/lit/ - Literature

>>16738236
Valis and Fall; or, Dodge in Hell.

Valis is a fun quick overview of some of the core ideas.
And Dodge is a retelling of the bible.
Not that I understand Gnosticism

>>8939505
Valis will wet your whistle.

Would it help to drop acid before reading this?

>>6822393
>Philip K. Dick has a few good books before it gets oppressively schizophrenic...

His scifi before is great, but when it gets overrun by his schizophrenia is where it becomes truly GOAT. Pic related is one of my favorite books, like, top 5 status.

>>6814483
PKD in general. Lots of science fiction skirts these ideas. I would also consider some DFW and Kafka as "vs reality". These are the only authors that I enjoy off the top of my head that deal with metaphysics in their fiction.

Read pic related. It's one of my favorite books ever written.

>>6787692
What's released of his exegesis is a tl;dr though. It's like 10% of what he wrote on it.

PKD imo is the coolest author that ever lived. Not necessarily the best at writing in any specific way, but he's the coolest. And his exegesis is part of this. VALIS is my favorite book ever written.

>DUDE, SPACE GOD LMAO

>>6779421
>do androids dream of electric sheep for a PKD book
>not based VALIS

VALIS is my favorite book ever written.

>>6753610
Reading a lot of one thing can fuck with you, OP.

A few years ago, I read half of everything PKD ever wrote in the period of a couple months. Towards the end, while reading VALIS, I was beginning to enter a severe hallucinatory state where I was experiencing minor "coincidence" on a daily basis, every day, multiple times a day. As in, undeniable small coincidences would occur, i.e. would be thinking about something and a few minutes later hear people walking by discussing the obscure topic I was thinking about, would read a character name in a book while on the bus and look outside to see a street name with the same name as the character etc, daily all of the time every day. Was really fucking with my head. I was becoming convinced that existence was simulated, and perhaps solipsistic in nature. Was more fucked up when a girl I met at a bar that my buddy was hitting on pulled pic related out of her bag when I was carrying it with me, as it was what I was reading at the time.

I put down PKD for awhile after that. Didn't feel like going down the schizophrenic path, especially considering I'm among the most susceptible in the population(my grandfather is a schizophrenic who killed 5 of his family members in the 70s). No PKD, no.

>>6746805
that's a good list. I don't see anything wrong with it. I think in general those are just agreeably good books.

even has my motherfuckin' favorite on it. like wtf tho.

>>6738691
what is PKD?

Has /lit/ read schizophrenia: the autobiography?

I read this book a couple of years ago, and I've never read anything quite like it, before or since. I'm wondering if anyone here has read through it.

The effect this book had on me was very unique, I'm not sure if it was coincidental or if the writing actually influenced my thought patterns. I felt very, mentally unsound during the duration of this book, in a very real way. I was experiencing a series of physical events in life that made reality appear very unrealistic, and I'm wondering if it has something to do with this book. PKD is nuts as fuck after all.