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The Divine Invasion (Vintage)| Media: | Paperback | | Author: | Philip K. Dick | | Publisher: | Vintage | | Release date: | 02 July, 1991 | | List price: | $12.00 |
| Our price: | $9.60 that is 20% off! |
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| The Divine Invasion (Vintage) |
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Average rating:  |
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Divinely Superior to VALIS |
Not since I saw Spiderman 2 did I believe sequels could revitalize the series as Dick did in The Divine Invasion. Each of the characters seem to be a parody of biblical figures. Imagine God appearing in a burning computer console that isn't really burning and screwing up the lyrics to your favorite songs. This is probably one of the books that influenced Terry Prachett's very great Small Gods novel about a God-like god that has fallen on hard times and needs the help of humans to return it to power. But imagine the Virgin Mary to have a major attitude and be neurotic not to mention A.D.D.
Much of the fun of Dick's earlier works such as Ubik (the cryogenic dreams while listening to an unaccountagble string score in the background) as well overly polite cops (one of whom pulls over the main character for speeding only to nitpick philosphy with him). This novel is absurb and hilarious. When the character of mystery, a Linda Fox finally reveals herself, she is described as a having a figure like a pizza waitress. You can't pay for comedy like that. The deliberate anticlimaxes make The Divine Invasion great reading. |
| The Divine Invasion (Vintage) - Philip K. Dick |
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Interesting theory but badly written |
I really liked Dick's "Do Androids Dream" and was excited to read another of his books. What a disappointment!
The characters in "The Divine Invasion" seem to exist only for symbolic reasons. Dick needs a protagonist to convey his religious theory but he doesn't create anyone believable.
The main character, Herb Asher, is obsessed with a sappy singer named Linda Fox or "The Fox" (how eighties is that?) but we don't find out what he likes so much about her. His wife, a virgin who carries Yaweh (God) as a human child, comes across as unlikeable and morbid. As a musician, I feel that Dick's portrayal of the music industry and the sound system that Asher sells to The Fox is absurd. For such a visionary as Dick it seems pretty silly to write about music tapes in a future of space colonization... I mean did he think we'd be recording to tape forever?? Also there are a couple of chapters in which Dick writes about powerful religious leaders who seem to be forgotten by the end of the book.
I will say that I think PKD's religious ideas are interesting. I like his portrayal of God and the Torah as being parts of the same whole. It's also interesting that he explains that the angry god of the Jewish Bible is only one facet of God's personality. This is something that bothers me about the bible and I'm glad to see Dick addressing it. Aside from these things, I wouldn't recommend "The Divine Invasion". |
| Philip K. Dick - The Divine Invasion (Vintage) |
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An amazing unusual book |
| This book definately is not for everyone. Dick considered himself a fictionalizing philosopher and this book really epitomizes that statement. If you're a fan of bland easy to read scifi than this book is not for you, but if you like things with a little more substance (but possibly less structure) this book is great. I just finished it and already I already miss the characters. Dick had a talent for making characters that were archetypal and yet entirely human at the same time. |
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