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December 2009: Philip K. Dick: VALIS

I'm about a third the way through and I'm mostly liking it although the religious philosophy is somewhat hard to follow at times. I didn't realize the ways in which this book resembles PKD's life, with the drugs, writing the "exegesis", fascination with religion and of of course a California setting.

More later.
 
i dont have time to write now but, defiantly parts of it have to be read a few times. Specially when Dick reads passages from Fat's "diary".Ive read Valis twice and parts of it I still just don't get. when im not at work ill say more .
 
Disenthral said:
i dont have time to write now but, defiantly parts of it have to be read a few times. Specially when Dick reads passages from Fat's "diary".Ive read Valis twice and parts of it I still just don't get. when im not at work ill say more .
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I re-read a couple chapters in I am Alive and You are Dead by Emmanuel Carrere to get a better handle on VALIS and here is what I learned.

~Dick chose the name Horselover Fat because Philip means lover of horses in Greek and Dick means fat in German.

~His Exegesis is about 8,000 pages long and consumed the bulk of his writing efforts from '74 to his death in '82.

~The inspiration for this book came after a bizarre trance Dick went into in 1974 after seeing a Gnostic symbol of a fish on the delivery girl from a pharmacy who was bringing him pain medication for an impacted wisdom tooth.

~"The Empire never ended." Dick believed that the Roman Empire still existed secretly and he was enlightened by the delivery girl with the fish so he could see the world as it actually was. Shortly thereafter he did baptize he son with cocoa that he spilled on the child's head to give the appearance of normalcy so his Roman masters would not notice the performance of the sacrament.

~Dick figured the rapid visions of color that resembled Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky paintings was caused by his taking of huge quantities of vitamin supplements that reduced the amount of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) fluid in his brain.

As I was reading the book I was thinking how it felt a lot like 60s counterculture, conspiracy books by Robert Anton Wilson. Then Wilson is mentioned by name on page 185. That was little strange. A little bit before this Thomas Disch is mentioned, an author I had just read for the first time about a month ago. I don't think I have ever understood a book so little and then enjoyed it so much. I can see why it should be read more than once.
 
So ive always wondered how much of this is "real". In that he though it was real when he wrote it in Exegesis and how much was made more into a story?

While i have read valis i have gone over certain parts a few times to reflect on them. They can mean a lot of things but at the end i still feel pretty lost by the depth of whatever hes thinking :lol:
ands it's 8,000 pages..............

He had many mental health problems. And mental health seems to be a huge aspect of many of his books or stories but i think Valis takes it the furthest.Im yet to read the other books in the valis line... I wonder if they make anything seem clear. Or if its just more confusion.. I think these books are a scary look into Philips mind. Amazing writer but he seems to have violently drifted away from reality towards the end.
 
Probably PKD’s most postmodern book. If you don’t like crazy speculation, you won’t like this much, but he did manage to do it way better than Dan Brown (bleh!)
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I really enjoyed the themes in this book, mainly the struggle and questions humans have with and about the nature of reality and god. While I do think many of Dick's ideas are too fantastical, to say the least, the idea of DNA being memory coils in the process of self-repair is interesting and something that I may want to examine further. It ties into my interest in epi-genetics (the impact of the mind and emotions on genetic make up).

I also enjoyed the questions about the universe. It often does seem to be the invention of an insane being. But if we, as humans, are in the process of self-repair, and therefore imperfect, how can our understanding of the universe be perfect? Perhaps we are the ones that are mad, but the universe is quite sane.

There is a lot that is confusing to me in this book as well, which is why I couldn't give it my highest rating. Perhaps some of that confusion comes from Mr. Dick's own struggle with his mental health. I would like to hear some more thoughts from others in the hopes that I will learn more about this book and it's ideas from them.
 
I'm only a few chapters into this and have already lost interest/become annoyed. I don't get the sense that he's telling a story of any kind, or at least not trying very hard. He seemed to have been trying to excise something from his soul, rather than entertain or instruct a reader. Is there any compelling reason to continue reading this?
 
^If you're determined to read a conventional novel? No. If you aren't interested now you won't be by the end either. Pull the ripcord, land safely.
 
There are so many issues in this book that it becomes a bit confusing.It reminds me of what beergood said about another book,that maybe we are not meant to understand everything but I have to say that I personally keep thinking about it and the questions one asks about God and religion and the "why" certain things happen.

Kevin and his cat made me giggle,a picture of him carrying his dead cat and asking God "why?".

The narrator seems to be taking a step back and calling Horselover Fat "mad" or trying to excuse his "seeing God" as madness,something like an alter ego,or a double personality.

He blames himself for Gloria and that he wasn't a good friend.I love the paragraph where they are at the beach and he describes how "she was already gone then....she had made the decision.."

I will find the exact words and post them.

that's all for now.

edit: this is the quote from the beach scene:

"She had filled in all the details with tools as precise as dental tools.No vacuum existed anywhere in her accout.He could find no error,except ofcourse for the premise,which was that everyone hated her,was out to get her,and she was worthless in every respect.As she talked she began to disappear.He watched her go,it was amazing.Gloria in her measured way,talked herslf out of existence word by word.It was rationality at the service of---well,he thought,at the service of nonbeing.Her mind had become one great expert eraser.All that really remaine was her husk;which is to say,her uninhabited corpse. She is dead now,he realized that day on the beach."
 
joderu95 said:
I like dark humor like that too. Probably because it makes something really difficult to process easier.
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Just that sentence alone made me think of all the things he could ask God,it was about his cat,then I realized how much he loved that cat and the pain of losing it.
 
Have any of you read any of his other books? libri vermis, I saw a post somewhere that you have,did you see a difference in his writing?
 
Libra said:
Have any of you read any of his other books? libri vermis, I saw a post somewhere that you have,did you see a difference in his writing?
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I've also read:

The Man in the High Castle
The Penultimate Truth
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
A Maze of Death
The Zap Gun
The Philip K. Dick Reader

VALIS is not like any of his other books which are more typical novels (although still not very typical). Of the ones I list I liked A Maze of Death the best.
 
Libra said:
Have any of you read any of his other books? libri vermis, I saw a post somewhere that you have,did you see a difference in his writing?
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I have read quite a few by Philip K. Dick, including:

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
A Maze of Death
A Scanner Darkly
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
Ubik
The Divine Invasion
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer


His books are always reality-bending, but VALIS seems to wander off topic and plot more so than others I have read.

My favorites were Ubik and A Scanner Darkly.
 
I finally finished it and the word that seems to be going around is"confusing".Instead of trying to analyze every little thing he says and believes(which is impossible for me) ,I tried to get the sense of an overall picture of what he is struggling/trying to figure out.

It seemed to me that the author made a replica of himself,placed that character across from him and tried to figure out what this character was all about.

Many issues are dealt within this book.Religion ,God,friendships,different opinions,death etc...

Throughout the book he tries to understand the universe,why things happen.

Gloria comes up often .and the helplessness he felt of not being able to save her.

He had a vision and that vision saved his son life,it would be difficult for us to believe it,but I believe his vision send him into a spiraling search for answers that never get answered.

A great thought provoking book.
 
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