Chapter
28
VALIS
We
hypostatize information into objects. Rearrangement of objects is change in the
content of the information; the message has changed. This is a language which
we have lost the ability to read. We ourselves are a part of this language;
changes in us are changes in the content of the information. We ourselves are
information-rich; information enters us, is processed and is then projected
outward once more, now in an altered form. We are not aware that we are doing
this, that in fact this is all we are doing. – Philip K. Dick
None are more hopelessly
enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. -Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe
Not only had Stan wanted Marie to read
VALIS, he expected her to write a book report on it. She hadn’t done a book report since, well,
probably high school. Stan said it
didn’t have to be long, just a summary of the story, and her feelings about
it. And so seated at the desk in her
room, which sat in front of a large window with a fine view of the mountains
across the slender river valley, she began to type on her lap top:
VALIS
by Philip K. Dick
A
Book Report by Marie Brabant.
This book is a work of philosophy more than
it is a science fiction story. A book of
many, deep, and bizarre ideas, most went far over my head to be honest, but I
think I came away after reading, with a deeper understanding of some really complex
ideas, or at least part of me did.
The story centers around the protagonist,
Horselover Fat, which, of course, is a thinly veiled pseudonym for the author, Philip
being Greek for Lover of Horses, or Horse Lover, and Dick being the German word
for Fat. This is a literary device to
distinguish the shattered personalities and mental illness of the
character/narrator. Fat has been
devastated by the loss of his wife and child to divorce, but the final trigger
is the mental illness he gets from his failed attempt to help a friend out of a
suicidal depression. Dick indicates that
such types of mental illness are, in a sense contagious, an ever spreading virus
that attaches to every friend and loved one of the initial victim or host
essentially.
Shortly after this friend leaps to her
death off a high rise, Fat has his transcendent epiphany, a strange pink light
is beamed from some mysterious source sending vast amounts of information
directly into Fat’s brain. The
information consists of advanced philosophical concepts, insights into the
nature of reality, a strange juxtaposition of his everyday world and the world
of ancient Rome (“the Empire never died”), but of greatest importance was the
fact that his son had an undiscovered hernia that needed immediate treatment or
the boy would die. The child is taken to
the doctors who orders tests, and then the child is scheduled for emergency
surgery … Fat’s diagnosis being confirmed, and the boy’s life saved.
This leads Fat to accept every aspect of
the information he received as factual, which leads him to question the very
underpinnings of reality, which further leads him to the county mental
hospital. It is there Fat learns to cope
and largely hide his metaphysical preoccupations from those in regular
society. He is released from the
hospital and decides to move in with a female friend who relishes her impending
death to cancer, setting him up for another devastating loss.
To cheer Fat up, his friends take him to
see the new indie film, VALIS, made by and starring the rock star Eric Lampton
and his wife Linda. Fat and his friends
find incredible parallels between the story in VALIS and Fat’s encounter with
the transcendent beamed information. In
fact, in the movie, Lampton’s character is similarly informed and empowered,
and the source is shown to be an ancient satellite in Earth orbit, which the
powers that be, represented by an evil American president (clearly based on
Richard Nixon) order shot down by missiles.
The missiles are unable to destroy VALIS, the satellite, whose name is an
acronym for Vast Active Living Intelligence System, which then uses its agents
to topple the evil president. Fat and
his friends see this movie many, many times to get all of the subliminal
messages it contains. They decide to
contact Eric Lampton.
Lampton, though initially suspicious,
invites Fat and his friends to his place.
There they meet Lampton and his wife, and the synthetic music composer
Brent Mini who scored the film. Fat
quickly discovers all three are far crazier than he is. The Lamptons offer to let Fat and his friends
meet the now incarnate VALIS in the form of their two year old daughter,
Sophia. Sophia cures Fat of his
splintered mind, and convinces all them that she is in fact the messiah. Sophia urges them to leave the madness of the
Lamptons, flee, and serve her directly.
As they return home to southern California they learn the Mini has
accidentally killed Sophia through his beam experiments. In the end Phil waits for additional promised
contact from VALIS.
Throughout the book and appended at the end
are Horselover Fat’s Exogenesis or the relevations he received from VALIS. He posits a sort of Gnosticism, of a dualism,
and evil artificial world meant to deceive characterized by the eternal evil
empire that has material control. “The
Empire never ended”. Information is the savior,
our freedom from this false world of darkness.
He posits a sort of holographic basis for existence.
I quite enjoyed the book, despite its
general weirdness. Though I certainly didn’t
understand much of the Exogenesis, I felt somehow changed by it.
copyright 2017 Diana Hignutt
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