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The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick

by Philip K. Dick, Pamela Jackson (Editor), Jonathan Lethem (Editor)

4.17 of 5 stars 4.17 · rating details · 195 ratings · 40 reviews

Based on thousands of pages of typed and handwritten notes, journal entries, letters, and story sketches, The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick is the magnificent and imaginative final work of an author who dedicated his life to questioning the nature of reality and perception, the malleability of space and time, and the relationship between the human and the divine. Edited and i...more

Hardcover, 976 pages

Published November 8th 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (first published November 1st 2011)

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Dec 15, 2012 A.E. Reiff is currently reading it

To have to say Christian Apocalypse at all shows how far adrift the times, for apparently it is not common knowledge that Ezekiel and Daniel, Isaiah and David are its foundation. To you who are under 50 say, or who have never felt it possible to believe that these things, that any of this is so, you should know that unlike the Buddhist world, which has many pleasing insights, this Apocalypse world posits a war from the beginning of time almost, whenever time begins. Shall we say time begins when...more

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Jun 17, 2012 Patrick rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: people

ludicrous babbling!!

Amazon review:

“A great and calamitous sequence of arguments with the universe: poignant, terrifying, ludicrous, and brilliant. The Exegesis is the sort of book associated with legends and madmen, but Dick wasn’t a legend and he wasn’t mad. He lived among us, and was a genius.”—Jonathan Lethem

Based on thousands of pages of typed and handwritten notes, journal entries, letters, and story sketches, The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick is the magnificent and imaginative final work of a...more

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Nov 09, 2011 Readersentertainment rated it 5 of 5 stars

For any reader who is unfamiliar with the author Philip K. Dick and his many published stories, I hope that after reading this article you realize what you are missing and you subsequently work to resolve the matter of this deficiency immediately. In other words, please find Dick's novels and read them as if you have been touched by madness. Be a voracious reader with an insatiable appetite for knowledge. You cannot miss the brilliance of this author.
Philip K. Dick passed away a few decades ago...more For any reader who is unfamiliar with the author Philip K. Dick and his many published stories, I hope that after reading this article you realize what you are missing and you subsequently work to resolve the matter of this deficiency immediately. In other words, please find Dick's novels and read them as if you have been touched by madness. Be a voracious reader with an insatiable appetite for knowledge. You cannot miss the brilliance of this author.
Philip K. Dick passed away a few decades ago but he left us with a remarkable and vast collection of novels and short stories, most of which would be classified as science fiction. Even if you are not a fan of this genre, Dick's writing goes well beyond this sometimes limited territory and deals with aspects of religion, philosophy, and pure science. In case you did not know, much of his writing has been adapted for film. Films such as Blade Runner and A Scanner Darkly come directly from Dick's collection, and even films like Minority Report were inspired by some of his shorter writings. He was a true genius who lived an unusual life complete with visions (of a spiritual nature) and ripe with complications. Some consider him a sort of precursor to or partial founder of post-modernism, especially with regard to his focus upon the sociological, political, and cultural experiences in our world.
Now, his final (and extensive) work is about to be available for your pleasure and (perhaps if you keep an open mind) enlightenment. The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick is the final collection of writing to be offered by Dick to the world. It serves as a means of better understanding his peculiar but powerful views on a wide range of topics but particularly religion and the true nature of the spiritual reality. As an author, he delved deeply and with great care into topics such as personal identity, perception, and the impossibility of a truly objective reality. The Exegesis is a journal-style collection of notes, entries, story sketches, and letters, all of which relate to Dick's remarkable and sometimes surreal experiences with faith and religion. The editors of the work, Pamela Jackson and Jonathan Lethem, have taken great care in compiling and arranging this epic and potent piece. You will not be disappointed...
...If you wish to test yourself with a work that is far from ordinary and almost painfully provocative in its uncanny awareness, do not miss The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick, the final novel from Philip Dick. If you are a lover of science fiction (then you should by this point be familiar with Philip Dick's work and you have this novel ordered or already in your collection), do not miss this release. Even if you have no interest in science fiction whatsoever, the importance of this piece cannot be lost. For anyone with an interest in spirituality, the true nature of perception and reality, or science, The Exegesis must at this point be considered a must-read. You will not regret this purchase. For more information about this ultimate work from author Philip K. Dick, look to the following website: http://www.philipkdick.com/new_exeges....(less)

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Jan 10, 2012 Bryan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audio

[review 1]
swhernp

[review 2]
Every man and woman is a star.

[review 3]
There he said it, Valis is true. What else to do want? What else could you possible want?

[review 4]
If the original document is 9,000 pages there had to be a lot more editors than just PJ and JL. And there were, and they are credited by only PJ and JL are on the jacket. I’m guessing PJ did most work and JL has the most name recognition.

[review 5]
VALIS

[review 6]
http://www.zygonjournal.org/

[review 7]
VALIS

[review 8]
“The Hunger Artist...more

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Philk81 I saw this on the new book shelves here and wanted to check if you had it on your reads list. You did and read it and gave it 5 stars and did an ellip...more
Feb 11, 2012 10:56am

Bryan In my experience PKD works far better if you go in expecting nothing but a dime store SF paperback because then what you'll get back is a seriously tw...more
Feb 15, 2012 07:07pm

Philk81 Thanks for the guidance. I'll keep this in mind and wade in at some point...
Feb 16, 2012 03:45pm

Nov 28, 2011 Felix Hayman rated it 5 of 5 stars

Ok, be prepared to be afraid.Phil Dick was never easy reading, was never an easy person to know and never had any easy answers. His close reading of the Gnostics and Jung and the Cosmologists lead to the writing of VALIS and this (shortened) version of his thoughts on God, The Gnostics and cosmology.It is not an easy read because Phil Dick is so distracted that thoughts come thick and fast and although overlaid with his undoubted scholarship they lack a lot of rigour, both in their theological s...more

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Dec 14, 2011 Janet marked it as to-read

I"m an enormous Phillip K. Dick fan. This compendium of Dick's philosophical/metaphysical investigations following a visionary experience in the 70's has been edited, impossibly, by novelist Jonathan Lethem, editor Pamela Jackson, plus a number of other of the Dick inner circles, including two or more of his many children (5 marriages.)

Heard it discussed last night on a podcast from the LA Library Aloud Series, a fascinating panel moderated by LA Times book reviewer David Ulin, between Lethem,...more

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Jan 09, 2013 Garrett Cook rated it 5 of 5 stars

A great mind turning on itself and turning itself on. A man waiting for the beast in the jungle. This is not a journal or a notebook of ranting this is a novel of ecstatic experience barred from reaching its true potential as a great novel solely by the fact that it is factual and therefore not a novel. But your protagonist is compelling, his insights and running monkeys fascinating and his emotional life intensely sad and beautiful. Is he seeing God, is he seeing the end? You don't quite know....more

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Mar 19, 2013 Madeleine is currently reading it · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle, own, occult-studies, philosophy

Ever since I read Valis years ago I've wanted to read more of PKDs Exegesis. Downside to not working in a bookstore anymore: Don't know when fucking shit like this comes out! My walk through the Kindle Store somehow led me to this and for $0.99, how could I fucking pass up 900 pages (a mere fraction of the Exegesis, but 900 more pages than I had before) of Mr. Dick's infamous/famous/whatever Exegesis? Answer: I couldn't.

Only read the introduction so far, which was rather a good read. It's good t...more

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Dec 18, 2011 Hadrian rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, philosophy, religion-theology

Hold on to your seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen.

The majority of PKD fans are familiar with the fact that in early 1974, the author received what some consider to be a hallucination or epileptic attack, but he perceived as a vision, or religious revelation. He saw a pink beam of light, which bombarded his mind and senses with a massive stream of information.

He spent the majority of the rest of his life chronicling what he had experienced, seen, and heard, in manic chronicling, written at the inhu...more Hold on to your seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen.

The majority of PKD fans are familiar with the fact that in early 1974, the author received what some consider to be a hallucination or epileptic attack, but he perceived as a vision, or religious revelation. He saw a pink beam of light, which bombarded his mind and senses with a massive stream of information.

He spent the majority of the rest of his life chronicling what he had experienced, seen, and heard, in manic chronicling, written at the inhuman speed of his novels. In a letter to a friend, he wrote: "I feel like a character in one of my novels, where reality is falling apart..."

The Exegesis we see here is the result of his notes. A team of apparently superhuman editors have taken this enormous mass of material and organized and compacted it into about 900 dense pages. They are wildly different: Some are candid letters to friends, family, and workmates: others are dense philosophical treatises, as he expands his syncretic PreSocratic-Platonic-Gnostic-Buddhist-Spinozan-Gestalt-Heidiggerian framework in a frantic searching for understanding. A descent into a labyrinth.

The collected results are sometimes baffling, almost incoherent. One feels a lingering sense of doubt, that the man really has gone insane, that the amphetamines and paranoia have caught up to him. But that is a disservice. If he is mad, he is aware of it. He jokes about it being God one day, aliens the next, and a Soviet mind probe the third day in one of his letters.

Furthermore, you may often find a profound little aphorism which peers into the nature of reality, or an unusually lucid analysis of his novels, or a chronicling of history. I was astonished to find a little remark by him, buried, about how to make this into a coherent book. But is there a conclusion to it all? Certainly not. The only thing resembling a summary comes near the end, perhaps as PKD felt his end was near.

Is this revelation? Is this a prophecy? Is it madness, but the rare form of madness which blurs or magnifies genius, as William Blake or Nikola Tesla? I am certainly not the one to judge. The sheer mass and density of this work will certainly dissuade the vast majority of his readers, used to swift and lucid parables which he usually produces. It is to his credit that he turned these warped journeys into interesting literature. Those who have the gall to take this work on, and have the time and energy to do so, may yet find some Prophecy of the Information Age.(less)

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Jan 23, 2013 Josh Hanagarne rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book chronicles eight years of unimaginable weirdness. I think a lot of readers will be turned off quickly and file the whole thing under "impenetrable," but I've found the parts I can understand very rewarding. But then, I'm a huge fan of PKD's work.

The most interesting thing about the book, for me, is that the author eventually started returning to his own body of work, decoding his own novels for clues.

If you try the book, I'd recommend skipping around a bit before giving up. You might...more

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Feb 10, 2013 B rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: own, kindle

This was a looooooong read and I'm glad to put it down.

"But I banalize my conclusions by these obsessive notes, and I must give them up; I realized this from reading the 9-2-80 pages. My mind worries and scurries, contradicts itself, comes to conclusions and then arbitrarily drops them; the exegesis does not build. There is no accumulative factor."
The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick (Kindle Locations 12382-12384).

Yes, that's right. Probably the most interesting thing about this book is its worst feat...more This was a looooooong read and I'm glad to put it down.

"But I banalize my conclusions by these obsessive notes, and I must give them up; I realized this from reading the 9-2-80 pages. My mind worries and scurries, contradicts itself, comes to conclusions and then arbitrarily drops them; the exegesis does not build. There is no accumulative factor."
The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick (Kindle Locations 12382-12384).

Yes, that's right. Probably the most interesting thing about this book is its worst feature -- it's way too long and literally, literally crazy. Dick seizes on concepts, some of them clearly wrong, some of them strange and interesting, compares them to Jesus, declares them the operating principle of the universe, doodles a little about it and then is suddenly seized by a new idea.

When it's clicking, which is rare, you get stuff like this:

"Those whom they seized upon for their good work (I am one) saw for a time the universe— or anyhow whatever part caught their attention— as it is. It is a vast cube, into which time moves in the form of pattern: not spatial (it acquires space only when it enters the cube), but dynamic and bubbly; it is alive. That is the future, a bunch of patterns being fed to us as we stand around within the space-time cube. At the bottom end, the used-up time extrudes, but is still real, still there. The cube in terms of the temporal extension is about four thousand years; its spatial extension is whatever is needed to play out the patterns on, for the benefit of living creatures. The purpose of it all— this feeding energy in, patterns in, at one end of the cube within which we stand yoked together, trapped within the cube like so many parts mounted on a circuit board— this energy presents "signals" which we experience as movement and events taking place within the cube. We respond, according to instructions fired at us from around us on all the six sides of our real world."
The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick (Kindle Locations 2815-2822).

It's Timecube before Timecube!

But when it's not working—and it's not for the equivalent of 850 pages or so—you can't do anything but want it to end. And this is an ABRIDGED copy!

The editor's notes are probably consistently the best part. They all take this very seriously but have different levels of respect for the materail.

This is only for people who really love Philip K. Dick novels and want to know more about him. It's a lot less interesting because it's after he went crazy. But I certainly feel like I know what he was up to.

Sidenote: this is my first Kindle book and I meant to review the Kindle, but I'm not sure what I want to say about it. (less)

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Apr 20, 2013 Denis rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: hardcover, first

Sure, I read it. All of it. Difficult to review.

I don't feel it was meant to be published in this way. Though the editors did an unbelievable job making something surprisingly readable out of the whole thing, and provided excellent notes to explain things. I feel it might have been wrong to do so. There was definitely genius there, great research and remarkable associations made, as was his talent, but it is, in my opinion, a study of one who is falling into the depths of madness.

I read the Syd...more

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Jun 05, 2012 M.L. Rudolph rated it 5 of 5 stars

2011. When time stops, "the substrate is revealed." So begins this edition of PKD's end-of-life compulsion to understand the revelation he experienced in February 1974 then again in March. He may have seen through to the underlying reality of, well, our perception of reality. Or he may have had a small stroke. Or he may have had an acid flashback. Or he may have been visited by a superior intelligence.

PKD explores every possible angle for his sudden insight by writing mostly by hand nearly every...more 2011. When time stops, "the substrate is revealed." So begins this edition of PKD's end-of-life compulsion to understand the revelation he experienced in February 1974 then again in March. He may have seen through to the underlying reality of, well, our perception of reality. Or he may have had a small stroke. Or he may have had an acid flashback. Or he may have been visited by a superior intelligence.

PKD explores every possible angle for his sudden insight by writing mostly by hand nearly every night for the remaining eight and a half years of his life. He analyzed himself and his own work especially ten novels he felt to be form a meta novel. He continued to produce novels and was working on still another when he died. He had reached a point in his career where money began to flow a bit more freely, a fan base had grown, international markets were bestowing more praise than his home country, and SF conventions were inviting him to keynote and paying for his trips. His overriding ambition throughout everything was to understand the above revelation. He wrote; he debated with himself; he called his friends in the middle of the night with further insights; he figured it all out only to dismiss his findings in the cold harsh light of the next morning when he'd start the process all over again.

It's not clear to me if PKD ever meant for any of this work to be published, but I'd guess from my layman's distance that he probably did. He wrote mostly by hand and didn't bother to keep the material in an orderly fashion, but he had enough faith in his reputation to expect future biographers to come in after his death and sort through the mess he left behind. Friends even spotted him carting stacks of handwritten material to the incinerator at times, meaning he did dispose of something, which meant he did allow the rest of his pages to survive.

I spent months reading The Exegesis. The material was too dense for me to read more than ten to twenty pages at a time. This edition runs to 900 pages. I didn't want to race through it. I wanted to think about it. Let the ideas linger, maybe fester, maybe germinate. And unusual for me, I expect to return to the book from time to time just to jump in for a blast of PKDickiana. I like how he challenges everything, every idea and solution he conjures, how he takes the BUT WHAT IF opposite side of every auto-debate.

It's his process of exploration that I find most intriguing. How he hammers unrelentingly at a problem to see just how malleable are the assumptions upon which we base our worldview.

If you like PKD, and if you like digging into a writer's journals for insight into how and why he wrote what he did, you'll like Exegesis. If you aren't familiar with PKD, this is still a violently good read. And if you stick with it, you'll end up reading his novels which is exactly what you should do after you finally make his intimate acquaintance.(less)

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Feb 19, 2013 Post Defiance added it

Shelves: nonfiction, sci-fi

Originally posted at http://postdefiance.com/literary-gift..., written by Sweet Pea Flaherty.

Based on thousands of pages of notes, sketches, and journals, this book represents the final work of a brilliant author dedicated to living the examined life. Edited by Pamela Jackson and Jonathan Lethem, this book is the culmination of years of research and transcription. A must-have for any science fiction fan.

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Nov 16, 2011 Patricia is currently reading it

My copy just arrived! Took awhile, plus dictionary, to properly digest the Introduction and Editor's Note (both are a "must"). Then I began to read his personal notes from the last eight years of his life. Am absorbed. Am outside of time and space, and more awake, when I read them. Remember that these are only 895 book pages, selected from the 8,000 pages of notes he wrote from 1974 to 1982.

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Nov 20, 2011 Joe rated it 2 of 5 stars

I only rate this low as a warning to others. See, this is an incredibly dense look into the character of Philip K. Dick in a religious, philosophical sense. If you're at all like me, that'll be a five star deal. PKD is interesting and what he has to say about everything is weird and interesting, too. But, it is not for everyone at all. If you're not into PKD or struggle with technical writing, this is not for you.

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Sep 03, 2012 Jake B. marked it as to-read

I've had this book on my shelf since the moment it was released. I've leafed through bits and pieces, but it is so incredibly dense and obtuse that one cannot simply "jump in," so to speak. It's going to take a lot of time before I can even begin to trudge through this behemoth.

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May 07, 2013 Marcus Ford rated it 5 of 5 stars

kind of a hard read....but it is a great view into the world that was unfolding in his head.
A must own for any PKD fans.

And considering most of the info in this book was truly channeled....their are obviously genuine nuggets of unfiltered reality locked within its codes.

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Dec 16, 2012 Ron Banister rated it 5 of 5 stars

Spectacular insight into the creative excesses of a Benzedrine fueled imagination. The tangled web of Dick's mind is laid bare as you can follow a map from synapse to synapse in a read that could ensnare your own mind.

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Feb 20, 2012 Brendan rated it 5 of 5 stars

The final three novels Philip K. Dick wrote (Valis, The Divine Invasion and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer), are not only three of my favorite books Dick wrote, but three of my favorite novels of all time. I've always been intrigued by the real-life events that inspired these three novels, and The Exegesis delivers 900 pages of this material. It's maddening at times, difficult to read and just flat-out insane in places, but if you're more than just a casual fan of Philip K. Dick and his wr...more

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Oct 18, 2012 Kilburn Adam rated it 5 of 5 stars

Such a fascinating book, and I think the editors did a really good job. I wonder if PKD didn't die when he did, how long he would have continued to write The Exegesis. And I also wonder what The Owl in Daylight would be like, if he had of completed it.

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Nov 22, 2011 Joe marked it as to-read

Went to a panel discussion with the editors and PKD's daughters - really excited to dive into this.

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Jan 24, 2012 Rob marked it as to-read

See also:

- http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/11/the-...

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Jul 23, 2012 Patrick rated it 4 of 5 stars

Currently finding it maddeningly thick and interesting.

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Mar 22, 2012 Edward Tully rated it 2 of 5 stars

For hardcore Philip K. Dick fans only - Phil tries in various ways to explain his strange "74/3" experience, but fails to convince himself or the reader no matter how outlandish each succcessive theory is. In the end, it's a dispiriting read as ideas are picked up, examined in great detail and then discarded for another unlikely explanation. This is real 1970s California philosophy at its worst.

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Apr 28, 2011 Art marked it as to-read

Suggested by Marsha from Publisher's Weekly newsletter

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Apr 14, 2012 John Orman rated it 3 of 5 stars

Complicated writing, complicated to explain even what it is. Eight thousand pages of Philip K. Dick's handwritten scriblings over the last eight years of his life, collected into a book. As messy as it sounds.

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Mar 19, 2012 Jenny marked it as to-read

Shelves: can-t-or-won-t-finish-it

it's interesting; but not there isn't much of a point. it's an ouroboros shaped manifestation of the mind of a guy who probably had a touch of schizophrenia and serious penchant for amphetamines.

it's too indulgent to actually be read. maybe one day if i get really bored....

1 like · like · see review

Mar 10, 2012 Travis Todd rated it 3 of 5 stars

This will never be the kind of book one reads straight through...that's probably too much time in the company of a dubiously sane genius hot on the trail of enlightenment. I'm glad to have this on hand as a resource, though, and if I ever want to enter the flow of Dickian theological speculation I can dive in midstream any time I wish. Right now, though, I just want to plow through some space opera. Valis will have to wait.

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Aug 31, 2012 Quinn da Matta rated it 5 of 5 stars

Life-changing!

His opinions/views/beliefs may - at first - seem delusional and paranoid but, the moment you allow him to validate his opinions, a lot of it begins to make sense.

Not an easy read - like reading a complex text book - but, totally worth the time and effort. After reading this, I feel a little more enlightened and open to the world around me.

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About Philip K. Dick

Philip K. Dick was born in Chicago in 1928 and lived most of his life in California. He briefly attended the University of California, but dropped out before completing any classes. In 1952, he began writing professionally and proceeded to write numerous novels and short-story collections. He won the Hugo Award for the best novel in 1962 for The Man in the High Castle and the John W. Campbell Memo...more

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“Also, I do seem attracted to trash, as if the clue--the clue--lies there. I'm always ferreting out elliptical points, odd angles. What I write doesn't make a whole lot of sense. There is fun and religion and psychotic horror strewn about like a bunch of hats. Also, there is a social or sociological drift--rather than toward the hard sciences, the overall impression is childish but interesting.” — 3 people liked it

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