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Valis
 
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Valis (Audio CD)

by Philip K. Dick (Author), Tom Weiner (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (65 customer reviews)

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2 new from CDN$ 107.42 1 used from CDN$ 101.45

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Product Description

From Amazon.com

The first of Dick's three final novels (the others are Divine Invasion and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer). Known as science fiction only for lack of a better category, "Valis" takes place in our world and may even be semi-autobiographical. It is a fool's search for God, who turns out to be a virus, a joke, and a mental hologram transmitted from an orbiting satellite.

The proponent of the novel, Horselover Fat, is thrust into a theological quest when he receives communion in a burst of pink laser light. From the cancer ward of a bay area hospital to the ranch of a fraudulent charismatic religious figure who turns out to have a direct com link with God, Dick leads us down the twisted paths of Gnostic belief, mixed with his own bizarre and compelling philosophy. Truly an eye opening look at the nature of consciousness and divinity. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.



From Publishers Weekly

The quest for God is the binding theme of this trilogy. The "funny and painful and sometimes brilliant" VALIS(anagram) finds protagonist and Dick alter-ego Horselover Fat unable to reconcile human suffering with his belief in God. Invasion is a "fascinating and highly readable" vision of Armageddon, blending New Testament, Kabbalah and Dick's own worldview. In Transmigration , Angel Archer reminisces about her father-in-law, Timothy, an Episcopal bishop obsessed with a set of ancient scrolls that shed faith-threatening new light on Jesus: "This finely crafted, odd but compelling book demonstrates Dick's great erudition, keen human insight and subtle ironic sense of humor," said PW.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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Customer Reviews

65 Reviews
5 star:
 (38)
4 star:
 (14)
3 star:
 (5)
2 star:
 (3)
1 star:
 (5)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (65 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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5.0 out of 5 stars A monolith of literature, April 29 2004
By Doug Mackey (Fairfield, IA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Valis (Paperback)
Best read after Dick's other phenomenological novels (such as Eye in the Sky, Three Stigmata, and Ubik) because of its complexity, Valis is destined to remain Dick's most controversial book. Here the author steps outside the conventions of fiction to inform the reader that he, Philip K. Dick, has had visionary experiences, information beamed directly into his brain from a godlike extraterrestrial entity named VALIS. But he does so in such a way as to distance himself from the revelation. His dreaming, visionary alter ego, Horselover Fat, is another side of the character Phil Dick's psychotically split personality. Fat keeps a journal, the "Exegesis" (as Dick did in real life), in which he theorizes that we are all parts of a cosmic brain; everything, including ourselves, is information in this brain. He believes that the universe is an illusion but that God (or VALIS) is giving him glimpses of reality in the form of holograms produced by a beam of pink light aimed at his brain. When, late in the novel, as autobiography changes to science fiction and Fat is healed by the divine child Sophia, he "remembers" his true identity as Phil Dick, and Fat is incorporated and reintegrated in Phil's personality. You can call this a metafiction, but it transcends even that category, for the author neither tries to subvert the novel form nor to convert the reader to his fractured vision. Rather, it stands on the literary landscape a self-existent monolith, like those in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. More than any of Dick's other novels, it stretches fictional conventions to give the reader a virtually inexhaustible text that will simulataneously support and deny any interpretation.
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4.0 out of 5 stars Explains everything and nothing, Mar 10 2004
By Steven Reynolds (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Valis (Paperback)
I'm told this novel intersects with Philip K. Dick's biography in some interesting ways, but as someone who knows little about the man but has enjoyed a number of his novels and stories ("The Man in the High Castle" is one of my favourite novels in any genre), I found "Valis" to be an engaging work in its own right. Dick's themes here are the nature of religious faith, the pitiless contradictions of a universe supposedly designed by a deity, and the nonetheless remarkable consistency of religious revelations throughout all time. There are any number of plausible explanations for all of this: God exists and has manifested in numerous forms; religious faith is entirely unjustified, but is a more or less constant aspect of human nature; space-time does not exist, we are devolved aliens, and "God" is a satellite broadcasting laser-driven epiphanies and inspiring subliminally affecting films (and novels?). Lovers of SF will enjoy this immensely, but so will lovers of good literature, and those interested in the philosophy and psychology of religion. If, like me, you happen to enjoy all three then you're in for quite a treat. Of course, it's the nature of the material that "Valis" can offer no final answers, but it's the way Dick raises the questions that makes it such an appealing novel. There is a tenderness and humanity to the characters - quite an achievement given the "way out" nature of the material. With its insoluble theological-philosophical themes, drug-culture setting, and interestingly unreliable narrative viewpoint, I'm sure "Valis" would be right at home on the Literary Studies curricula of any number of liberal arts colleges. Not before time, too. Hollywood is so far the only "institution" that has caught on to the tantalizing genius of Philip K. Dick. It's about time the rest of them caught up.
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4.0 out of 5 stars A Bag of Mixed Nuts, Jan 20 2004
By Steve West (Adelaide, Australia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Valis (Paperback)
Valis is the product of a few things: Dick's 1974 hallucinatory experiences, his belief that whetever the eye sees is reality on some level, and his own zany brand of writing.
The book is a mix of Dick's Gnostic philosophies, his interpretations of his 1974 experiences, autobiography, and a fictional story of schizophrenically-projected Horselover Fat (projected by none other than "Phil" who has written himself into the story ala 'Radio Free Albemuth'). So it's not really a fictional novel, it's not really an autobiography and it's not really a philosphical treastise.
However, it makes for a pretty good read, it would certainly make an odd member of anyone's book collection. In reading Valis tempting to say that Dick's mind was fried but by the end of the book it's clear it wasn't. He might have been on the wrong track in trying to explain what he saw in 1974, but from a spiritual viewpoint he's come up with some very novel and interesting ideas (and ideas were always Dick's forte). Valis is a tripped-out book but it isn't any worse than say 'Counter Clock World' or 'Flow My Tears' on the fried-brain meter.
In conclusion if you're a PKD fan, don't stay away from this one, welcome it with open arms and I'd suggest reading 'Radio Free Albemuth' and 'The Shifting Realities of Phillip K. Dick' edited by Lawrence Sutin before picking up this one.
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 		 Most recent customer reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars shallow philosophy inspired by mental illness
When I was fifteen years old, I thought that PKD was just the best and deepest writer in the world. And that this was, by far, his best book. Read more
Published on Jul 9 2004

4.0 out of 5 stars PDK at his strangest
Before this, he had written about a robot-hunter who suspects he may be a robot himself and a world in which people age in reverse, but Valis is the point where Philip K. Read more
Published on Aug 31 2003 by P. Nicholas Keppler

5.0 out of 5 stars "You cannot think about it without becoming part of it."
I love works of art that divide people into two groups like some kind of Zoroastrian razor.
A lot has been said about this book in the reviews. Read more
Published on April 12 2003

5.0 out of 5 stars A work of sheer genius. And not entirely fiction.
This is not only a great written work (and a fun and gripping) read) which transcends genre, it is full of fascinating theological and philosophical insights. Read more
Published on Mar 18 2003 by F. S. Leeds

5.0 out of 5 stars Breathtaking
Valis is at once sublime and unsettling. From the schizophrenic changes from third to first person point of view ("I am writing this in the third person to gain much-needed... Read more
Published on Mar 7 2003 by James D. Brush

5.0 out of 5 stars Nobody Understands This
The first time I tried to read this, I made it to about page fifteen before giving up. I couldn't get past the fact that there were two characters (Dick and Fat) inhabiting the... Read more
Published on Jan 28 2003 by Nathan B. Hyatt

5.0 out of 5 stars Desert island reading for those fearing their own sanity
The key to understanding Valis is to understand that the author was insane. A mad sheep sees wolves everywhere. A mad carpenter sees hammers. Read more
Published on Jan 15 2003 by Tim Fish

4.0 out of 5 stars Arcane Religious Philosophy as Schizophrenic Quasi-Biography
This book comes from the later stages of PKD's career, when he probably didn't even care about making his books accessible to the masses. Read more
Published on Dec 22 2002 by doomsdayer520

4.0 out of 5 stars Somewhere between Vonnegut and Eco
This is a very funny, strange, and thought-provoking book. Philip K. Dick's world is somewhere between those of Umberto Eco (there is a lot of theology here) and Kurt Vonnegut... Read more
Published on Jul 27 2002 by D. W. Casey

5.0 out of 5 stars The World behind the World.
I believe that this is the third time that I've read this book. It isn't that I find it that hard to understand, it is just that it is so dense with meaning that I feel compelled... Read more
Published on Jul 13 2002 by OAKSHAMAN

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