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Dec. 25th, 2003 05:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sophiaserpentiaLately I have been going through some of the old books in my book collection that I haven't read in some time. Last week I zipped through the three books by Philip K. Dick often referred to as "the Valis triology," though of course it is nothing of the sort.
Valis makes much more sense the second time -- instead of striking the mind as a lengthy ramble with too many obscure and scholarly references, the underlying unstated patterns in the book jump out at you. The message of the book kind of spirals outward from the center, meaning that there is some repetition as the spiral moves past certain themes and events again, but each time with more elaboration and slight variation in emphasis. It is designed to present reality as a maze, an eternally shifting present which is constructed by the conscious mind by help of shifting mirrors.
The Divine Invasion is straightforward yet loving and sublime. I could attempt to summarize its vision of the interaction of Yahweh and Sophia but to do so would lessen the impact. Just read it.
I got much more out of The Transmigration of Timothy Archer this time around. Before it struck me as mundane and plodding, but therein lies the effectiveness of the book. It was meant to convey the sense of everyday life and then the subtle but undeniable intrusion of the greatly mysterious, which we then find ways to deny and explain away.
Now I am re-reading Clive Barker's Imajica and falling in love with it all over again. This is a masterful and sublime work, rather "pulpy" in its execution but laced throughout with a good deal of compassion. I feel an intense jealousy at Barker's description of the mystif, a marvelous being of literally third gender who weaves a spell of delicious illusion, being perceived as the ultimate expression of one's desire, whether male or female. It takes an intense act of will though to perceive the mystif as zie really is. The mystif reminds me of my take on Mohini and describes perfectly the way I idealize myself; to a striking extent this is the essence of me staring back at me from the pages of a book.
I've been thinking of an exercize that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mommybird initiated a few days ago, a recounting of the five books that most influenced her. Sometime today or tomorrow I will make this post.
Valis makes much more sense the second time -- instead of striking the mind as a lengthy ramble with too many obscure and scholarly references, the underlying unstated patterns in the book jump out at you. The message of the book kind of spirals outward from the center, meaning that there is some repetition as the spiral moves past certain themes and events again, but each time with more elaboration and slight variation in emphasis. It is designed to present reality as a maze, an eternally shifting present which is constructed by the conscious mind by help of shifting mirrors.
The Divine Invasion is straightforward yet loving and sublime. I could attempt to summarize its vision of the interaction of Yahweh and Sophia but to do so would lessen the impact. Just read it.
I got much more out of The Transmigration of Timothy Archer this time around. Before it struck me as mundane and plodding, but therein lies the effectiveness of the book. It was meant to convey the sense of everyday life and then the subtle but undeniable intrusion of the greatly mysterious, which we then find ways to deny and explain away.
Now I am re-reading Clive Barker's Imajica and falling in love with it all over again. This is a masterful and sublime work, rather "pulpy" in its execution but laced throughout with a good deal of compassion. I feel an intense jealousy at Barker's description of the mystif, a marvelous being of literally third gender who weaves a spell of delicious illusion, being perceived as the ultimate expression of one's desire, whether male or female. It takes an intense act of will though to perceive the mystif as zie really is. The mystif reminds me of my take on Mohini and describes perfectly the way I idealize myself; to a striking extent this is the essence of me staring back at me from the pages of a book.
I've been thinking of an exercize that
mommybird initiated a few days ago, a recounting of the five books that most influenced her. Sometime today or tomorrow I will make this post.
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Date: 2003-12-25 11:22 pm (UTC)Always well worth re-reading...
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Date: 2003-12-26 05:16 pm (UTC)Incidentally, I often think that the Valis trilogy should be renamed to the Valis "quadrology" with the inclusion of Radio Free Albemuth, since it uses some of the same motifs and touches on the same themes. What do you think?
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Date: 2003-12-29 06:57 am (UTC)The Divine Invasion lacks the same oomph the second time because you know the answer to the big mysteries already.
I was very fond of Radio Free Albemuth and it certainly blends in with Valis. BTW I don't think there's such a thing as a "quadrilogy," I think you just go from trilogy to series. :-p