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Off Topic / Re: What are we Reading Now: Conan the Librarian
« Last post by Zematus737 on Today at 12:52:37 »A excerpt from his Exegesis: 'My novels, for example. They are said by readers to depict the same world again and again, a recognizable world. Where is that world? In my head? Is it what I see in my own life and inadvertently transfer into my novels and to the reader? At least I’m consistent, since it is all one novel. I have my own special world. I guess they are in my head, in which case they are a good clue to my identity and to what is happening inside me: they are brain prints. This brings me to my frightening premise. I seem to be living in my own novels more and more. I can’t figure out why. Am I losing touch with reality?'
These are his own words. As for being a futurist, the book is not so much about apprehension of the future as it is about struggling to interpret an abnormal experience that revealed to him the health condition of his daughter through a vision. Like HG Wells, Dick was also militantly atheist and mocked religion in many of his works. In this, and in my opinion, they are the same. Except that it is worse for Dick, as he had an authentic experience that he did his best to say was a localized unconscious self inflection of presentiment or inspiration. Rather than just accept the gift for what it was, he did his utter most to write what is possibly his largest labor, to disavow that it could have been received from a higher, separate, intellect. As separate as God can be from the work of His hands is another matter for discussion entirely. Carl Jung (if you read his Red Book, the translations of which have made an enormous impact on the world) made the same mistakes and attributed inspiration to a universal shared unconsciousness. It was a cheap move and it was very sad to see how he misinterpreted almost every "dream" he had experienced. Just as sad that he (Jung) did not have the guts to admit he was experimenting himself with psychedelics to achieve these altered states.
These are his own words. As for being a futurist, the book is not so much about apprehension of the future as it is about struggling to interpret an abnormal experience that revealed to him the health condition of his daughter through a vision. Like HG Wells, Dick was also militantly atheist and mocked religion in many of his works. In this, and in my opinion, they are the same. Except that it is worse for Dick, as he had an authentic experience that he did his best to say was a localized unconscious self inflection of presentiment or inspiration. Rather than just accept the gift for what it was, he did his utter most to write what is possibly his largest labor, to disavow that it could have been received from a higher, separate, intellect. As separate as God can be from the work of His hands is another matter for discussion entirely. Carl Jung (if you read his Red Book, the translations of which have made an enormous impact on the world) made the same mistakes and attributed inspiration to a universal shared unconsciousness. It was a cheap move and it was very sad to see how he misinterpreted almost every "dream" he had experienced. Just as sad that he (Jung) did not have the guts to admit he was experimenting himself with psychedelics to achieve these altered states.