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(Original review date: 29 April 2009)

One of the tasks of being human is to find a satisfactory answer to why we live in such an ostensibly cold and uncaring universe. Horrible things happen for no reason. Goodness is often rewarded with suffering, cruelty with success. Tragedy can strike at any time and there is nothing we can do about it. And even if we find an acceptable explanation for this chaos - through science or philosophy or religion - we then are tasked with trying to reconcile ourselves to all of it. Valis is Philip K. Dick's attempt to do both. It is a work of pure insanity. It is also a work of genius.

Valis can be read at least four ways:

1) as a nonfiction first-person account of Philip K. Dick's psychotic break from reality,

2) as a science fiction novel about intelligent pink laser beams from outer space,

3) as a religious/philosophical tract incorporating Gnostic, Taoist, Christian, and Buddhist tenets, or

4) as an allegory of the logical insanity brought on by living in an irrational, indifferent universe.

One can certainly read it from only one of these perspectives, and the story would work. However, the book is all of these things, at the same time, and these multiple layers are what make it so endlessly puzzling and fascinating.

I started the book looking at it only from perspective #1. It seemed obvious to me that this was meant to be semi-autobiographical. After all, the narrator's name is Phil Dick. He's a famous science fiction writer - he mentions his other books, The Man in the High Castle, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. The other main character is named Horselover Fat, who is also Philip (Greek for "lover of horses") Dick (German for "fat"). The book describes how two women that he loved died: one of suicide, one of cancer. Dick/Fat could do nothing to save them; in his grief and rage toward a God who would create this irrational, apathetic universe, his personality splits and he completely loses touch with reality. Fat hallucinates that God speaks to him via a pink laser from outer space beamed directly at his head, imparting secret mystical information. He begins writing a cryptic screed filled with the laser's deranged revelations.

The problem with reading the book this way is that, about halfway through, other characters appear who share Fat's worldview, who have also been visited by the laser of God (aka VALIS, for Vast Active Living Intelligence System). Pretty soon, Fat, Dick, and his/their friends are meeting the two-year-old Savior girl - a human toddler who speaks like a prophet, claims to be the reincarnation of Jesus, and verifies that the universe is run by an ancient artificial intelligence system. At this point, it's pretty clear that the book is not meant to be an accurate account of Philip K. Dick's life.

Moving on to position #2 seems to make sense. OK, lasers, satellites, AI, I guess this is just science fiction. But the book makes far too many earnest references to various scriptures to be a simple sci-fi story. Clearly, Dick is trying to say something about the universe as a whole. It just doesn't read like trivial fiction.

Position #3, then. Dick is using sci-fi as a means of propagating his own personal theology. If this were the case, he'd clearly be certifiable. The philosophical and religious claims made by Horselover Fat are contradictory and delusional: We are still living in the Roman Empire and the year is 100AD - we only think it is later because a mad god has deceived us into believing in a construct called "time". Jesus was a "computer virus" sent by the true god to "fix" the mad world created by the mad god - only it didn't work because the mad world killed him. Ditto all the other Christ figures in history. Or alternatively, human beings are all gods - we created the world as a game for ourselves, and eliminated our memories and our godlike powers before we started to play - otherwise we'd just cheat our way out of it. This goes on and on, and none of it makes sense. If anyone actually believed this stuff, they'd have to be utterly insane, or on large amounts of reality-warping drugs, or both.

That leaves position #4: that Valis is an allegory about the human response to meaninglessness, powerlessness, hopelessness, and death. I think all the other perspectives are accurate, too. #4 is just the most comprehensive. Dick has lost two women who meant a great deal to him. Both times he tried to save them. Both times he failed. These women had done nothing wrong. They did not deserve to suffer and to die. If the universe is run by a god, he must be cruel, indifferent, powerless, or insane. Stricken by grief, plagued by this meaninglessness, Dick's personality splits and Horselover Fat appears. The pink laser reveals itself to Fat, and he believes that he is cured - that the world makes sense, that the world will be healed. There IS meaning, there IS a god, and there IS an explanation for why random tragedy exists. He has a purpose - to find the savior, who will lift the delusion of time, who will bring these two women back, who will right all the wrongs that have ever been.

And Fat does meet the Savior, in the form of this child. Immediately upon seeing her, he is healed - Dick and Fat merge back into a single, whole personality. She assures him that what he has been told by VALIS is true, and that she is there to bring about the redemption of the universe. She will destroy the mad god who has been ruling it for so long.

And then... she dies. In yet another inexplicable, meaningless accident. The savior is suddenly gone, and with her everything Dick has pinned his hopes upon. Horselover Fat immediately reappears, and there is still no meaning. There is no more refuge in religion. There is nothing that will save us from the essential tragedy of existence. The book ends on this same note: Fat is still out looking for the Savior's next incarnation; Dick is still at home, looking for subliminal messages in TV shows and ancient scripture. But he/they are still alive, still searching. He/they are no longer actively trying to destroy him/themself. That's something, right? Acceptance?

I don't know. I don't have any more answers than this book does. My favorite passage sums it up. Fat's friend Kevin has spent the entire book furious about the death of his cat, who was killed by a car while running across the street. This represents to Kevin everything that is wrong with the universe, the meaningless tragedy of it all. He can't wait to meet God on judgment day and demand an explanation for why his cat had to die. And finally, when they meet Sophia, the toddler christ, he gets his chance:

"What'd she say?" I said.

Kevin, inhaling deeply and gripping the steering wheel tight, said, "She said that MY DEAD CAT . . ." He paused, raising his voice. "MY DEAD CAT WAS STUPID."

I had to laugh. David likewise. No one had thought to give Kevin that answer before. The cat saw the car and ran into it, not the other way around; it had ploughed directly into the right front wheel of the car, like a bowling ball.

"She said," Kevin said, "that the universe has very strict rules, and that that species of cat, the kind that runs headfirst into moving cars, isn't around any more."

"Well," I said, "pragmatically speaking, she's right."...

"But," Kevin continued, "I said to her, 'Why didn't God make my cat smart?'... My cat was STUPID because GOD MADE IT STUPID. So it was GOD's fault, not my cat's fault."

Even the Savior has no answer to that.