VALIS (Magill’s Choice: Classics of Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature)
At a glance:
- Author: Philip K. Dick
- First Published: 1980
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Science fiction—inner space
- Time of Work: 1970’s
- Setting: California
- Genres: Long fiction, Science fiction
- Subjects: 1970’s, North America or North Americans, United States or Americans, Suicide, Twentieth century, Dreams, California, West, U.S., Identity, Hallucinations or illusions, Christ figures or saviors
- Locales: California
The Story
VALIS begins with the attempted suicide of Horselover Fat’s friend Gloria, offered in a standard third-person point of view. Almost immediately, however, a first-person narrator interrupts to declare, “I am Horselover Fat, and I am telling this in the third person to gain much-needed objectivity.” This first-person narrator, named Philip K. Dick, is for all intents and purposes identical to the author of the book. As a result of a mystical experience involving the Christian fish symbol and a beam of pink light, Fat is convinced that the world as he sees...
[The entire page is 790 words long]
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