This post serves to
introduce a blog site I have set up which deals with Exegesis exclusively. The purpose of the Philip K. Dick’s Exegesis:
A Reader’s Diary blog is to encourage my own involvement with this work and to
encourage others to read it.
Reading Philip K.
Dick’s Exegesis is an adventure undertaken by readers
individually. Even from within the group-think of the collective fandom, to
acknowledge where this came from in Dick’s life is to tack into the whole of
his existential adventure, which is also the adventure of all of us. Not
everybody wants to do that. Never mind. All are welcome to the Dickian feast.
Deciding not to read Exegesis is an option, but that decision
contains within it some of the essence of the book. Once you know about it, you
are in it. Philip K. Dick is a mirror for all who read him. What we get depends
upon the angle where we stand when looking in.
To the left on the home
page of the blog, there is a brief orientation.
Getting Started
A prominent effect of Dick’s 2-3-74 experiences was the sense that some
intelligence was “coming across” to him from outside of his personal existence and
was educating him to a specific end. In pages 22-37 of the published Exegesis,
Dick searches for a definitive explanation of what this influence is. There are
two main themes (among others) in Dick’s probing of this question: first, the
idea that someone from his life had passed over to “the other side,” (died) and
was tutoring him from beyond the grave (specifically James Pike); the second, ascribing
his tutoring to a time in the past (classical) and attributing it to a living
influence from that time period.
I recommend reading the entire section and then asking a few questions:
1. Does dick definitively eliminate any options? Why?
2. For which option does he seem to write more confidently?
3. Which passages seem minimally adorned with theorizing?
4. Does a subtle, non-verbal sense come across here? What might that be?
Have fun.
I confess I haven't read much of the Exegesis yet, but every time I dip into it, I get blown away every time by the power not only of Dick's mind and imagination, but by a sense of the heavy wave of beingness that took him over at this time. The Exegesis has magnum opus written all over it. Not journal or musings or peripheral jottings but powerful prose and ideas that strike to the core of pure existent reality. The project of reading it and reflecting upon it, as here, should produce an exegesis upon the Exegesis. There may soon be a multiplicity of such exegeses. Of course the scholarly minded will beget them, sowing them like stars across the heavens. So what started out as an interpretation of a day, 2-3-74, becomes an unending display of generations of these ex-squared expressions. One could do worse than involve oneself in such a project as long as it doesn't become too involuted. Or exvoluted, I suppose. Eagerly I will join this particular fray. Thank you for providing a venue for approaching this monolith of literature, which may in the future be seen as a kind of cognition to be ranked with those of the ancient rishis. No lie.
ReplyDeleteThis Exegesis blog will be especially helpful for those in whom the desire to read and the opportunity to read have not been reconciled. Readers who engage Exegesis fully, however, will more likely be able to experience, as you say, the "pure existent reality" running through it. For me this experience is the actual spiritual content of Exegesis. The inconclusiveness of Dick's self-examination is precisely what makes this more profound experience possible. Originally I had printed an invitation for readers to blog their personal responses when reading it. I will re-insert that invitation. Exegesis is, I believe, best served by the widest possible heterogeneity in the public discussion. Thank you for your supportive comments.
ReplyDeleteHi PKD Fans,
ReplyDeleteWe're close to publishing our PKD bibliography, PRECIOUS ARTIFACTS: A Philip K. Dick Bibliography, USA and UK Editions, 1955-2012. As a PKD fan I'm sure you'd like to check this book out. iI you'd like to reserve a copy please go to our Home Page and place your order there. We've also launched a Kickstarter project in support of this book and you can pledge there and receive one of our great rewards. And we have a facebook page where we discuss the book and our progress towards publication in June. To help us spread the word, please 'like' and 'share' our book on your networks and websites.
Thanks for your support and Henri Wintz and I hope to see you at the upcoming Philip K. Dick Festival in San Francisco on Sept 22 & 23 2012.
Best wishes - Dave Hyde /Ward, Colorado
Our Home Page: www.PKDickbooks.com/precious_artifacts.html
Our Kickstarter page: www.kickstarter.com/projects/495272397/precious-artifacts-a-pictorial-philip-k-dick-bibli?ref=email
Our fBook page: www.facebook.com/PreciousArtifacts
We published PRECIOUS ARTIFACTS PKD Bibliography last Sunday June 23rd. Thank you all for your support in getting this done. Here's ordering link: www.createspace.com/3915266
ReplyDeletewww.PKDickbooks.com