VALIS
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- This article is about the Philip K. Dick novel. For information about the video game series, see Mugen Senshi Valis.
VALIS is a 1981 science fiction book by Philip K. Dick. The title is an acronym for Vast Active Living Intelligence System, Dick's gnostic vision of one aspect of God. VALIS is the first book in a unfinished trilogy that (together with his thematically related final novel) represents Dick's last major work before he died.
Contents |
Plot summary
Horselover Fat
The main character in VALIS is Horselover Fat, an author surrogate. "Horselover" is English for the Greek word "phil-hippos", lover/friend of horses (like "philosophy", lover of knowledge), and "fat", being English for the German word "dick".
However, even though the book is written in first person, for most of the book he treats Horselover Fat as a separate person, describing conversations and even arguments with him, and criticizing his opinions and writings; this can all be viewed by the reader as a form of mental illness. Near the end of the book the messianic figure cures him (temporarily), and he describes his surprise that Horselover Fat has suddenly disappeared from his side.
Exegesis
Horselover Fat wrote his exegesis: Criptica Scriptura, explaining his view on the world in a not so few, not so simple rules. The UK edition of VALIS also included Cosmology and Cosmogony, a chapbook containing selections from Dick's Exegesis.
Exegesis quotes, "Tractate 31: 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."
"Tractate 36: In summary; thoughts of the brain are experienced by us as arrangements and rearrangements - change - in a physical universe; but in fact it is really information and information-processing which we substantialize. We do not merely see its thoughts as objects, but rather as the movement, or, more precisely, the placement of objects: how they become linked to one another. But we cannot read the patterns of arrangement; we cannot extract the information in it - i.e. it as information, which is what it is. The linking and relinking of objects by the Brain is actually a language but not a language like ours (since it is addressing itself and not someone or something outside itself)."
Rhipidon Society
Dick's friends (and fellow science fiction writers) K.W. Jeter (Kevin) and Tim Powers (David) appear as thinly disguised characters in the novel, and along with Dick, as members of the "Rhipidon Society", with the motto, "Fish Cannot Carry Guns!" It is also said that James P. Blaylock appears in the book.
Main characters
- Phil Dick: narrator
- Horselover Fat: narrator, science fiction writer
- Gloria Knudson: suicidal friend of Fat's
- Kevin: friend of Fat's, skeptic
- Sherri Solvig: Fat's friend, dying from lymphatic cancer
- David: catholic friend of Fat's
- Zebra: pure energy, discorporate, the Logos, living information, the "plasmate", "God"; communicates with Fat
- VALIS: title of an American science fiction film, appears as a satellite, controls reality, synonymous with Zebra (see The Man Who Fell to Earth. Essentialy a story within a story.
- Eric Lampton: rock star, screenwriter, actor, aka "Mother Goose"
- Linda Lampton: actress
- Brent Mini: electronic composer (based upon electronic/ambient musician Brian Eno)
VALIS is a part of the VALIS trilogy of novels:
- VALIS (1981)
- The Divine Invasion (1981)
- The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1982)
See also
- Radio Free Albemuth
- Gnosticism
- Solid State Intelligence (SSI) - a malevolent form of VALIS. See John C. Lilly.