Variant 5HC and also PKD

Jeremy Crampton · 14 Mar 2000, 21:40 · from urth-v0028.mbox · original

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From: Jeremy Crampton <jcrampto at osf1.gmu.edu>
Subject: (urth) Re: Variant 5HC and also PKD
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2000 21:40:53
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mantis et al.,

>Re: PK Dick.  FWIW I don't recall ever seeing any mention of PKD in Wolfe
>interviews.  But on the personal reader's association front, I felt that
>THERE ARE DOORS was quite like PKD, and the scene in URTH with little
>Tzadkiel by the Brook Madregot reminded me very much of similar wassername
>toward the end of PKD's DIVINE INVASION (was it?  I'm pretty sure).

I hadn't thought of There Are Doors. That's a good one. The Tzadkiel/Zina
(for it was she) connection in Divine Invasion (you're right!) is another
good one. Dick had in mind a kind of fairy/Athena Pallas/Mnemosyne (Gk.
goddess of memory, cf. same (?) person in the _Soldier_ books, there
epitomised as [daughter of] Gaea/sphinx) who plays to the boy Manny
("Emmanuel" ie the savior) who is damaged. She revives his memory of his
true state in what PKD called "anamnesis" or unforgetting. Anamnesis is
something others can go through as well. There are some weakish parallels
to Tzadkiel/Severian and godhood here, perhaps.

Zina is also the beside-helper PKD sometimes imagined, which some people
cite as originating in the loss of his twin sister 1 month after birth.
(Dick also sometimes identified this knowledgeable female companion with
girlfriends, such as Joan S. in Sonoma.) An analogous character is Angel
Archer in Transmigration of Timothy Archer.

That's enough PKD (ed).

Ps why does nobody ever discuss the Soldier books? I would rank them among
his best work.

best,

__
Jeremy W. Crampton		         http://geog.gmu.edu    jcrampto at gmu.edu
Dept. of Geography & Earth Science
[MS 1E2]				=E2=80=99Tis true; there=E2=80=99s magic in the web of it.
George Mason University					--Othello (III.iv.69)
Fairfax, Va 22030

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