赛博朋克系列| Valis

The plot of the mentioned highly autobiographical novel revolves around one Horselover Fat (if you are laughing yourselves silly at this absurd name right now, go check the ethymology of the name Philip and translate “fat” into German) and his speculative ruminations on numerous matters regarding God and his/her/its involvement in creation and/or “maintenance” of the reality and mankind. Being a slightly new-aged byproduct of the second half of the 20th century, Fat as a character is an exceptionally memorable personification of Philip K. Dick’s own mental derangement (I would have used less inaccurate psychological term, however I am not into the “couchy” stuff at all). The whole book is bristled with psychological nomenclature and its outwork-like elaborations, however they get easily outshined when religious ratiocination steps in. Every time Fat/Dick and his friends are engaged in divine contemplations we surely cannot help but admit that we are peeping the modern incarnation of Anselm of Canterbury mulling over all the inferences of his ontological argument for the existence of God. The passages of Fat’s theological tractate which is being meticulously penned down by the protagonist during the course of events only reassure us in this notion. Fat is quite an eclectic gnostic – he derives from many sources: Christianity, Judaism, ancient Greece, Dogon people of western Sudan and things only a certified fruitcake or a dicky (yes, pun definitely intended!) version of H. P. Lovecraft would come up with. A direct quote from his Tractates Cryptica Scriptura included in the appendix of VALIS speaks for itself: “The three-eyed invaders are mute and deaf and telepathic, could not breathe our atmosphere, had the elongated misshapen skull of Ikhnaton, and emanated from a planet in the star-system Sirius.” Nevertheless, we should not fret over such trifling whimsies and flimsy details too much. As usual, what really counts is that what hides itself behind the hidden.