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larsinio 's review for:
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
by Philip K. Dick
TMOTA, in which over-educated Berkeley-ites gaslight each other (and themselves) over proto-christian theories.
This novel, at the end of PKD's living career, in many ways is a culmination of his skills and experience as a writer. Fully-realized characters, a deep intellectual plot, and well-researched and referenced prose that allow more mingling of fantasy and reality. It starts in medias res has John Lennon's death as a framing device. Literati meets illuminati.
Its also the culmination of PKD as a person. TMOTA is a battle of PKD's own religious convictions - and whether they are truly valid - angel representing a measured balance between absolute objective reality (bill) and fantasy (tim/kirsten). This book is much more interesting in this autobiographical context. Through the novel there is a constant tug of war of christian fantasy vs concrete reality, and its never quite settled.
While not a Scifi book, it is definitely PKD. Discussions on german philosophy. Discussions on gnostic Christianity. Unreliable narrator. Drug use. Ambiguous ending. Distortion of reality and perception. California.
its far from perfect as well - all female characters fail the bechtel test. Although they are quite detailed they ultimately are basing themselves around the actions of men. Angel deserved more depth than this. Kirsten too seemed a lot more interesting in her first appearances than the perpetual victim and sloppy co-opter she became. Entire passages are just gnostic mind dumps which do not add a lot to the plot. The framing device, while creative, is cheesy to me. World building is practically non existant.
Ultimately, im not really interested by gnostic history or Christianity at large - this lack of appeal limits my enjoyment from the book, but i can definitely respect the effort, creativity, and structure put in.
This novel, at the end of PKD's living career, in many ways is a culmination of his skills and experience as a writer. Fully-realized characters, a deep intellectual plot, and well-researched and referenced prose that allow more mingling of fantasy and reality. It starts in medias res has John Lennon's death as a framing device. Literati meets illuminati.
Its also the culmination of PKD as a person. TMOTA is a battle of PKD's own religious convictions - and whether they are truly valid - angel representing a measured balance between absolute objective reality (bill) and fantasy (tim/kirsten). This book is much more interesting in this autobiographical context. Through the novel there is a constant tug of war of christian fantasy vs concrete reality, and its never quite settled.
While not a Scifi book, it is definitely PKD. Discussions on german philosophy. Discussions on gnostic Christianity. Unreliable narrator. Drug use. Ambiguous ending. Distortion of reality and perception. California.
its far from perfect as well - all female characters fail the bechtel test. Although they are quite detailed they ultimately are basing themselves around the actions of men. Angel deserved more depth than this. Kirsten too seemed a lot more interesting in her first appearances than the perpetual victim and sloppy co-opter she became. Entire passages are just gnostic mind dumps which do not add a lot to the plot. The framing device, while creative, is cheesy to me. World building is practically non existant.
Ultimately, im not really interested by gnostic history or Christianity at large - this lack of appeal limits my enjoyment from the book, but i can definitely respect the effort, creativity, and structure put in.