Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Samuel J. Umland

Critical Essay by Samuel J. Umland

SOURCE: Umland, Samuel J. “To Flee from Dionysus: Enthousiasmos from ‘Upon the Dull Earth’ to VALIS.” In Philip K. Dick: Contemporary Critical Interpretations, edited by Samuel J. Umland, pp. 81-99. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1995.

In the following essay, Umland analyzes the “‘Dionysus-element’ in Dick's fiction,” comparing the early short story “Upon the Dull Earth” to the later novel VALIS.

During an interview with Paul Williams in late 1974, which was later incorporated into Williams's book Only Apparently Real, Philip Dick said (163):

The way I feel is that the universe itself is actually alive, and we're in it as part of it. And it is like a breathing creature, which explains the concept of the Atman, you know, the breath, pneuma, the breath of God … that the universe sort of breathes … everything is moving, changing, growing, developing, and that we move with it. We can never escape...
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