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book review
VALIS - Phillip K Dick (1981)

I definitely enjoyed VALIS. This is the most playfully & comfortably ive seen PKD write, and it was delightful to read. PKD had intended to write a trilogy, and while the novel's detours to explaining a new religious system (definitely the focus point of the novel) takes up more room than feels warranted, I think the setup for the next book is appropriate. The novel ends on an incomplete note. In many ways the novel seems to only exist to carry the idea of the VALIS system & the explicitly autobiographical elements of the book. But it's still a totally worthwhile read, even if you don't share my interest in PKD's life & personal philosophy.

I liked the ways PKD talked about mental illness (although A Scanner Darkly covered this better I think) & illusion vs reality in this book. The truth of the VALIS system (as much as all religion is based on faith...) remains unclear throughout the novel. I thought the most interesting part of the VALIS system was how Jesus' teachings manifest as living information (the plasmate) that intelligently desires to see itself spread, and when received and learned, changes us permanently into a new life form. I think this is an accurate way of looking at ideas... I think we should all be more aware of the way ideas or ideologies are living things with willpower that seek to reproduce in you & control your life. This theme of the living/parasitic idea in VALIS felt very similar to The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. I feel like you can see how PKD's philosophies develop in real time if you analyze his books chronologically. It helps that he has only a few major themes.

One thing I think PKD always succeeds at is that he recognizes the contradictory and hallucinatory elements of life that we're trained to ignore & exposes them in his writing. I mean, to me, as far as our world is based on stimuli we individually interpret, our world is based on the hallucination. To PKD the hallucination is being poisoned by the sick demiurge, & this is the source of the world's disorder. If the signal is inherently polluted, this explains the ways the VALIS system fails the protagonist. What I mean is, like any good religious system, the VALIS system provides its own explanation for its own shortcomings. But also, this is an intentional damage control mechanism that religious ideas like the VALIS system use to burrow deeper into people's minds. I feel like the underlying idea throughout the novel is that controlling your own mind/life is impossible.