Revisiting Philip K Dick

now finished: VALIS by Philip K. Dick

Despite my occasional sigh-fi wall, Philip K. Dick made the top half of my A-to-Z Literary Blog Project authors, and I read a second book of his, VALIS.  Or is it Valis? It gets written both ways. The book didn't blow me away, but it was enjoyable. I recall that the first PKD book I read, Flow My Tears the Policeman Said, was greatest in its last third, and I think somewhere between the halfway to two-thirds-of-the-way points of this one would where I started to most enjoy it, too.

Really, though, in the end, what I enjoyed about this book were the pithy quotes that I find awesome both in and out of context. So, I decided to share here my  Top Eight Valis quotes. With no further ado:

"A lot can be said for the infinite mercies of God, but the smarts of a good pharmacist, when you get down to it it, is worth more."  -- p. 44

"Sherri resented every creature on earth, in order of proximity to her; that is the more she had to do with someone or something the more she resented him, or her or it." -- p. 89

"You can understand why Fat no longer knew the difference between fantasy and divine revelation -- assuming there is a difference, which has never been established." --p. 101

"Someone is playing a board game with time, someone we can't see. It is not God. That is an archaic name given to this entity by societies in the past, and by people now who are locked into anachronistic thinking. We need a new term, but what we are dealing with is not new." - p. 119

"...on Judgment Day and they're going to laugh at him like he laughs at us. That's what he deserves: a Great Judge exactly like himself.  That's not a bad theological idea," I said. "You find yourself facing yourself." -p.129

"It would not be in China, nor in India or Tasmania for that matter, that Horselover Fat would find the fifth Savior. Valis had shown us where to look: a beer can run over by a passing taxi. We had just saved Fat a lot of money, plus a lot of wasted time and effort, including the bother of obtaining vaccinations and a passport." - p. 158

"God can be good and terrible--not in succession--but at the same time.  This is why we seek a mediator between us and him; we approach him through the mediating priest and attenuate and enclose him through the sacraments. It is for our own safety; to trap him within confines which render him safe." - p 178

"It is amazing that when someone else spouts the nonsense you yourself believe you can readily perceive it as nonsense." --  p. 210

Tears and Roses

I am thinking of electing Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said to my top 10, despite my lack of being able to say anything profound about it here. A book's entry into my top 10 is always a significant event, most recently achieved by Nabokov's Pale Fire in -- what was that -- 2003? Well, unless you count War and Peace. But the W & P just sort of occupies a place of its own; it defies ranking. As novels go, it transcends the medium. About the top 10, the last contender for a spot was Lust for Life by Irving Stone, but in the end that book met a fate much like that of USC's this weekend: it tried, it merited semi-finaldom, but it did not travel to the championship. I still love Lust for Life, though, don't get me wrong. But it really brought me something beyond Top Ten-ness. It brought me Vincent Van Gogh. Totally different.

Anyway, while my mental jury is still out on Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, we have moved on to The Name of the Rose. Is it fated to crack the Top Ten as well, seeing as it makes a lot of top ten lists of a lot of people I've known over the years? I'm so glad I'm finally reading it. Actually, I have something to say about fate's role in the selection of this book...but Property class awaits...stay tuned!

MADness

All right. It has come to my attention that since my recent discovery of my love for Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, I am giving a lot of random and vague ramblings, without giving a lot of information. Although, hello, isn't that what blogs are for? But that's not the point. The point is: I'm BUSY, people! I'm also almost done with the book. Which I love. And about which I plan to say something specific and enlightening and profound. Soon. Very soon.

For now, another fun quote:

"'Is she insane?' Jason asked him.
'I'm not in a position to know, sir,' the man in the brown uniform said."
-- p. 160

Tear-flowin' love

Love it. Love it love it love it. So much love for the Philip K. Dick. I totally want to go read other things he's written, like right now! I might do that. Speaking of what to read next, for anyone who cares to vote, I'm looking at Eco Eliot or Erdrich for 'E.' (That's Umberto, George, and Louise.) Speaking of voting, and Georges, today I got the brilliant inspiration in the midst of the signs posted for all the "Vote for me for president of law school student government" etc. signs that are up right now, as the campaign for next year's officers is in full swing, that why don't we vote George W. for president of Hofstra Law SBA and then he can step down from "his" current position? That got me a dirty look. Anyway, I digress. Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said is so good!

It's funny, like, "I hate L.A., too, but we have to live with it. It's there."

It's totally amazingly deep, as I tried to at least mention in my last post.

And furthermore I totally want to know what is going to happen!

I LIKE this Alys character, a lot. Except now she's ... well, bones? Maybe? What exactly happened there?

I definitely recommend this book.

Off to Indigo...

Love gained

First of all, I now love Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. That's right, I said love. I also love that I'm reading it. I don't know what great secrets of the universe are contained in Valis and the others, but this one is transcendent. WHO KNEW. Love it.

And speaking of love, how brilliant is Philip K. Dick? Because oh, you know, along about chapter 11 he just completely defines love. Hello? Have we not, collectively, as a species, been trying to define love via song, philosophy, scripture, poem, art, action, thought, drug-induced frenzy...for millennia? And along comes Philip to just throw it out there. Love: it overcomes the instinct for survival!

Thing is, even if I didn't have to dash off to Property at the moment, I'd have an incredibly hard time explaining this, and my attempts to paraphrase him would be pathetic. But it is so intense and so good, this book!

And dash I must.

Emily Fusselman's rabbit. Holy. Crap. I will have more to say here.

The Writer's Last Sigh

First, Kathy is MESSED up. Just putting that out there.

Second, I've been giving some more thought to my dislike of sighence fiction and what I think of Philip K. Dick. I have fleshed out my theory. You see, what bugs me is that nearly all sigh-fi writers have the same weakness. They've got this wacky world going on where people live on Jupiter or where there are no more murders or where there are microtransmitters planted in everyone's brain or where the fire department burns books or what have you, and you're reading along, and they drop some hints and provide some things with subtle exposition and good storytelling and context, and then it's like suddenly they go Oh, crap, I have to explain to my readers that in this world everyone has a brain transplant when they turn twelve so suddenly two characters have a totally implausible conversation and one says, "You know how in this world we all have a brain transplant when we turn twelve?" and the other says, "Yes, right, that's so they can collect our old brains for the aliens who come to take the best cells out of them" and it's like -- THEY WOULD NOT BE SAYING THAT! And not because I can't suspend my disbelief about the brain transplant but because they ALREADY KNOW that and it's stupid and it just shows the weak sigh-fi writer has become lazy about subtly exposing and wanted to take a shortcut and I hate it.

So that has happened. On the other hand, I think this book is rather literary. He is forever making literary allusions. Sometimes he comes out and cites "'And leaves the world to darkness and to me,' he thought, reccalling a line from Thomas Gray's Elegy. A long cherished favorite of his..." (p. 79). Other times he just alludes. "Another loser, among many. Many are called, he said to himself, but few are chosen. That's what it means to be a pro." (p.62) One can tell that Philip K. Dick is smart and writerly. But I did sigh a little bit. I haven't sighed for many pages now. We shall see what happens...

Also, I still love Heather. She is my new Myrtle Clare. (And p.s., how rad is it that the real Myrtle was IN THE MOVIE In Cold Blood?!) Heather is so cranky. Psycho Kathy had some Talking Tina-esque doll that knows about people and it told Jason to find Heather in an attempt to get out of this "why don't I exist, suddenly?" predicament. So he calls one of Heather's unlisted numbers, and turns out she doesn't have any more recollection of him than did his agent or the birth certificate files or anybody else, but there is clearly more to come there. Their conversation is hilarious, and she thinks he's some "twerp fan" and keeps calling him that and demanding to know how he got her private number, but it's just so randomly hilarious how she is so feisty. I love it. He's like, Heather, Heather, I'm a six! And she responds, "A six what? You have six legs, is that it? Or more likely six heads. " (p. 58) I can just hear her spitting those words at him. I LIKE her. Immensely.

I'm also rather on the edge of my seat to find out more about this whole six business, I must say. All we know is that they're some kind of elite group of people who were made to be sixes. No idea what that really is about.

Sigh.

Flow My Tears, the 1st-Year Law Student Said

So, yeah. We chose Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. By "we" I mean, variously: me, the whims of fate, my fellow reader/partner in comprehensively dorky crime, the buyers who are responsible for inventory selection (or lack thereof) at behemoth bookstores...

Here are my findings, so far.

• I like the cover. (My edition is ISBN: 0679-74066X) It reminds me a little bit of our poster for The Vagina Monologues, come to think of it.
  
• I can pronounce the title. But can I understand it? It is supposed to come from a poem that composer John Dowland set to music in something like the 1600s. But the references to that piece write his lyric as "Flow, my tears..." In other words, it's a command. So where's Philip K. Dick's comma? Yeah. Exactly. He only puts one, later, preceding "the Policeman Said." Maybe I will understand this when I meet a policeman character later on in the book. Maybe I won't. Stay tuned.
  
• I've read four chapters and have met as many weird characters.
  
• I don't know what I think about it yet. When I first started reading it I was in a wretched mood, brought on by the Evil Appellate Brief Consuming My Life On Which I Am Making Substantial Progress. The other day it was more like the Evil Appellate Brief Consuming My Life On Which I Had Barely Started. I hated everyone I saw, but really I maybe just hated the world of research and procrastination in which I dwelt. And in the first chapter of Flow... there was a cranky woman who hated everyone and perfectly matched my mood and I loved it.
  

  "He had never understood her dislike for fans; to him they were the lifeblood of his public existence...'You shouldn't be an entertainer,' he said to Heather, 'feeling the way you do. Get out of the business. Become a social worker in a forced-labor camp.'
  'There're people there, too,' Heather said grimly."
  

• Yeah, forced labor camps. Why? Well, because it's a weird world. It's a science fiction book. It necessarily has weird flying machines and mind control and a dystopic society and all that other crap. I don't dislike it; it's just so -- well, science fictiony. Sigh. Science fiction makes me sigh. Hey, I should call it sighence fiction! Brilliant! Oh, I'm so going to do that. But I digress.

  My old reading pals in L.A. and I would talk about our Walls. We each had a Wall with regard to books. I think one friend's wall was Latin American magical realism and such. Another person might have a Wall with romance. We're voracious readers, but stop short of reading "everything." My Wall, I think, is usually science fiction. Even when it's good, it takes a lot for me to read it. Plus, I'm not entirely sure I think it's all that good when it's Good Science Fiction. Example, Fahrenheit 451. Loved the message, but frankly I liked the interview with Bradbury included in the back of the 50th anniversary edition better than the book itself. (In the interview he commented among other things on the insidious aspects of television and their similarity to things in his book).

  The only science fiction book I've ever really liked, really, is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Often when I say that, people say, "Well, and that isn't even really science fiction..." Exactly. Nonetheless, I have long been intrigued by Philip K. Dick, and I really wanted to read something by him. Plus I had this idea of him that he was kind of scisighence fictiony, but also kind of postmodern weird fictiony. And I like that very much. Pynchon and the like. So I'm still reserving judgment, and I'm trying to break down my Wall, but so far when I think about whether or not I like this book, I just think, "Well, it's really sighence fictiony..."

• Also, I don't really have time for much of anything until I finish this dastardly Evil Appellate Brief Consuming My Life On Which I Am Making Substantial Progress. But I sneak in a chapter of Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said here and there on the train. And it makes me happy. Because, well, anything is better than the Evil Appellate Brief Consuming My Life On Which I Am Making Substantial Progress. To which I must now return.

Which one, which one, which one?

If anyone has anything to say to me about which Philip K. Dick novel to read (he has been elected to represent 'D') then text me in the next few hours or forever hold your peace. Sara, I have taken into consideration your pitch for Valis, even though we really had narrowed it down to Ubik or Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said... Quite frankly, I'm leaning toward Flow My Tears... if nothing else because I know how to pronounce it. (oh, hush, don't take me so seriously all the time)

By the way, this is fun: http://literature-map.com/