Posted by shaun Link: SicK StoRy TiMe ~
on 12/30/2011, 11:10 am
Message modified by user shaun 12/30/2011, 12:02 pm
edited by Pamela Jackson and Jonathan Lethem
$40.00/HIGHER IN CANADA
"A great and calamitous sequence of arguments with the universe: poignant, terrifying, ludicrous, and brilliant.
The Exegesis is the sort of book associated with legends and madmen, but Dick wasn't a legend and he wasn't mad. He lived among us, and was a genius." ~ Jonathan Lethem
Fellow mindColliders of the Message board with a Nail in it, I have just received my glorious 1st edition hardcover from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
ISBN 978-0-547-54925-5 (hardback)
Summary provided by publisher:
"Preserved in typed and hand-written notes and journal entries, letters and story sketches,
Philip K. Dick's Egexesis is the magnificent and imaginative final work of an author who
dedicated his life to questioning the nature of reality and perception, the malleability of space
and time, and the relationship between the human and the divine.
The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick will make this tantalizing work available to the public
for the first time in an annotated two-volume abridgement. Edited and introduced by
Pamela Jackson and Jonathan Lethem, this will be the definitive presentation of Dick's brilliant, and epic, final work."
I just got off the phone with my old pal Mark Ziesing. He just informed me of the staggering print-run this book is enjoying: 100,000 copies printed!
He pointed out that an associate of his mentioned that every self-respecting library in the world would want a copy, which would account for half the print-run, right there.
Regardless of these specific ruminations, the book—at least this first volume—is here for us all to absorb, should we bother with the impulse.
I am here to reassure you all, that yes we should. The first 5 paragraphs, spanning pages 3 to 4, contain within them enough planted seeds of wisdom to fertilize,
germinate, and bring to full bloom dizzying concepts of our likely true condition here orbiting this lone star of ours. Only 894 pages to go—!
On the copyright page it says "For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book,
write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10003."
I felt compelled to post about this revelatory tome which I've awaited eagerly for 29 years, to be frank.
Because back then—in 1982, the year Phil's Terran mortal coil was sloughed off
in favor of crossing through Equilibrium and into the Light—I serendipitously happened upon his novel VALIS,
and my impressionable 17-year old mind became quite obsessed with its concepts.
In short, it was my own personal bible, was Horselover Fat's exegesis.
Now here I am, 29 years older, and staring the volume itself in the face.
It's an intimidation whose challenge I think I am up to. But, sheeeesh....
tryin' to read so many things...
If any here are lurking and have read this far—(mmsomakosmos-?)—
may the divine spirit work its tendrils into your captive frames,
and unsettle you from any mudstuck pockets the old years
may have crusted beneath you, or may the absolution of time
free you upon a new bright stream toward tomorrow.
May the New Year bring on All Good Things ~
"Paranoia is a skill"
~...
http://freezineoffantasyandsciencefiction.blogspot.com
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