The Exegesis - November 2011

[D_Davis]

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0547549253/?tag=brite-21

Awesome.

 

[TheTomG]

Couldn't get the link to work, but easy enough to search on Amazon for it. Should be interesting!

 

[jojajihisc]

but Dick wasn’t a legend and he wasn’t mad.~Jonathem Lethem

Then again.

In his late teens, Dick later recalled, he was diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia - a label that terrified him. Other psychotherapists and psychiatrists in later years would offer other diagnoses, including the one that Dick was quite sane.~The Philip K. Dick Official Website

I'm guessing it's a pretty uneven book filled with philosophy and paranoia. I'll probably wait to read several reviews before deciding whether to buy or not.

 

[D_Davis]

TI'm guessing it's a pretty uneven book filled with philosophy and paranoia.

That's what I'm hoping for!

 

[TheTomG]

Yup, you had me at 'filledlast with philosophy and paranoia' - sounds like an ideal book!

I own 'In Search of Valis' which is excerpts from the exegesis so think I know what to expect!

 

[D_Davis]

Got my copy today. It's a very nice looking book.

 

[jojajihisc]

Yup, you had me at 'filledlast with philosophy and paranoia' - sounds like an ideal book!

It does sound good even to me if done in jest like Illuminatus!. I think Dick actually bought into the paranoia though whether he was mentally ill or not and that I'll pass on.

 

[D_Davis]

All Dick is doing is conveying an a series of experiences he had, and in life all we can be truly sure of is what we experience as an individual. For Phil, these things happened, and were important enough to change his life and build a philosophy around.

Who is to say if he was mad, insane, crazy, or paranoid?

The Exegesis is simply a personal work of a man trying to figure things out. Also, these things that happened to him and the things that he experienced shaped his fiction more than anything else. To understand Phil more is to understand more the worlds and characters that he created. And after all, his fiction became more auto-biographical as time went on, so is there really a difference between the two?

It is a great treat to be able to look into Phil's mind in this way.