REVIEW: VALIS by Philip K Dick is a hell of a ride...

Philip K Dick wrote VALIS on the fringes of sanity. You can see it on every page. The shifting narrative perspectives, the topsy-turvy plot, and the all encompassing attempt at unifying all the theological systems we know about on Earth.

This now being the third book I've read by Philip K Dick, I can become more comfortable with calling him a funny writer. Not because he writes about the absurd, but there are moments of outrageousness in the text that make you laugh. Not as a defense mechanism either, but as you watch sanity slip away from the small cast of characters (and indeed the author) you simply can't help it.

You might find the most lucid parts of this book in the ending to its introductory phases, where our protagonist, Horselover Fat, (yes, really) spends a significant chunk of time in an Orange County mental asylum. This section was not banal, nor was it exciting or filled with visions of chaos. It was, as is written in the book "just a bunch of people waiting to get out."

People trying to act normal so that they can get out. People trying to manipulate the fabric of their clinician's diagnostic talents, in a bid to get out earlier than they might otherwise, but at the same time, of the very nature of cognition and ontological experience becoming increasingly disconnected from whatever it is that surrounds us. I think it is called "Reality."

The very fabric of reality is indeed torn away through Horselover Fat's experiences and encounters with VALIS. (Vast, Active Living Intelligence System). He experiences this as god, and of timeless overlays and double exposures of different regions of history.

The narrator and people they encounter constantly assert that time does not exist, and that time as we know it ceased at some point in history, and is only just now getting ready to start back up again. The void of reality is filled with strange descriptions of iron empire, seeming to exist in an abstract realm below what is perceived on the surface.

The notion that all living beings are sick, and they cannot be cured. The notion that in each and every body and creature, there is the entire history of its lineage. The text of VALIS is all encompassing and broad, and if it were not published in a cover indicating it was a SF Masterwork, it would be mistaken quite easily as the ramblings of a lunatic schizo.

It is no secret that Philip K Dick had some experiences, some visions, and some disorder to his own life, and in the closing stages of the book, where he smashes down the fourth wall over and over again, we have an author reaching out a desperate hand to the reader - and I'm not sure if I should take hold of it, and pull him out, or let him take hold of me and pull me in.

There are many poignant moments in this tale. Some of them are about dead cats. Some of them are about people suffering from horrible cancers, and some of them are simply about an inner monologue straying so far from the gilded, paved path, that it traverses dusty old roads in languages now mostly deceased.

VALIS is an incredibly wild ride. What is wilder is that there's two more books to follow this lead. This book is clearly incredibly well researched, but at the same time, Philip K Dick is monumental as ever. In some hands, this book is a manifesto of the modern conspiracy - satellites that can beam information directly into our minds,coupled with mind over matter medicine, prophecy, non-linear time, political intrigue, and subliminal messaging.

Everything here is brilliant, but there's one thing for certain - you need to approach this as a serious text - it is dense, and meanings are multi-layered. You have to pay attention, or you'll have no idea what you're reading at all.