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/lit/ - Literature

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9451294 No.9451294 [Reply] [Original]

I just finished VALIS and my copy of The Divine Invasion is taking forever to get to me. Can I skip The Divine Invasion for now and move on to The Transmigration of Timothy Archer? Or should I wait and read my copy of The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch instead?

>> No.9451299

>finished VALIS
How? I made it half-way through and stopped because it felt like I'm reading Finnegans Wake on drugs

>> No.9451312

>>9451299
The second half is a lot different than the first, it's more narrative driven and less babble about Dick's gnostic beliefs. If you approach the book as a fan of his work and realize that everything he wrote post 1974 was his attempt to make sense of his psychotic break then it's a very enjoyable but sad book.

>> No.9451727
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9451727

>>9451299
You say that like it's a bad thing.

>> No.9451757

>>9451727

Poor dude had an insufficient Master that couldn't afford to get him adequate data.

>> No.9451765

Divine Invasion is very good. Transmigration of Timothy Archer is also good. You don't have to read them in order tho. The so-called trilogy is only loosely connected.

>> No.9451775

>>9451294
OP, although it's listed as a trilogy, those three books aren't actually continuous, or even dealing with strictly the same subject matter. You're safe to read Transmigration before Divine Invasion, although I'll tell you that DI is much closer to VALIS in terms of story, while TTOTA is very different

>> No.9453494

>>9451294
Actually, you can. As >>9451765 >>9451775
says, it's not really a typical linear/genre-fiction trilogy where the characters and plot in one book build off the one in the last one; in fact, they're all different and you could read them in any order you like and still sense the conceptual continuity behind them.

The Divine Invasion IMO is actually the worst one of them, the schlockiest, but even then not that bad for being the worst of the trilogy; however, out of it, I think it had the least depth, and it was so trite and unmemorable and I barely remember anything of it.

For some reason Timothy Archer was my favorite of the trilogy and I think one of Dick's masterpieces (although it doesn't have nearly as much fame as VALIS, Ubik, Flow my Tears, etc.), so have fun with that.