VALIS

‘Horselover Fat's nervous breakdown began the day he got the phonecall from Gloria asking if he had any Nembutals. He asked her why she wanted them and she said that she intended to kill herself. She was calling everyone she knew. By now she had fifty of them, but she needed thirty or forty more, to be on the safe side.

At once Horselover Fat leaped to the conclusion that this was her way of asking for help. It had been Fat's delusion for years that he could help people. His psychiatrist once told him that to get well he would have to do two things: get off dope (which he hadn't done) and to stop trying to help people (he still tried to help people).

As a matter of fact, he had no Nembutals. He had no sleeping pills of any sort. He never did sleeping pills. He did uppers. So giving Gloria sleeping pills by which she could kill herself was beyond his power. Anyhow, he wouldn't have done it if he could.

“I have ten,” he said. Because if he told her the truth she would hang up.'

"That which makes the most sense makes no sense", Dick writes in this, and that koan represents the heart of VALIS. At times it is inexplicable and nonsensical, but in a way that unveils the unknowable. I loved the experience of having read this book.

Insane people - psychologically defined, not legally defined - are not in touch with reality. Horselover Fat is insane; therefore he is not in touch with reality.

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep

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This was so weird! But I actually enjoyed it!

Oh, Philip, you beautiful, mad genius!

While I think Valis is the ultimate PKD book, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who is not well versed in PKD and loves his writing already.

This might sound a bit pretentious, but Valis is one of those books you must be prepared to appreciate fully. Read a bunch of different era PKD books. Then do some research into the author's life(it's wild). After that, Valis will hit so much harder, I'm sure. I know that's a lot of effort, but it's totally worth it!

10/10

Wild ride. There is insight to be had here through the insanity. This book made me feel as if myself, PKD, Horselover Fat, and God were all in company together, as if somehow I had a hand in creating this novel.

couldnt read it past 30 pages. I love PKD; he is still my favorite author in scifi, but this one is just incomprehensible ramblings... It feels like listening to a drugged up addict mumbling nonsense to himself.

I freaking loved this book. Firstly I listened to it rather than read it but I actually think that added to the experience. This book sooooo reflected the “spiritualism” I grew up with from my Mum, to the point where I asked her if she had read it in the 80's. She hadn't but now I think she should. It's even more enjoyable knowing that Dick apparently really believed this. Its great!

What can I say? It's a PKD, so I expected and received a bizarre experience that left me a little more than confused as to what really happened and what was “merely” in the narrator's head. Recommended.

This is an exceptionally trippy novel by the master of the unusual story. I have read this volume several times and I get new depths to the meaning behind it every time.