u/Moving_Forward18

I find PKD's earlier work, in general, much more powerful - and, ironically, more religiously / spiritually / philosophically fulfilling - than the VALIS trilogy. Don't get me wrong - there are positives in the books, but they just don't seem to hold together as well for me. I also prefer when the ideas are hidden, as it were, rather than stated so explicitly.

I reread VALIS last summer. It is a great book in many ways, I can't deny that. There were times when it drove me crazy, but Phil's assessment of himself in much of the book is powerful, and really very heartbreaking. The split between Horselover and Phil is a brilliant plot device. The ending is very powerful. But still, on the whole, it doesn't move me in the way, say, UBIK does.

I haven't been able to get through Divine Invasion a second time. Again, there are brilliant ideas, but the lectures on theology (while interesting in some ways), just don't move me, either. However, it's been a couple of years, and it might be worth trying to plow through it again.

I never liked Transmigration. I read it years ago, and it left me pretty cold. I tried it again recently, and gave up after a couple of chapters. Angel Archer is simply such an unpleasant character that I can't connect with her on any level - though I realize that the later parts may well make up for it.

The only late novel I really like is Albemuth. I think it's a brilliant, well structured novel - and the seamless, mid-sentence split between Phil and Nicholas is really well done. The overall feeling, the plot, I honestly like Albemuth a lot.

I do think that, now that we the Exegesis (or part of it) the three later novels may seem less essential, too.

Are there other devoted readers of PKD who don't love the last three books? It seems that they're very highly thought of. And I certainly could be missing something.

I've been returning to an interest in Gnosticism over the last few months; I find the view of the world as a prison - and the warden to be less than kindly - corresponds to my own experience of life. Of course, I gain a lot from the classical texts that we are fortunate enough to have available for the first time is centuries. But I've also gotten a lot out of three (relatively) recent writers with what I would characterize as a Gnostic vision.

First, is David Lindsay. He's not well known, but his strange, complex novel A Voyage to Arcturus captures the vision of the battle between a demiurge who survives by trapping and consuming light (souls) and a force from the outside world trying to release the souls is very, very powerful to me. His view of the demiurge, Crystalman, is one that resonates strongly with me.

Second is PKD - Philip K. Dick. His complex, surreal science fiction capture the sense of being trapped in a world that is deliberately distorted has been an undercurrent in my life for a long time. I think UBIK and Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch are two of his most Gnostic works.

Finally, there's the great poet William Blake. His prophetic books can't, I think, be understood as a story - but they seem to awaken some knowledge in me that I can't fully explain. His view of the demiurge as Urizen - the God who measures, weighs, and forces a restrictive moral law on the world is another view of the demiurge that makes a lot of sense to me.

If you haven't read any of these authors, you might find them interesting - because they do express Gnosticism very clearly, but without any direct connection to the older traditions, or even any knowledge of the texts.

I'd been putting off re-reading Three Stigmata; I remembered it as so disturbing that I'd avoided it. But, after a gap of more than a decade, I read it again - and was amazed by how powerful the book is. There are some spoilers here - but they're not obvious on plot points; just broader themes. Still, if you haven't read the book, it's your choice whether this could impact your experience.

In some ways, it seems like a mirror image of UBIK - Eldritch as (largely) demonic figure keeping people trapped in his world; Runciter as the guide out of the maze. There's a similar recurrence - UBIK everywhere to help those trapped; Eldritch's stigmata everywhere so that he can (in a sense) reproduce.

Translation into the layouts seems to me a bit like a mirror of Mercer in Androids. The same sense of somehow real joining, escape from isolation - but in Stigmata in a pleasant, plastic world and in Androids in a sacrificial climb.

Also - and this has happened for me previously with Phil's novels - I remember a largely different novel. I vividly remember an extended subplot that isn't in the book anymore. I make no statements about whether that's real. Probably not. But I've never experienced re-reading anyone else's novels.