Dick, Philip K. - Samuel J. Umland (essay date 1995)

Samuel J. Umland (essay date 1995)

SOURCE: Umland, Samuel J. “To Flee from Dionysus: Enthousiasmos from ‘Upon the Dull Earth’ to VALIS.” In Philip K. Dick: Contemporary Critical Interpretations, edited by Samuel J. Umland, pp. 81-99. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1995.

[In the following essay, Umland analyzes the “‘Dionysus-element’ in Dick's fiction,” comparing the early short story “Upon the Dull Earth” to the later novel VALIS.]

During an interview with Paul Williams in late 1974, which was later incorporated into Williams's book Only Apparently Real, Philip Dick said (163):

The way I feel is that the universe itself is actually alive, and we're in it as part of it. And it is like a breathing creature, which explains the concept of the Atman, you know, the breath, pneuma, the breath of God … that the universe sort of breathes … everything is moving, changing, growing,...

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