very autobiographical work) discovers the many sides of PKD. How many versions are there? Feel free to round to the nearest dozen. Six - The concept of time Is someone or something playing a board game with time and we humans as mere players? Can time be abolished and transcended? If so, how do we go about it? Seven - Zebra, that is, pure living intelligence, so called by Horselover Fat Can an out-of-cosmos intelligence contact humans? This question is related to the possibility of a true theophany. Eight - The presence of evil in the universe Is there an answer to Kevin's pressing question: What about my dead cat? In other words, why do bad things happen to good cats or why is there evil in the world? Nine - The Exegesis An exegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of scripture or a sacred text. VALIS includes many entries from PKD's thousand page exegesis published as a separate book. The question looms: would PKD have expanded his exegesis to several more thousands of pages had he lived to age 90? My own guess is definitely 'yes', since once you start to unravel the mysteries of the universe according to your own schemata, three questions pop up for every answer you offer. Ah, the mysteries of the universe! Ten - What is VALIS? Sure, it stands for Vast Active Living Intelligence System, but where does it fit into the novel? I wouldn't want to spoil this question by providing an answer. You will have to read it for yourself. Once again, novel reading as a wild magic carpet ride. I recommend you hop on.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-07-23 00:00:00 Kimberly Gilbert Imagine taking a walk in a bad neighborhood and sitting on a sidewalk bench. Beside you sits a disheveled homeless person with crazy eyes. Despite your best efforts the two of you strike up a conversation. Slowly, incredulously, you begin to realize that this crazy person is well read. No, this person is educated, well educated and though he goes off on wild tangents and makes seemingly ludicrous claims, his mind is a brilliantly tangled mess, a fecundity of original thought. And yet all the while the crazy eyes continue to make you uncomfortable. This is a fitting illustration of reading VALIS by Philip K. Dick. Narrated by the author and yet telling the tale of Horselover Fat (a pseudonym for Dick himself) and yet with allusions that Fat is himself (and a direct reference to David Bowie!) and only written in the third person to make a better story. VALIS is a theological, philosophical, sociological funhouse ride. Is Dick really a self-medicated schizophrenic? Does he affect this perspective to tell the story? Is the perspective an unguarded glimpse at mental illness; is this a literary affectation for effect? VALIS may be his best novel or his most unstable, or both, it grips the reader and holds tight and all the while the reader is held like a rubber-necking motorist slowly passing a wreck. But is the wreck real or a cleverly crafted performance art? It all goes towards the brilliance of the book. The cameo appearance by David Bowie was very cool, that conversation can easily be imagined. Clearly well researched, Dick's eclectic litany of abstract and unorthodox ideas are reminiscent of Kesey or H.P. Lovecraft. VALIS represents the literary culmination of much of his research that readers can find in the The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick. If you don't like PKD as a writer, don't bother, but if you like his writing, this one is a must read.