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The Word of God: Or, Holy Writ Rewritten
Not since The Da Vinci Code !
The only tome ever written by God Himself!
INSPIRED BY ACTUAL EVENTS!
In this compelling memoir, the first and hopefully the last of its kind, America’s most divine author reveals the intimate and shocking details of His sudden elevation to the most coveted and least understood position in the universe.
In early 2005 (A.D.), wearying of the world’s religious schisms, doctrinal heresies, and manifold editorial sins, Thomas M. Disch took matters into His own hands and became the Deity.
As controversial as it is incontrovertible, the moving true story of His awful transformation and its awesome aftermath reveals, at long last, the hidden web that links Disch, Philip K. Dick, Western wear, the Leamington Hotel, and Eternity itself. Read it in fear and trembling. But read it, or else.
YOU WILL LAUGH. YOU WILL CRY. YOU WILL PRAY.
The only tome ever written by God Himself!
INSPIRED BY ACTUAL EVENTS!
In this compelling memoir, the first and hopefully the last of its kind, America’s most divine author reveals the intimate and shocking details of His sudden elevation to the most coveted and least understood position in the universe.
In early 2005 (A.D.), wearying of the world’s religious schisms, doctrinal heresies, and manifold editorial sins, Thomas M. Disch took matters into His own hands and became the Deity.
As controversial as it is incontrovertible, the moving true story of His awful transformation and its awesome aftermath reveals, at long last, the hidden web that links Disch, Philip K. Dick, Western wear, the Leamington Hotel, and Eternity itself. Read it in fear and trembling. But read it, or else.
YOU WILL LAUGH. YOU WILL CRY. YOU WILL PRAY.
180 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
About the author
Thomas M. Disch
380 books327 followersThomas Michael Disch was an American science fiction writer and poet. He won the Hugo Award for Best Related Book—previously called "Best Non-Fiction Book"—in 1999. He had two other Hugo nominations and nine Nebula Award nominations to his credit, plus one win of the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, a Rhysling Award, and two Seiun Awards, among others.
His writing includes substantial periodical work, such as regular book and theater reviews for The Nation, The Weekly Standard, Harper's, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Times Literary Supplement, and Entertainment Weekly.
As a fiction writer and a poet, Disch felt typecast by his science fiction roots. "I have a class theory of literature. I come from the wrong neighborhood to sell to The New Yorker. No matter how good I am as an artist, they always can smell where I come from".
Following an extended period of depression after the death in 2005 of his life-partner, Charles Naylor, Disch stopped writing almost entirely, except for poetry and blog entries, although he did produce two novellas. Disch fatally shot himself on July 4, 2008, in his Manhatten (NYC) apartment.
Naylor and Disch are buried alongside each other at Saint Johns Episcopal Church Columbarium, Dubuque, Iowa. His last book, The Word of God, which was written shortly before Naylor died, was published a few days before Disch's death.
His writing includes substantial periodical work, such as regular book and theater reviews for The Nation, The Weekly Standard, Harper's, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Times Literary Supplement, and Entertainment Weekly.
As a fiction writer and a poet, Disch felt typecast by his science fiction roots. "I have a class theory of literature. I come from the wrong neighborhood to sell to The New Yorker. No matter how good I am as an artist, they always can smell where I come from".
Following an extended period of depression after the death in 2005 of his life-partner, Charles Naylor, Disch stopped writing almost entirely, except for poetry and blog entries, although he did produce two novellas. Disch fatally shot himself on July 4, 2008, in his Manhatten (NYC) apartment.
Naylor and Disch are buried alongside each other at Saint Johns Episcopal Church Columbarium, Dubuque, Iowa. His last book, The Word of God, which was written shortly before Naylor died, was published a few days before Disch's death.
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February 12, 2024Thomas Disch committed suicide on July 4, 2008.
I found nowhere any reference for any reason why he chooses the date of the most important celebration in his country's history for his own dismissal.
Even in the field of science fiction, Thomas Disch was considered unorthodox. Nonetheless, three of his novels, “Camp Concentration,” “334” and “On Wings of Song” were named in “Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels", welcomed as something refreshing in the genre.
Since the beginning of his career, Disch was exalted and critically acclaimed as a writer of the "nouvelle vague" of the science fiction movement in the 70s and 80s.
Critic John Clute once wrote that Disch was perhaps the most respected, least trusted, most envied and least read of all modern first-rank SF writers.
Tom Disch is one of the few people I have ever met who I would consider a genius, said Dana Gioia, and she continues: He was like a brilliant child in the richness of his imagination, although certainly no child had as dark and twisted an imagination as Tom did.
His books boasted laudatory blurbs by the likes of Stephen King and Dean Koontz; Brian W. Aldiss singled it out for praise in a long review in "SF Impulse".
Disch was far more eclectic than most writers. He was the creator of dystopian nightmares, apocalyptic space operas, post-apocalyptic landscapes, alien invasions ("The Genocides": an alien invasion which actually succeeds; with overwhelming technical supremacy, and the element of surprise, Disch’s aliens convert the earth’s surface into a huge agro-business, and the last human rebels, they exterminate it like vermin), dark horror ("The Priest": a scorching attack on the Catholic Church and the paedophiles in the priesthood), children fairy tales ("The Brave Little Toaster": it was made, along with its sequel, into a Disney animated movie), poetry ("The Castle of Indolence; On Poetry, Poets, and Poetasters": was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award) an interactive computer game ("Amnesia": when computer games were almost a "ficition" in the imagination of a small group of visionaries), essays ("The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of": a meditation on the impact of science fiction on our culture. A must read.).
He won a Hugo Award and had two other Hugo nominations and nine Nebula Award nominations to his credit, among other prizes.
But his last book, the reason for this already long review, "The Word of God: Or, Holy Writ Rewritten", written shortly before his life-partner, Charles Naylor died, and published a few days before Disch's death was a huge disappointment to me.
The book is an assembly of disjointed sentences, mean-spirited data at times, and just a confusing mesh of words. To me, this is a (very) long bitter rant against religion and an attack on the deceased and former friend the writer Phillipe K Dick.
This demands an explanation: Philip K Dick, who had praised and defended Disch's work, was a famous drug addict and for years he suffered from hallucinations and paranoia episodes. Under the influence of some of his usual substances, PKD wrote a letter to the FBI, in 1972 accusing Disch of being a communist agent infiltrated to deploy WWIII.
Disch, who in return for the public support PKD had demonstrated towards his work, and believing he was a friend, kept defending his works on several occasions, not knowing that he was under investigation because of that letter. When Disch found out, years after PKD died, who had sent the letter, he obviously became enraged, and in good measure this book is his answer.
Unfortunately, this is a mess; part memoir, part collection of stories and poems, and part short story about his strange feud with Philip K Dick's paranoia. In the end, none of it works as a coherent piece and it turned out to be a very confusing reading.
It is a pity and a shame (to the editor) that this text was published as a "novel" by Thomas Disch.
All we have worthy in this book is the brilliant prose of one of the greatest writers of science fiction because even if his genius was diminished by old age, pain and grief, the one who wrote beautiful visions with words is still here at times: ...a soul released from its cave of flesh, pausing briefly to tantalize some sleeping mind before departing this universe forever...
Pick up a Thomas Disch book blindly is a risky move and always a surprise, if a good one we never know until we have read it.
I found nowhere any reference for any reason why he chooses the date of the most important celebration in his country's history for his own dismissal.
Even in the field of science fiction, Thomas Disch was considered unorthodox. Nonetheless, three of his novels, “Camp Concentration,” “334” and “On Wings of Song” were named in “Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels", welcomed as something refreshing in the genre.
Since the beginning of his career, Disch was exalted and critically acclaimed as a writer of the "nouvelle vague" of the science fiction movement in the 70s and 80s.
Critic John Clute once wrote that Disch was perhaps the most respected, least trusted, most envied and least read of all modern first-rank SF writers.
Tom Disch is one of the few people I have ever met who I would consider a genius, said Dana Gioia, and she continues: He was like a brilliant child in the richness of his imagination, although certainly no child had as dark and twisted an imagination as Tom did.
His books boasted laudatory blurbs by the likes of Stephen King and Dean Koontz; Brian W. Aldiss singled it out for praise in a long review in "SF Impulse".
Disch was far more eclectic than most writers. He was the creator of dystopian nightmares, apocalyptic space operas, post-apocalyptic landscapes, alien invasions ("The Genocides": an alien invasion which actually succeeds; with overwhelming technical supremacy, and the element of surprise, Disch’s aliens convert the earth’s surface into a huge agro-business, and the last human rebels, they exterminate it like vermin), dark horror ("The Priest": a scorching attack on the Catholic Church and the paedophiles in the priesthood), children fairy tales ("The Brave Little Toaster": it was made, along with its sequel, into a Disney animated movie), poetry ("The Castle of Indolence; On Poetry, Poets, and Poetasters": was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award) an interactive computer game ("Amnesia": when computer games were almost a "ficition" in the imagination of a small group of visionaries), essays ("The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of": a meditation on the impact of science fiction on our culture. A must read.).
He won a Hugo Award and had two other Hugo nominations and nine Nebula Award nominations to his credit, among other prizes.
But his last book, the reason for this already long review, "The Word of God: Or, Holy Writ Rewritten", written shortly before his life-partner, Charles Naylor died, and published a few days before Disch's death was a huge disappointment to me.
The book is an assembly of disjointed sentences, mean-spirited data at times, and just a confusing mesh of words. To me, this is a (very) long bitter rant against religion and an attack on the deceased and former friend the writer Phillipe K Dick.
This demands an explanation: Philip K Dick, who had praised and defended Disch's work, was a famous drug addict and for years he suffered from hallucinations and paranoia episodes. Under the influence of some of his usual substances, PKD wrote a letter to the FBI, in 1972 accusing Disch of being a communist agent infiltrated to deploy WWIII.
Disch, who in return for the public support PKD had demonstrated towards his work, and believing he was a friend, kept defending his works on several occasions, not knowing that he was under investigation because of that letter. When Disch found out, years after PKD died, who had sent the letter, he obviously became enraged, and in good measure this book is his answer.
Unfortunately, this is a mess; part memoir, part collection of stories and poems, and part short story about his strange feud with Philip K Dick's paranoia. In the end, none of it works as a coherent piece and it turned out to be a very confusing reading.
It is a pity and a shame (to the editor) that this text was published as a "novel" by Thomas Disch.
All we have worthy in this book is the brilliant prose of one of the greatest writers of science fiction because even if his genius was diminished by old age, pain and grief, the one who wrote beautiful visions with words is still here at times: ...a soul released from its cave of flesh, pausing briefly to tantalize some sleeping mind before departing this universe forever...
Pick up a Thomas Disch book blindly is a risky move and always a surprise, if a good one we never know until we have read it.
July 16, 2014
I picked this out of the book dumpster more for its pristine condition than anything else. I'd heard of Disch but never read anything by him.
It's definitely fiction, but aside from that a bit hard to categorize. Disch mixes real-life elements of his personal biography with fantastical storylines. As the first person narrator, he is God, who is Thomas Disch. Real-life Disch had some history with the sci-fi novelist Philip K. Dick, who is one of the main characters; we first meet him in Hell, where the architect Philip Johnson cures him of his writer's block in exchange for Dick agreeing to travel back to 1939 via a wormhole and kill the novelist Thomas Mann before he can fornicate with Disch's mother to produce Disch. (It sounds complicated but somehow it is less so when reading.)
By far the funniest portion of the book was a (sadly) short section where Jesus and the Apostle Peter, not looking like their Biblical selves but like normal modern people, go to Kansas City.
Jesus walked over to a shop window to admire a recliner upholstered in Brazilian leather in a shade of burgundy. The interior of the store was filled with other pieces of furniture, the luxuries all crammed together like passengers on a pleasure barge. Heaven seemed drab in comparison. And the carpentry seemed of the best quality. If there was time, Jesus hoped they might visit the workshop where these goods had been made.
Later, in their hotel, they watch the TV show Joan of Arcadia. Jesus likes it, and performs a miracle whereby they are able to speed-view the entire series in mere seconds.
A man on the street gives them free movie vouchers to see "The Passion of the Christ." (Peter puts the vouchers in his fanny pack.) Neither is sure they want to relive the horrors of those days, and Jesus goes and hangs out in the men's room during the worst parts of the movie.
I could have read about Jesus and Peter's adventures in America forever.
-----------------------------------
Errata: the spy Robert Hanssen is a character in one chapter (he's a student at the "School for Traitors"). A footnote tells us that Hanssen was a devout Catholic who attended the church St. Catherine of Siena in Richmond, Virginia. But actually the church Hanssen attended is in Great Falls, VA, a suburb of Washington. The church has ties to Opus Dei and is attended by all sorts of government bigwigs like Antonin Scalia, Rick Santorum, Louis Freeh, and the head of the NRA.
There's also a typo on the blurb-whoring page, where Karen Joy Fowler is referred to as the author of The Jane Austin Book Club.
July 31, 2014
Another moment of silence for Thomas Disch, the SF/poetry/children's author who shot himself in 2008, right as this book came off the presses. This is quite obviously his long goodbye, for which he prepared a bravura performance of his best tricks. He is exquisitely literate and writes beautiful, clever sentences. He's got the left-wing gift of arch critique, and no shortage of things to say about the demon Religion. He appears to have a major axe to grind against Phillip K. Dick. He knowledgeably, effortlessly weaves together bits of poetry, comedy, short story, history and biography in whatever order he pleases and makes the whole thing come off charmingly. I'm reminded of Vonnegut's TIMEQUAKE -- how it was no longer necessary for him to declare the existence of a story, genre or scope in order to sit down and plonk out a book.
But for all the wit and thought I enjoyed in this book, there were strong whiffs of pretension, smugness and bitterness that put me off. Works of atheism are written either to enlarge the flock or to harmonize with the choir; this book is entirely one of the latter. I imagine the mood of it must have been informed by the declining health of Disch's partner Charles Naylor. In case you didn't know, after Naylor's death in 2005 (right after this manuscript was finished) Disch fell into depression and finally took his own life in 2008. And yet he tells us very little about Charles in the book, preferring instead to pontificate on his own elevated opinions of everything in his mock-God voice, intermixed with reprints of his poetry.
I sympathize with the man, but I'm sad that he chose to close the book, and his career, and his life, by firing off parting shots at people he hated. Of course it's easier for the ultra-successful to be gracious, and writers excel at petty jealousies -- but Disch did all right in his way; he lived in New York, was widely read, well respected by the SF, poetry & gay communities, had a partner he loved for a good thirty years. I don't know that any writer can hope for much more than that.
But for all the wit and thought I enjoyed in this book, there were strong whiffs of pretension, smugness and bitterness that put me off. Works of atheism are written either to enlarge the flock or to harmonize with the choir; this book is entirely one of the latter. I imagine the mood of it must have been informed by the declining health of Disch's partner Charles Naylor. In case you didn't know, after Naylor's death in 2005 (right after this manuscript was finished) Disch fell into depression and finally took his own life in 2008. And yet he tells us very little about Charles in the book, preferring instead to pontificate on his own elevated opinions of everything in his mock-God voice, intermixed with reprints of his poetry.
I sympathize with the man, but I'm sad that he chose to close the book, and his career, and his life, by firing off parting shots at people he hated. Of course it's easier for the ultra-successful to be gracious, and writers excel at petty jealousies -- but Disch did all right in his way; he lived in New York, was widely read, well respected by the SF, poetry & gay communities, had a partner he loved for a good thirty years. I don't know that any writer can hope for much more than that.
October 5, 2011
What an odd, sad, clever and funny book this is. It begins with the boring shooting fish in a barrel activity of satirizing organized religion combined with equally trivial autobiographical details.
Finally a ray of light gleams and a short story appears in the text. Then back to more triviality that grows more sadly interesting as the maudlin discussions of death of a man who would not so long after this book was written kill himself.
Occasional short stories continue to gleam forth like lights in the fog until all of the sudden they all link up into a cohesive whole that is both wickedly funny as the best of Thomas Disch is as well as interestingly insider gossipy as they concern a fellow SF writer. They are also examples of pathetic jealousy Disch has towards this more successful author and such brilliant pieces of character assassination that they shine light on Disch's own self loathing.
Along the way we discover both fascinating facts in a brilliant and hilarious riff on another author's work mixed with fascinating and yet pathetic self aggrandizement by Disch reminiscent at times of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
There to see as well are Disch's own misanthropist and illogical beliefs about a variety of topics that defeat some of the invincibility of the satirist's usual position.
A fascinating and complex work with moments of awesomeness amidst much dreck. At least it's easier to read than the European intellectuals Disch so admires.
Finally a ray of light gleams and a short story appears in the text. Then back to more triviality that grows more sadly interesting as the maudlin discussions of death of a man who would not so long after this book was written kill himself.
Occasional short stories continue to gleam forth like lights in the fog until all of the sudden they all link up into a cohesive whole that is both wickedly funny as the best of Thomas Disch is as well as interestingly insider gossipy as they concern a fellow SF writer. They are also examples of pathetic jealousy Disch has towards this more successful author and such brilliant pieces of character assassination that they shine light on Disch's own self loathing.
Along the way we discover both fascinating facts in a brilliant and hilarious riff on another author's work mixed with fascinating and yet pathetic self aggrandizement by Disch reminiscent at times of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
There to see as well are Disch's own misanthropist and illogical beliefs about a variety of topics that defeat some of the invincibility of the satirist's usual position.
A fascinating and complex work with moments of awesomeness amidst much dreck. At least it's easier to read than the European intellectuals Disch so admires.
April 30, 2025
Disch alternates his thoughts about how the world would be if he were God with a strange fictional storyline in which the late author Philip K. Dick is sprung from Hell to alter history so that Disch is never born and the Axis win World War II. As fellow sci-fi writers, Disch and Dick had a passing acquaintance in real life. After Dick's death, Disch found out that during one of his bouts of drug-fueled mental illness, Dick had reported him to the FBI as a possible subversive. Dick believed he was being observed by covert government agents, and that the only way to save himself was to report the "secret messages" in one of Disch's novels. THe FBI rightly dismissed Dick as a crank. Now it is a truly crappy thing for one novelist to inform on another, but Disch seems to have nursed his grudge against a dead man for decades. Disch unflatteringly portrays his Dick character as sexist (accurate), a homophobe and Nazi sympathizer (not accurate). I'm not altogether certain how serious Disch was with this story, but I found it funny in a bizarre way. Disch's ruminations on life and spirituality are not amazingly creative, but he's an entertaining writer, and they are made more bittersweet by virtue of having been put down on paper not too long before his death by suicide.
July 26, 2008
I picked this up after I heard the author (now sadly deceased) read from it a couple months ago at the Seaport museum. It is difficult to fit this into any real category or genre, the book is mostly an eloquent and erudite rant about religion delivered semi-sardonically through the voice of the author himself who claims to have been elevated to a divinity. Think Screwtape Letters with a god instead of a devil. Interspersed among Disch’s rambling monologues are short stories and poems – most of them enjoyable and one in particular (“The New Me”) that was quite excellent – but the key word here is ramble.
The book puttered eloquently and aimlessly on until, after an odd two-part story about how Philip K. Dick returns from hell and goes back in time and murder Thomas Mann in a Minneapolis hotel before he can seduce Disch’s mother and thereby prevent Thomas Disch from coming into existence (and somehow allowing Hitler to win WWII), when the author, invoking divine license, decides to end the book. Although pleasurable to read alot of the time the pointlessness was a little irritating.
The book puttered eloquently and aimlessly on until, after an odd two-part story about how Philip K. Dick returns from hell and goes back in time and murder Thomas Mann in a Minneapolis hotel before he can seduce Disch’s mother and thereby prevent Thomas Disch from coming into existence (and somehow allowing Hitler to win WWII), when the author, invoking divine license, decides to end the book. Although pleasurable to read alot of the time the pointlessness was a little irritating.
July 29, 2009
"What emerges ... in Disch's final work is a portrait of an extremely intelligent, extremely funny and extremely cynical man—but it's the cynicism that won in the end. And I think it's that same cynicism that painted such a starkly-divided picture of what faith is and does in The Word of God. If Disch hadn't been that cynic, if he had allowed for a bit more nuance in his understanding of the things in the world he didn't like, he might still be alive today. But then, would he have still been Thomas Disch? I'll leave that question for people who knew him better—either personally and as a writer. The view from the sidelines (where I am) is that Disch's cynicism demanded a sad ending to his life, and The Word of God is a central part of that tragedy."
Read my full review here:
http://sfgospel.typepad.com/sf_gospel...
Read my full review here:
http://sfgospel.typepad.com/sf_gospel...
August 30, 2011
Tom Disch was a funny guy. This book is uneven, but intellectually stimulating and often hilarious. As usual for Disch, there are allusions, fables, a few poems thrown in, and an ongoing allegorical takeoff featuring Philip K. Dick in Hell.
Heretical in intent, it is actually not a terribly dangerous book. As God, Disch is more modest than one might expect, and more tolerant than most deities. He's also got his tongue planted in his cheek here. Memoir...fiction...philosophy...cultural commentary, yes. Heresy? You decide.
Heretical in intent, it is actually not a terribly dangerous book. As God, Disch is more modest than one might expect, and more tolerant than most deities. He's also got his tongue planted in his cheek here. Memoir...fiction...philosophy...cultural commentary, yes. Heresy? You decide.
August 5, 2018
Disch could really write, as I observed after reading his novel Camp Concentration, and based on this book he has a wicked wit. Unfortunately, as an intellectual Disch was thoroughly unremarkable on the subject of religion. This is basically an angry rant by Disch where he nurses a few of his grudges and expresses his thoughts about religion in the wake of 9/11, Bush's reelection, and the war I Iraq. It also amounts to his suicide note, since suicide is mentioned more than a couple times, and he would take his own life soon afterward.
Disch's anger toward religious institutions is perfectly understandable; He grew up gay and Catholic. However, his observations of religion amount to thinking that religious people are just a bunch of delusional nutcases. There is an irony that he seems to buy into most of the stereotypes about the Islamic world while at the same time criticizing the Bush administration. If this book had criticized American Imperialism more substantially we might have had something there.
One of the most frustrating and hilarious parts of the book is that he uses sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick as a character. He starts off mocking Dick's famous sexism, which is perfectly fair. Then he tries to portray Dick as some kind of far right fascist theocrat, which is not fair at all. Dick did report Disch to the FBI back when they were supposedly friends, but he also might have suffered from schizophrenia. As such, Disch seems to be a bit meanspirited to mock him so unsympathetically here. The inclusion of Dick seems to be because Dick was famously Christian and Disch seems to believe that Dick reported him to the FBI because Disch was an atheist. Never mind Dick doesn't say anything about this in his letter to the FBI.
I would have been interested in Disch's take on Dick's Gnostic Christianity, but his take consists of basically claiming Dick was a Christian the same way as George W. Bush is a Christian. Not exactly the most fair comparison. Still, this book is pretty entertaining, and you have to love how fearless Disch was.
Disch's anger toward religious institutions is perfectly understandable; He grew up gay and Catholic. However, his observations of religion amount to thinking that religious people are just a bunch of delusional nutcases. There is an irony that he seems to buy into most of the stereotypes about the Islamic world while at the same time criticizing the Bush administration. If this book had criticized American Imperialism more substantially we might have had something there.
One of the most frustrating and hilarious parts of the book is that he uses sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick as a character. He starts off mocking Dick's famous sexism, which is perfectly fair. Then he tries to portray Dick as some kind of far right fascist theocrat, which is not fair at all. Dick did report Disch to the FBI back when they were supposedly friends, but he also might have suffered from schizophrenia. As such, Disch seems to be a bit meanspirited to mock him so unsympathetically here. The inclusion of Dick seems to be because Dick was famously Christian and Disch seems to believe that Dick reported him to the FBI because Disch was an atheist. Never mind Dick doesn't say anything about this in his letter to the FBI.
I would have been interested in Disch's take on Dick's Gnostic Christianity, but his take consists of basically claiming Dick was a Christian the same way as George W. Bush is a Christian. Not exactly the most fair comparison. Still, this book is pretty entertaining, and you have to love how fearless Disch was.
May 31, 2026
My first Disch, the author of The Brave Little Toaster. It was a disappointment. Disch writes well and entertainingly, but this novel/memoir seems to me to be a lot of nonsense, really. It alternates between him pontificating about the evils of religion and a story about a rival Sci-Fi author, Philip K Dick, returning from hell to try and kill Disch's mother before she conceives him. In real life, Dick had reported Disch to the FBI with some bizarre conspiracy theory that the Bureau did not pursue. Disch's takedowns of religion are very predictable and rather smug. He's at his best when he describes scenes from his own life, and people in the literary world whom he knew. Sadly, he killed himself just after this strange work was published.
December 10, 2024
After the confusion between Philip Dick and Philip Roth that only truly showed the vast magnitude of Disch's grudge towards the first (amongst many other reasons, of course, like so-called 'daddy issues' and what not) I could not stop reminding myself of Joseph Roth's version of the biblical Job who end up his mishaps in America during the Great Depression.
Also, Michel Houellebecq, like the author here, was apprehensive of, even before 9/11 or the chinese economical ascension, western general decline and thus he showed more and more distrust towards the political kitsch of multiculturalism, specifically against the intolerance and relative military efficacy shown by islamic fundamentalism all the while, supposedly, they were being excessively, in a passive-agressive way, tolerated by us, westerners. I believe in a hardline stance as much as I would believe in a conciliatory approach, that is, I don't really believe in nothing in this regard but I don't really have any power in human affairs, let alone over their dysfunctional, suicidal civilizations conspiring against one another along millenia.
As far as I know, Disch finally crucified himself with a bullet in the head in the same year as other unknown, contemporary writer, David Foster Wallace, unbeknownst to both as well, hanged himself almost as if they were following a mutual tragic rehearsal.
Also, Michel Houellebecq, like the author here, was apprehensive of, even before 9/11 or the chinese economical ascension, western general decline and thus he showed more and more distrust towards the political kitsch of multiculturalism, specifically against the intolerance and relative military efficacy shown by islamic fundamentalism all the while, supposedly, they were being excessively, in a passive-agressive way, tolerated by us, westerners. I believe in a hardline stance as much as I would believe in a conciliatory approach, that is, I don't really believe in nothing in this regard but I don't really have any power in human affairs, let alone over their dysfunctional, suicidal civilizations conspiring against one another along millenia.
As far as I know, Disch finally crucified himself with a bullet in the head in the same year as other unknown, contemporary writer, David Foster Wallace, unbeknownst to both as well, hanged himself almost as if they were following a mutual tragic rehearsal.
June 26, 2019
His writing style is always lovely. This book left me bored to annoyed. The conceit of being a god writing science fiction wasn't funny or pointed enough. The part where he cast Philip K Dick as an unpleasant jerk who is the villain of the piece, left me puzzled why anyone thought this was a good idea.
October 11, 2022
Writing a terribly blasphemous book must be very funny and ironic after you off yourself huh?
April 10, 2013
I haven't read this book yet - it isn't available as an ebook, so I'm waiting for a hard copy to arrive. But Disch was a great writer, and any book that has the temerity to take the p*ss out of Philip K. Dick deserves three stars just for that. I hope to up the stars after reading.
Dick was a great writer, of course, but also a shocking fraud - a cross between a genius and a junky spinning a self-justifying story. (And one who had once informed on Disch to the FBI in a state of drug-addled paranoia. Disch is to be admired for his restraint in saving his revenge until after Dick's death and transfiguration...)
Dick was a great writer, of course, but also a shocking fraud - a cross between a genius and a junky spinning a self-justifying story. (And one who had once informed on Disch to the FBI in a state of drug-addled paranoia. Disch is to be admired for his restraint in saving his revenge until after Dick's death and transfiguration...)
July 11, 2008
You'll read this and shrug, and then a day later you realize it's the most insidious, shape-shifting work you 've read in a long time. Because Disch covers the morphing real/unreal, what is it-ness of the book with smooth, liquid prose style, You're going to underestimate what the book is doing. It doesn't spring its meta-tricks on you, so you don't get those a-ha moments of how smart you and the author are. But much legerdemain and bait-and-switch is going on here. It's more than just unreliable narrative. It turns you into an unreliable reader.
November 23, 2009
A collection of linked short stories connected by a bizarre narrative in which the ghost of Philip K. Dick is released from Hell and sent back in time to prevent the German author Thomas Mann from fathering Thomas Disch, who may or may not be god. Full of Disch's oddball humor and melancholy, but in retrospect it reads like a book length suicide note.
August 11, 2011
This is standard Disch fare. An interesting concept where he put himself in the role of God and some different observers to see how the different events in the past and currently play together.
I especially liked the idea of a church in hell that was an exact duplicate to the crystal cathedral.
I especially liked the idea of a church in hell that was an exact duplicate to the crystal cathedral.
Currently Reading
July 9, 2008Impossible not to revel in theodicy over this very title. And how dare the author kill himself on the 4th of July!
March 26, 2009
Okay, it was funny sure. A collection of stories really, tied together with Disch's narrative, it flowed well I guess, but it just wasn't for me. Interesting concept too… just not played out well…
May 5, 2009
It's difficult to categorize this Disch book, other than to say it is hilarious, insightful and very well-written.
March 24, 2016
Well, that was strange....
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