Radio Free Albemuth

"The U.S. and the U.S.S.R., I understood, were the two portions of the Empire as divided up by the Emperor Diocletian for purely administrative purposes; at heart it was a single entity, with a single value system. And its value system was the concept of the supremacy of the state. The individual counted in its scales as nothing, and individuals who turned against the state and generated their own values were the enemy."

Radio Free Albemuth is actually better than I thought it would be. Philip K. Dick's novel is very similar to the other Valis-themed novels of his late period, but more restrained than the more self-referential Valis with less overt Gnostic and Jewish references than Divine Invasion. In fact, I think Dick inserting himself as a character but creating Nicholas as a similarly autobiographical character for his own experiences with Valis succeeds marvelously here. Nicholas, like Dick, not only undergoes a theophany, predicts his infant son's ailment, worked as a clerk in Berkeley, dropped out of the University, and moves from Berkeley to Southern California, but also shares with Dick a similar paranoia and experience of being recruited to spy by the FBI. Phil Dick in the novel is, of course, another extension of the same person, and the juxtaposition of both 'halves' of the same being as narrators works well here. It's familiar ground for any fans of Dick, employed excellently in A Scanner Darkly. Indeed, Radio Free Albemuth brings to mind the optimistic conclusion of Scanner (sowing the seeds) with the dystopic vision of Flow My Tears and conspiratorial Nixonian nightmare of Valis. Like Divine Invasion, one finds two seemingly opposed forces that represent the same evil, Fremont's fascist US and the USSR, united against the people, which could almost be read in a libertarian or leftist light, more likely left-wing given Dick's background with Berkeley bohemia. 

Moving on, Divine Invasion, Christian themes and Gnosticism play a significant role, as well as numerous allusions to Rome, early Christianity, and references to Philip K. Dick's struggle as a writer, artist, and self-doubt. For that reason alone, it's fascinating to read this work. Radio even hints at his late masterpiece, Transmigration of Timothy Archer, through Nicholas's experience with the "professional students" and leftist scenes of Berkeley. Even more so than in Valis, what particularly stands out here is Phil's conversation with Leon, an ex-pastor who stresses the importance of faith and millennialism in the present, material reality (a reality that is, when you stop believing in it, ceases to disappear, to paraphrase Dick). Much like Maze of Death, for those willing to put their faith in Valis or the higher power, beaming to the Aramcheks through satellite, one can still effect change in the surrounding real world of suffering or physical ailment. He somehow manages to avoid hitting the reader over the head with the dense spiritual and religious references. 

As for "ranking" the Valis-period work of Dick, I believe I would rank the four novels in this order:

1. Transmigration: Amazing female narrator and central character, effusive prose, inspired by "true" story of Jim Pike, Christian conspiracy, and a central idea of agape and life after death. 

2. Radio Free Albemuth: More restrained and still exciting Valis hinting at the masterpiece above

3. Valis: An emotional and theological rollercoaster into Dick's life after 1974

4. Divine Invasion: A little too melodramatic and Gnostic for my tastes, but intriguing use of Zoroastrian and Jewish ideas and metaphors with an intriguing conclusion and idea of parousia. 

Side Note: One of Futurama's best episodes revolves around a similar deity/entity Bender encounters in space. Methinks the writers of the show were fans of Philip K. Dick. Unfortunately, the film adaptation of the novel is horrible, and Alanis Morisette does not have the "Afro-natural" hairstyle of the character she plays from the book, Aramchek (I suspect an Afrocentrist reader would have a field day with the hair texture of Aramchek). Similarly, the film, from what I recall, omits the redemptive ending of the novel while underplaying the role of Rachel and Johnny, the wife and son of Nicholas. 

Slaughterhouse Five

"So it goes."

After meeting a German a few years ago whose family survived Dresden, Slaughterhouse Five has been on my list of novels to read for quite some time. This person's great-grandfather and grandparent witnessed the firebombing of Dresden, experienced the senselessness, and destruction as an entire city was reduced to ashes. They had lost family like so many. In addition, the metafictional aspects of the story remind me of Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo, one of my favorite books.

Vonnegut inserting himself into the story, the intertextuality with specific characters, books, alien races, photographs, and themes in his body of work is an impressive example of his ability to weave together people and themes in elaborate worlds. This is certainly one of the most interesting and creative works to tackle WWII, really all wars, in its grotesque, brutality. If any story merits the use of science fiction, certainly a bit of fantasy and freedom are required. Undoubtedly, the comparison to the Children's Crusade was warranted.

Like Cat's Cradle, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, and Deadeye Dick, there are similar themes about human existence and war. But Slaughterhouse Five, like Reed's Mumbo Jumbo, takes it up a notch: Vonnegut uses pictures within the text as well as an overarching metanarrative with himself as narrator. Anyway, below are some of my favorite quotes that highlight the novel's themes, its black humor, and general darkness.

"Even then I was supposedly writing a book about Dresden. It wasn't a famous air raid back then in America. Not many Americans knew how much worse it had been than Hiroshima, for instance. I didn't know that, either. There hadn't been much publicity."

"The nicest veterans in Schenectady, I thought, the kindest and funniest ones, the ones who hated war the most, were the ones who'd really fought."

"So then I understood. It was war that made her so angry. She didn't want her babies or anybody else's babies killed in wars. And she thoughts wars were partly encouraged by books and movies."

"People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore."

"Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops."

"He had a dirty picture of a woman attempting sexual intercourse with a Shetland pony. He had made Billy Pilgrim admire that picture several times." 

"The British had no way of knowing it, but the candles and the soap were made from the fat of rendered Jews and Gypsies and fairies and communists, and other enemies of the State."

"Rosewater was twice as smart as BIlly, but he and Billy were dealing with similar crises in similar ways. They had both found life meaningless, partly because of what they had seen in war. Rosewater, for instance, had shot a fourteen-year-old fireman, mistaking him for a German soldier. So it goes. And Billy had seen the greatest massacre in European history, which was the fire-bombing of Dresden. So it goes."

"So they were trying to re-invent themselves and their universe. Science fiction was a big help."

"That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book."

"Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves. Once this is understood, the disagreeable behavior of American enlisted men in German prisons ceases to be a mystery."

"Rumfoord was thinking in a military manner: that an inconvenient person, one whose death he wished for very much, for practical reasons, was suffering from a repulsive disease."