Praise Be To Yah: Philip Dick's The Divine Invasion
Written: Aug 07 '03 (Updated Aug 09 '03)
Product Rating:
Pros: The gospel story with a techno-mindbending twist.
Cons: Convoluted at times. Alternate layers of reality. Confusing.
The Bottom Line: The Gospel according to Philip Dick. A lonely spaceman finds meaning in his communion with God and his quest to smuggle God back onto Earth.
avepythagoras's Full Review: Philip K. Dick - Divine Invasion
Where to Begin: A Rather Long Aside
There is a small genre of novels/plays/movies out there known as Contemporary Jesus Fiction. We've all seen them in some form or another: Jesus Christ Superstar; Godspell; The Last Temptation of Jesus Christ; King Jesus. The concept of Contemporary Jesus Fiction is to place Jesus in a modern context or reevaluate Jesus via historical criticism, literary criticism, or modernist/postmodernist thought. Essentially readapting the gospel to a more 'Contemporary' mindset. Of course, this style of fiction has irritated and annoyed many conservative types, causing general amounts of verbal and even physical hostility. When The Last Temptation was shown at my conservative Christian college, or so the story goes, the students rallied and forced the movie to shut down. Quite a few people think Jesus only works in robes and sandals, and not skates and makeup.
Most of these works are similar, they usually leave Jesus in Israel, and all the names, faces, and personalities are the same. There is always a Judas, always 13 apostles, and always some guy name Pilate. In short, they all tell the same story, just with a different narrative voice. We aren't given any new information--except maybe that Jesus had a love affair with Mary Magdalene or was a carpenter and made the very crosses that he, someday, would die upon. So this genre is small and unoriginal. But in the end it serves a purpose, it makes us think about Jesus, about who he is/was, about his meaning, about his ministry, about his life and circumstances.
Do This In Remembrance Of Me:
But Philip Dick's The Divine Invasion is so much more than mere 'Contemporary Jesus Fiction.' He practically reinvents the story, in his oh-so-crazy-commune-with-a-pink-laser sort of way.
Herb Asher is a spacer living in a dome, all alone, on the planet CY30-CY30B. His job is to record transmissions from earth and the mother ship for use by the general and isolated populace of the planet. But, his dome is upon a mountain sacred to the local aliens known as autochthons, but everyone just calls them 'clems.' Apparently, these aliens worship a god called Yah, and what¡¦s even worse, this god Yah has plans for Herb. Yah is the exiled god Yahweh, from earth, he was exiled by the evil one, read Belial, and needs to return to earth in order to set the universe aright, returning order to the ensuing chaos. Further, he has impregnated Herb's neighbor Rybys Rommey and wants him to help her smuggle the child back onto earth, in order that Yah may return and do battle with Belial. Earth is about to face a Divine Invasion as Yah seeks to purify his creation from the taint of the evil one.
But things get complicated: Earth is controlled collectively by two governing bodies: the communist party and the catholic church, read 'the two beasts', and further, these two governments are controlled by the A.I. Big Noodle. And Big Noodle knows what Yah is doing.
As Rybys and Herb return to earth, befriended by a man named Elias, read Elijah, they are the victims of a horrible car accident. Rybys is killed, Herb is mortally wounded and must be put in cryonic sleep until he is found a new spleen, but even worse, Emmanuel, the new Christ, suffers brain damage.
Gnosticism 101: Philip Dick and The Pretty Pink Laser
The act of creation is the act of naming. According to Jewish mysticism: to name is to create. But as God finds himself mentally challenged, will he be able to remember who he is, will he be able to remember his true name. Has Belial bested Yah again? Or is this just a part of God's plan for creation? But further, does earth even want Yah to return? Didn't He promise to return with fire and judgment? Who wants to be judged, well, at least not with fire?
Philip Dick's last novels startlingly concern deeper and more profound topics. According to his biography, Philip Dick communed with a great force, when he experienced a divine epiphany involving a pink laser light. These epiphanies led to his theological VALIS trilogy of which The Divine Invasion is the second book. Whether these religious experiences were real or no, that¡¦s not for me to say, the end results were a combined interest in higher consciousness, Gnostic secrets, and Jewish mysticism. All of which inspired these last novels. The Divine Invasion is an open forum for his thoughts about God to take root in his readers, to give us a means of understanding his relationship to God, and his experience with a 'transcendentally rational mind'. His strength is in his abilities to craft a weird, off-the-wall conception of God's second coming, yet make such a tale convincing and thought provoking. This novel actually makes you question the nature of our reality, of our relationship to the divine. And while some people would consider this a bad thing, read tightwad conservatives, these novels are both necessary and highly respectable.
The Divine Invasion is about God's relationship to a technologically advanced society that, in effect, has no need for faith, hope and love, read God's ministry. This world has no need for judgment, the whole fire and brimstone rigmarole. Even so, we find that faith is still possible, that God can be benevolent, and that the universe is as crazy and mind boggling as it seems. And, yes, there is a lot out there we still can't explain or understand, and until that day comes, we still need faith, we still need hope and we still need love.
Realities within Realities: A Conclusion
The Divine Invasion is the craziest 'Contemporary Jesus Fiction' you will probably ever read. Philip Dick is a master of telling creative, off-the-wall, stories--like acid but without the relapses. And this one is no exception. I love Philip Dick. And I love this novel. But even so, The Divine Invasion gets confusing and convoluted, you lose yourself, as the reality of the novel changes at the particular whims of a confused and mentally challenged Yah. And a story that seemed clear and robust becomes muddy and confusing. You never quite understand what is going on, what is real and what is a dream. And while Dick may have wanted it that way, it¡¦s almost too much for the reader to palate. It takes some patience and a little work, but in the end, it becomes intimate and worth your time. This book is not for the easily confused, easily frustrated or easily offended--at least in the religious sense. Not many people want to see God depicted as a mentally handicapped young boy, but then again, I don't want to have to see another Left Behind novel either. Touche, to all, and to all a good night.
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