"So you can encounter God while you're alive," he said.
"Under exceptional circumstances. Originally God and Moses talked together as a man talks with his friend."
"What went wrong?"
"Wrong in what way?"
"Nobody hears God's voice anymore."
Rybys said, "You do."
"My audio and video systems do."
"That's better than nothing." She eyed him, "You don't seem to enjoy it."
"It's interfering with my life."
She said, "So am I."
To that he could think of no response; it was true.
I think PKD was totally onto something when he had his dystopia in The Divine Invasion ruled by a fusion between the Stalinists and the Catholic Church. Mechanical materialism has always depended on brain-dead idealism as its flipside and counterpart, like two drunks propping each other up. The equivalent in the World-As-Is is free-market consumerism's alliance with the most backwards-assed superstition.
I happy that I've read enough PKD (but not the Divine Invasion) that I can spot a PKD excerpt from a mile away.
ReplyDeleteI think he had a unique ability to see the very core of things and bring back an insightful fable. Even if he was writing to feed himself almost day by day, he still managed to put real thought into his work.
PKD has been a focus of reverence for me for a while. I even have a small relic that I jokingly refer to as "Dick Dirt."