About book The Transmigration Of Timothy Archer (2004)
To understand this novel and VALIS i think it is important to:- Have gnostic concepts.- Know about Philip Dick´s life.If you do not have the above requisites probably you will get bored at the second chapter and you will hate ones of the greater writers of S XX.This is not a SF writing, is more like the end of a quest, and it ends accepting the fact "I am that I am" and not Yah, just a human being. are we our ideas? Someone else's ideas? are we what we believe? or just we are what we are? This is simpler story than VALIS or The divine invasion, but it keeps the constant use of gnostic concepts (These novels are very hard to read if you do not have some ideas of these gnostic concepts, and I really not recommend these novels if you not have it, despite the fact I really love Dick´s novels) and gnosticism is just a a way to find a sense to life, but in some cases, this sense is that there is no one, and we turn into an agnostic. We have in VALIS some reference of this change, that personally, PKD reaffirm in this book. It is impossible to face this novels and VALIS just as books. You will not enjoy these books if you dont have the gnostic concepts previously mentioned, and if you do not know about the life of Philip Dick, and as we study about great philosopher of history, what lead them to think the way they think, we have to understand the context, the PKD life´s to really understand these novels. And this means that PKD was not just a writer, he was (is) a philosopher, even if you agree or not with him, he always was in the pursuit of the true knowledge, until accept that probably there is no exist such a thing like true knowledge. (view spoiler)[Anyway we may find commons references in this PKD´s novel, as Drugs, Suicide, Gnosticism, lot of references of classic literature, and the philosophical touch.PKD was a great talent in explore the mind of its characters, and this novel is not a exception. Angela Archer is the subject he chose to narrate this history, a woman who admired the Bishop Tim Archer (who was her husband father). The facts make to Angela question herself if someone is really sane, or we are all irrationals (This concept was already introduced by Dick in valis, but in a greater scale, when Lovehorse Fat mentioned a "Irrational mind which created the universe, so the whole universe is irrational"). She see that the more intelligent people, in some circumstances have to take irrational ways to face certain facts. We have a father which needs to face his son´s death, a lover which need to face her blame, a son which have to face mother´s death and the fact he is alone. And in the end herself realized that she has to take something to face reality. Tim Archer is the one who is constantly looking for the true knowledge, a bishop, which even recognize to not believe in Christ (or accept the fact he was just a men and not the son of god) but in the same way represent those who always need to believe in something, and they will defend what they believe, with all the argument they could find, even when at the other day, they will believe the opposite. Death will find this kind of people, always searching for the truth.Which was PKD? (As I say, we need to take life and these novels of PKD as a whole) Was he Tim? Was he Angela? did he started being as Tim and ends being as Angela?PKD accepted the fact he was insane, he explained rationally why he was insane, and took his insanity as something rational (This point is better expose in VALIS) but in the end... What did he believe?We have here a end, a truly end... All come to an end, Philip K Dick´s life too, as we get older, we get wiser, that is said. We may say Angela Archer resume the final status of Dick, after all his life, his beliefs, he assumed that all was a non-sense, and try to face a rational way. or we may resume that PKD die looking for the truth, trying to explain by rational thinking his insanity (hide spoiler)]
"Everything worth knowing can be found in a book" (VALIS and later novels, 729)In a Philip K Dick book, absolutely. The man's knowledge was vast and incredible, especially about all things religion and philosophy. But it was also a desperate kind of knowledge. Without going too much into Dick's personal life, it's worth noting he had a few questions about, um, pretty much the nature of existence itself. Not like, daydreaming or light musings, though. Dick was seized by religious and philosophical experiences which forced him, regularly, to reconsider how he viewed the world, lest he descend into madness. When Dick had these experiences he sought knowledge, from philosophers, poets, myths, tales and religious stories. From books, basically. The Transmigration of Timothy Archer seems to be a meditation on this kind of life. Angel Archer, protagonist, (and probably my favourite Dick protagonist so far) is the daughter-in-law of the Episcopal Bishop Timothy Archer, who is basically an insufferable, knowledgeable, bearded fellow in search of the Anokhi mushroom which, once consumed, reveals the true nature of being and existence. Before Tim comes to this though, are conversations between Angel, Angel's husband Jeff and Tim's mistress Kirsten, about pretty much everything. There is also Jeff struggle with his attraction to Kirsten, his father's mistress, the forbidden relationship between Tim and Kirsten, plus Angel's furious reaction to their frivolous attitude about it, and her own struggles with smoking "too much grass" and, eventually, her dissatisfaction with the way she lives, too concerned with metaphor and philosophy, when, she believes, real happiness can be found in material things. It's not sci-fi, despite that being Dick's forte. It's more like a sci-fi author's view of the real world. What I mean by that is, at heart this is a novel about trying to make sense of, not only how you should live your life, but how life is meant to be lived, in order to gain the most meaningful experience from it. So, science fiction usually is concerned with a reinterpretation of the world in which we and the author live, but TToTA is concerned with living as an interpreter of the world, who knows, or at least thinks, somewhere, out there, reality is waiting to be found, who would go mad or die, if that's what it took to find it."The trouble with being educated is that it takes a long time; it uses up the better part of your life and when you are finished what you know is that you would have benefited more from going into banking. I wonder if bankers ask such questions. They ask what the prime rate is up to today. If a banker goes out on the Dead Sea Desert he probably takes a flare pistol and canteens and C-rations and a knife. Not a crucifix displaying a previous idiocy that was only intended to remind him." (621 -2)
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PKD's last novel is unusual, both generally speaking and in terms of the author's works. This is palpably not a science-fiction book, but a rumination on faith and how people are affected when they are forced through experience and evidence to re-assess that faith... or is it?A bit of research will show that the traditional disclaimer that "all characters within are fictitious and and resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental" is not applicable here, and at least the lead character is based very strongly on an evangelist Dick knew very well in real life. Timothy Archer is a fascinating character to view from the outside as we see him swing desperately from one theory to another to rationalize both the discovery of historical artefacts that appear to invalidate the New Testament and the unfortunate tendencies of his loved ones to commit suicide.Narrator Angel Archer was not a particularly likeable character initially and seems curiously unemotional about certain events that happen to her, but becomes more identifiable as the book progresses and we see the full extent of the quite literal madness that she's been surrounded by.There is quite a bit of dry ponderance on biblical and literary influences that make this not the easiest of reads in places, and I was definitely out of my depth with some of the quotations and references which might be more satisfying to others more scholarly than I, but Dick nicely pulls a rabbit of the hat at the end of the novel that, like Timothy Archer himself, made me re-appraise or at least question what I thought the book had actually been about. Ultimately not the greatest thing Dick ever wrote, but a fitting epitaph nonetheless.
—Guy
wow. well, this is pretty fresh in my mind, and it's been a couple of weeks. that doesn't surprise me though because the ideas that dick toyed with in his last cycle of books are to me the most compelling, indeed the most disturbing and challenging to my mind. dick's narrator angel archer is one of his most resonant, matter-of-fact, and yes, human. she is a rare accomplishment in terms of his development of a female character, though this may well be because she has his own very human voice, or perhaps, as i speculated as i was reading it, the voice of the twin sister he had lost so young, whose voice he alone had heard before. angel is a comfortable narrator: she guides us through the big ideas and concepts about life, and after life, and death and ancient texts easily that are spun out by dick; she is our virgil, as he references and echoes dante's commedia throughout this work. you may find, as i have, that he whets one's appetite for embarking on that journey once again. i have inferno opened here before me romanced and bemused by dick in his very loving homage: the allusions only underscore his own exploration of theological ideas. dick embeds these ideas in a further layer: his relationship with the real-life bishop james pike, and some of the incidents of his real life are spun into the title character timothy archer, and it is through him the plot that drives the pedagogy adheres. really, one of dick's best books in terms of pacing and execution: it is often acknowledged that dick's strength lies in his ideas but here, i find very little to quibble with, in fact he allows the tension to build into an almost unbearable peak -- i actually did stop three quarters of the way through because everything seemed to be spinning out of control but when i came back, still curious to see where he would go, he eased me downward, toward my own katabasis through his words, and finally dante's.this is really a four and a half stars review.
—Maureen
This book is a critique directed against the over-educated and those who find identity in books. Angel's life is education without experience. Angel's vast education makes her view reality with an "its all been done before" attitude. She has a sickening rationality towards the beliefs of others. It shows the modern life of a hyper-rationalist. The seriousness clouds her mind from any mystical elevation. Such a mindset devalues the beauty of life. It is about a woman who was ruined by her educat
—Fifthwindow
