I love me some PKD, although somehow I was oblivious to his "religious" works until just recently. I picked up this mini anthology recently and I'm thoroughly enjoying it:


http://www.amazon.com/Philip-K-Dick-Invasion-Transmigration/dp/1598530445

As some of you know, I have some gnostic tendencies and finding one of my favorite authors did as well is a quite pleasing experience for me. However, even from an A/A/A perspective, watching a brilliant mind rather rationally pick apart his own madness would seem to me to be interesting at the very least.

Anyway, just wondering who else has had the pleasure to read some of these works, and what your take away might have been. A large portion of his Exegesis was published recently and I really want to get my hands on it.

Selfish bump.

Almost finished with it now. It's been quite interesting, I thoroughly recommend it.

If I get a chance I'll try to transcribe some of the passages.

The books grows steadily from speculative to what I would call highly religious, then finish off with a more skeptic and pessimistic outlook with The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, although I'm not quite finished with that one yet.

A Maze of Death is more in the traditional PKD sci-fi mold, although it exists in a universe where people can basically transmit their prayers to more powerful beings who can intercede for them on behalf of a centralized creator.

VALIS itself is loosely autobiographical fiction. The way he bounces in between the two is quite interesting.

The Divine Invasion is more or less a vision of the second coming, although told in a pretty unexpected way.

Finally, TTTA is more in the traditional literary style, and is loosely based on the life of Bishop James Albert Pike, who was real life close friend of PKD.

Anyway, trying to give a bit of a teaser without any spoilers. I want to see what it will take to get my hand on his full Exegesis. Some 1500 or so pages have been published, but the full thing is said to be north of 8,000 (to bad it wasn't over 9,000...that would totally have cemented PKD's cult status ).

His only book I've read is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, which I enjoyed, but didn't love. Religion is a big theme in that book too. From a review of the book, which I thought was well done:

quote:

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Another of the novel's binary opposites occurs in the comparison of real religion vs. false religion. Here, Dick attempts to show how organized religion might be false in a strict sense of the world, but how the values of that religion can transcend its falseness.

Mercerism is the novel's main religion; a religion in which humanity fuses with the suffering character of Mercer in order to gain a greater sense of collective empathy. Buster Friendly conducts a scathing investigative report on Mercerism and fully exposes the religion as false. Mercer is simply an old drunk actor and the entire scene of Mercer climbing a hill to his death was manufactured in a Hollywood studio.

Yet, Dick seems to say, the values of Mercerism - namely, shared empathy and the collective will to survive - have transcended any notion of whether the religion's symbols are false or not. This speaks to humanity's deep need for the spiritual. This need, and the manifestation of this need, has made Mercer real in a way that the androids and Buster Friendly cannot truly understand. Rick's fusion with Mercer in the novel's closing chapters shows how the values of religion can become important for the collective of humanity.

This theme can also be seen as a rebuke of one of the important tenets of Marxism: that religion is simply an "opiate of the masses." Though Dick was sympathetic towards Marxist principles, this theme seems to suggest that he saw value in a particular kind of amorphous spirituality that might blur distinctions between real and unreal.

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My favorite author (guess who it is) had some strong religious opinions as well. Quote 9 is an all time favorite.

http://atheism.about.com/library/quotes/bl_q_KVonnegut.htm

Yeah, I need to read more Vonnegut, it's definitely on my bucket list.

10 on that list kind of surprised me.

Slaughterhouse 5 and Cat's Cradle are classic and what he is well known for. Mother Night is much less well known, but might be my favorite.

Any recommendations on PKD if I read more of him?

Ubik is pretty solid, as is The Man in The High Castle (which he won his only Hugo award for). Other then Androids I would say those are the most popular works.

His short stories are pretty incredible as well. You can generally get a bundle pack of 15 to 20 for close to nothing (or free) on Amazon. Obviously you are familiar with the Androids/Blade Runner connection, but quite a few other sci-fi movies over the last 25 years are based on, or at least largely influenced by, PKD. Minority Report, Total Recal, Adjustment Bureau, Screamers, were all directly from Dick stories/novels. The Matrix, while not originally written by Dick, shows strong, strong influence from his works.

He plays around with reality/illusion of reality concepts quite a bit. It's good stuff.

Also, while I'm thinking of it, Stanislaw Lem. Man. That dude is so under appreciated here in the States it's kind of embarrassing.

Read Solaris (and avoid the George Clooney movie like the plague), and thank me later. One of my favorite books of any kind, let alone science fiction, ever.

Lem was writing human narratives with the trappings of sci-fi when most American writers were still stuck in the pewpew lasers and landscapes stuff. Such a brilliant mind. (The reason I thought of him is he himself isolated both PKD and Vonnegut as exceptions to that rule).

I remember picking up UBIK years ago and really enjoying it. I grew up in the golden age of the big three: Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke. PKD was such a different trip. His writing wasn't "out there," but in there--as in my head.

Later, I found the story/stories of his life as interesting as his writing.