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Dick's final conclusion is that God certainly moves in mysterious ways; the universe has no actual purpose; reality may be an illusion, but it really does not matter, for the only reality of any real concern, is ourselves. He believes there is a God, but that God is neither Yahweh nor Buddha, but the human being next to us. And salvation does exist; it is the caring of our loved ones. Through compassion we will be redeemd - but we have to believe in it. Galbreath comments: "The Saviour is not the Father, Son, or Holy Ghost; it is the human being who chooses salvation" (112). If we retain our humanity, our empathetic understanding, we will discover that this is the only substantial reality there is. Life is, after all, quite simple, when we discover it actually has no meaning but the one we put into it.
Within the context of Dick's work in general, the Valis trilogy is a logical continuation of what he had been doing before. I have to agree with Aaron John Barlow when he says: "Dick's final and fervent Christianity, with its highly individualistic formula for man/God relations, is the result of all his experiments and is his final conclusion" ("Reality, Religion and Politics in Philip K. Dick's Fiction", DAI). Earlier novels pose the questions on religion, as well as on authenticity: i.e., how real is reality and how human is the human being. The Valis trilogy, especially The Divine Invasion, brings all of Dick's obsessive topics together; links them to each other and arrives at Dick's final conclusion.
As I have attempted to demonstrate in this essay, the pervading questions, ocurring and recurring in novel after novel, are the questions "What is Human?" and "What is Real?". When it comes to humanity and reality there are no such concepts as correctness and incorrectness: correct human behaviour does not exist; only human behaviour. Whatever may be the origin of the universe, reality is only that which we experience in the daily struggle for survival. Dick says in a lecture:
Within the universe there exist fierce cold things, which I have given the name 'machines' to. Their behaviour frightens me ... I call them 'androids', which is my way own way of using that word. By 'android' I do not mean a sincere attempt to create in the laboratory a human being... we must not posit a difference of essence, but a difference of behaviour. In my science fiction I write about them constantly... A human being without the proper empathy or feeling is the same as an android built so as to lack it, either by design or mistake. We mean, basically, someone who does not care about the fate which his fellow living creatures fall victim to; he stands detached, a spectator, acting out by his indifference John Donne's theorem that "No man is an island", but giving that theorem a twist: that which is a mental and moral island is not a man. (201-02)
Consider the myth of the Advocate: he offers to defend every one of us before the high judge in heaven, but he only does so if we ask for his help. The myth also states that most people do not ask for this help because by that they admit they are sinful and that they need the Advocate's help to get into Heaven. So it is with the individual who claims he needs nobody else; that he is complete in himself. This individual is "a mental and moral island" and thus rejects his humanity.
Blade Runner, Ridley Scott's film, is in most respects different from its source, Do Androids Dream?; however, a close inspection of the film reveals its Dickian essence. Blade Runner is like a tribute to Dick in that it mixes together motifs from various Dick novels: the crowded streets are Dick's kipple; Tyrell of Tyrell Corporations is an intruiging variation of Dick's religious figures; Deckard's relatinship with Rachael and the rest of the replicants presents the humanity theme faithfully. The only drawback is the absence of Dick's absurd and often cynical humour. A flock of Hare Krishnas, bouncing through the crowded, futuristic streets of Los Angeles, is the only instance of humour (and a very nice one) but one scene does not make up for the Blade Runner's entire lack of the humour so characteristic in Dick.
The religious aspect of the film sums up much of what Dick is saying in his novels. The grim meeting between Roy and Tyrell is a powerful moment in the film, when Roy discovers his maker's true nature. He sees "the toymaker who has generated... all his toys,"
[12] and he feels hatred and disgust at God's/Tyrell's non-caring attitude. Marilyn Gwaltney in "Androids as a Device for Reflection on Personhood", says: "Our understanding of ... [Roy's] cruelty changes as we come to understand it as a very human reaction to his existential situation: the imminence of his death and that of those he loves; the feeling of betrayal by the beings that brought him into existence" (33). Here Roy becomes comparable to man; Roy is unhappy that he is not made to last. He wants his creator to give him more life. The creator says he cannot do it, but shows no remorse at his inability. He does not care whether Roy lives or dies, all Tyrell sees is that Roy is a perfect example of his own ingeniousness - the perfect example. Whether Roy lives or dies is of no concern to Tyrell. Roy, maddened at the reply, kills Tyrell, which is a powerful and fearsom act when we understand it as man killing God.Even the way Roy kills Tyrell is laden with implications: Roy grabs Tyrell's head between his hands and kisses him on the mouth, indicating the Judas' kiss of death. Then he thrusts Tyrell's eyes into his head and crushes his skull. The Gnostics believed that the demi-urge's cruelty and indifference is due to his being blind and in the Valis trilogy Dick often refers to the "blind God": the God running this world must indeed be blind since he does not see the injustice that goes on, and he must be blind to his creatures plights since he does nothing to leviate them. Replicants return to earth because they seek life. They want their creator, man, to give them life, which man is not able to do. Replicant, in return, grants life to man (Roy saving Deckard at the end of the film), endowing it with more empathy than man.
Gregg Rickman says about Dick: "[ ] where his real greatness lies is in the love and care he has for his most tortured characters, and his understanding of their pain. His empathy" (Philip K. Dick: In His Own Words, 11). The essentially humanistic aspect of Dick's fiction is largely due to his often comic but always sympathetic heros, who hardly ever achieve what they aim at, but who nevertheless demand respect and a dignified place in the world. Michael Bishop's description of Joe Chip applies to every hero Dick creates:
... Joe Chip [is a] schlemiel and tarnished knight errant. Chip - a dedicated working stiff, a perennially out-of-pocket Sisyphus, and the point-of-view character who seems to matter most to Dick - is a shaving of the fallen tree of humanity: a chip off the old but sometimes praiseworthy blockheadedness by which we and our progenitors have sought to insist upon the meaningfullness of our lives. ("In Pursuit of Ubik", 143)
Dick believes in this character: he may not be perfect, but his human qualities are the redemptive qualities. Galbreath comments on Dick's fascination with the redeemer figure, and says that by creating this "Sisyphus" character, Dick "is ... expressing his belief in the redemptive quality at 'the heart of human life' and trust in its ability to manifest itself, usually in the 'minor man' whose modest actions - his choices - are blows against chaos and entropy" ("Redemption and Doubt in Philip K. Dick's Valis Trilogy", 111). Joe Chip and his likes do not save the universe but they do save the world, when we understand that the world is only that which is closest to us. The world, to a small creature like the average human being, is not the whole planet; it is that which he sees and feels every day and in this sense, it is a world he can save by his "modest actions".
Le Guin, in "The Modest One" comments on Dick's humour and says that it is such that you "cannot quote funny bits from Dick, because you have to read the whole book up to that point to know why it's so funny..." (175). Although it is possible to kind instances of "jokes" in a Dick novel, I have commonly found myself up against this wall when wanting to illustrate Dick's sense of humour. A particular line is most often funny only within the context of the novel as a whole. For example, I find it quite difficult to explain what is so amusing about the scene in High Castle where Tagomi awaits the German intruders who are barging their way through the Nippon Times Building, where Tagomi's office is. A Scanner Darkly is Dick's funniest novel and the only one where an authentic joke can be found. Bob Arctor is speaking:
A dream woke me ... In it there was this huge clap of thunder, and all of a sudden the heavens rolled aside and God appeared and His voice rumbled at me - what the hell did He say? - oh yeah. 'I'm vexed with you, my son,' He said. He was scowling. I was shaking, in the dream, and looking up, and I said, 'What'd I do now, Lord?' And He said, 'You left the cap off the tooth-paste tube again.' And then I realised it was my ex-wife. (69)
Although Le Guin claims Dick is not an absurdist, my view of his humour is that it lies partly in the absurdity of the contents of his text: the fun often lies in the absurd inconsistency between the narration and its subject-matter.
Le Guin also says, in the same essay: "You all know what prophets don't get in their own country" (178), referring to the lack of recognition of the literary value of Dick's fiction. Only during the last decade have his works begun to receive a position of fame, and, as "serious" critics and academics have one by one become aware of his existence, he is finally claiming the literary status he so rightly deserved all along. Le Guin's statement in the beginning also refers to the fact that Europeans have recognised Dick's value as a writer for a long time; since 1960, the French have pronounced him the greatest American science fiction writer ever. Dick's books have been translated into many languages: Danish, German, Spanish, Japanese and Polish, to name but a few. The Polish science fiction writer and translator, Stanislaw Lem has written two essays that I know of on American SF and Philip K. Dick, "Visionary Among the Charlatans", and "American SF - A Hopeless Case - With Exceptions", in which he discusses Dick's position within the American SF genre, as well as the genre as a whole. Lem's view is not optimistic on behalf of the American SF field; however, there exists one bright light in the dull "pulpness" of cheap, cliched adventure-space stories, and the exception is Philip K. Dick.
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[12] Referring to the quotation in chapter 2. "I do seem attracted to trash..." From the Exegesis Back to text