Valis
Ace paperback original, 1981
VALIS (1981) is one of Philip K. Dick's most personal novels, a fictionalized account of his visionary experiences of 1974 in which his fictional alter ego "Horselover Fat" pursues a cosmic intelligence through Gnostic theology, pop culture, and possible madness. This is the first edition, a Bantam paperback original.
Softcover. First Edition, Paperback Original. Bantam ($2.25). Cover art by John Berkey. New York: Bantam Books, 1981. Levack 44a. Wintz & Hyde SF35.1. ISBN: 0553141562. #10522.
Fine.
Softcover. First Edition, Paperback Original. Bantam ($2.25). Cover art by John Berkey. New York: Bantam Books, 1981. Levack 44a. Wintz & Hyde SF35.1. ISBN: 0553141562. #10522.
Fine.
Additional Details
VALIS (1981) is one of Philip K. Dick's most personal and confounding novels, a fictionalized account of the life-altering visionary experiences he underwent in February and March of 1974, the period he called "2-3-74." These experiences, which Dick believed were communications from a transcendent intelligence he named VALIS (Vast Active Living Intelligence System), became the central obsession of his final decade and reshaped the course of his writing. In VALIS, he transforms those events into a metaphysical mystery and theological inquiry, conveyed through a fractured autofiction in which the narrator, "Horselover Fat," is both a character and an alternate version of Dick himself. The name is a bilingual pun: "Philip" translates from Greek as "lover of horses," and "Dick" is German for "fat."
The novel opens with Fat's sudden immersion in what he believes to be a beam of pink light transmitting encrypted knowledge directly into his mind. What follows is a frantic, sometimes darkly comic search for meaning, undertaken by Fat and his circle of friends, a mix of skeptics, believers, and fellow seekers, some of whom are based on Dick's real-life companions including K.W. Jeter and Tim Powers. They attempt to interpret the phenomena through ancient texts, Gnostic theology, conspiracy theory, and pop culture. Their quest leads them to a young girl who may be a messiah figure and to a rock band whose lyrics appear to encode the same revelations that overtook Fat during 2-3-74.
As Fat's grip on reality weakens, the narration fractures between Dick and his fictional double and at times, as Thomas Disch observed, veers completely off the rails. The novel poses unresolved questions about sanity, divine intervention, and the nature of reality, occupying a place somewhere between autobiography and science fiction.
VALIS is the first of three interconnected novels sometimes called the VALIS Trilogy, followed by The Divine Invasion (1981) and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1982). It remains one of Dick's most deeply personal and unsettling books, a novel that leaves readers uncertain whether they have witnessed a genuine account of spiritual revelation or a harrowing portrait of mental illness. First published as a Bantam paperback original in 1981.
The novel opens with Fat's sudden immersion in what he believes to be a beam of pink light transmitting encrypted knowledge directly into his mind. What follows is a frantic, sometimes darkly comic search for meaning, undertaken by Fat and his circle of friends, a mix of skeptics, believers, and fellow seekers, some of whom are based on Dick's real-life companions including K.W. Jeter and Tim Powers. They attempt to interpret the phenomena through ancient texts, Gnostic theology, conspiracy theory, and pop culture. Their quest leads them to a young girl who may be a messiah figure and to a rock band whose lyrics appear to encode the same revelations that overtook Fat during 2-3-74.
As Fat's grip on reality weakens, the narration fractures between Dick and his fictional double and at times, as Thomas Disch observed, veers completely off the rails. The novel poses unresolved questions about sanity, divine intervention, and the nature of reality, occupying a place somewhere between autobiography and science fiction.
VALIS is the first of three interconnected novels sometimes called the VALIS Trilogy, followed by The Divine Invasion (1981) and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1982). It remains one of Dick's most deeply personal and unsettling books, a novel that leaves readers uncertain whether they have witnessed a genuine account of spiritual revelation or a harrowing portrait of mental illness. First published as a Bantam paperback original in 1981.
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