VALIS
“Dick is one of the ten best American writers of the twentieth century, which is saying a lot. Dick was a kind of Kafka steeped in LSD and rage.”—Roberto BolañoWhat is VALIS? This question is at the heart of Philip K. Dick’s ground-breaking novel, and the first book in his defining trilogy. When...
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“Dick is one of the ten best American writers of the twentieth century, which is saying a lot. Dick was a kind of Kafka steeped in LSD and rage.”—Roberto BolañoWhat is VALIS? This question is at the heart of Philip K. Dick’s ground-breaking novel, and the first book in his defining trilogy. When a beam of pink light begins giving a schizophrenic man named Horselover Fat (who just might also be known as Philip K. Dick) visions of an alternate Earth where the Roman Empire still reigns, he must decide whether he is crazy, or whether a godlike entity is showing him the true nature of the world. VALIS is essential reading for any true Philip K. Dick fan, a novel that Roberto Bolaño called “more disturbing than any novel by [Carson] McCullers.” By the end, like Dick himself, you will be left wondering what is real, what is fiction, and just what the price is for divine inspiration.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780547572413 (0547572417)
Publish date: October 18th 2011
Publisher: Mariner Books
Edition language: English
Series: VALIS Trilogy (#1)
Is Phil Dick talking about regressing back to former time periods, or the much more radical notion of previous structures existing in the sub-strata of reality and emanating forward, like the notion of ancient Rome, a proto-fascist state, The Black Iron Prison of VALIS, falling forward through histo...
First of all, I don't really think that VALIS is a science fiction novel, although I'm not really sure what VALIS is.Phillip K. Dick apparently had some sort of mystical experience in 1974, he also did a lot of drugs and suffered from mental illness. VALIS is an autobiographical account of all that...
I just could not get into it. It felt just like [b:A Scanner Darkly|14817|A Scanner Darkly|Philip K. Dick|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348590465s/14817.jpg|1527439] only not as interesting and characters not as likeable. There's only so much annoying and unlikeable drug addicted characters full of ...
This book has everything except plot. I still love the fraking hell out of it. As a mind experiment gone horribly, horribly awry, I felt myself slipping into PKD's mindset and taking every point seriously, as you could just tell that he was. It felt like the ramblings of a man who had gone through s...
You can see that Horselover Fat is based on PKD himself within the first few lines which gave me a lot of hope for this book as he did some of his best writing when he was out of his head. I can pretty much say I was let down. I don't mind a difficult read but this was painful at times and there wer...
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