ABC
At the beginning of the summer, ABC started a web page for the Lost book club, featuring a ton of books that have been seen or mentioned in Lost. I’ll be taking some time every now and then in “Lost in Lost” to go over some of the novels that I have read and analyze where they fit in the Lost universe. First one up… VALIS, by Philip K Dick.
I picked up the novel for a couple of reasons. I’m a fan of science fiction and hadn’t read anything by Dick, one of the genre’s most famous writers (his books and short stories have inspired a ton of movies: Total Recall, Blade Runner, Minority Report, and Paycheck, among others). The second reason was that Ben was shown reading this book while being held prisoner in the barracks. If a book is good enough for Benjamin Linus, gee golly, it’s good enough for me.
Some analysis after the jump…
VALIS is about… well, the book is pretty much about nothing. I didn’t know a whole lot about it going into it, but I soon realized that it was a semi-autobiographical novel about Dick’s quasi-religious philosophical ramblings. I won’t go into detail… I’ll just say that Dick believed that God, whom he called Zebra for no apparent reason, downloaded information into his brain through a pink laser beam. Did I mention this was the autobiographical part?
The real question here is how does this all fit in with Lost? There were some interesting parts that seem to tie back to our favorite show. Dick is under the strange impression that the world that we envision is actually a complete illusion, and that time stopped during the height of the Roman Empire. He postulates that the Roman Empire is still going strong, under a veil of misperception. This idea of the separation of time and perception can be traced directly to Lost. We’ve already seen that Lost is working time travel into the series, through Desmond, as well as Minkowski, the doomed information officer aboard the freighter last year. Many in the Lost community are theorizing that the when the island was “moved” at the end of last season it actually moved in time, not location. Could it, perhaps, be hiding behind this veil of perception as was spoken of in VALIS? We know that is not visible to those in the outside world, as Penny and her dad were searching for the island for a long time with no luck.
Could any of this help us figure out the deep mysteries of Lost? I have no idea, but it’s fun to think about. Any other Lost fans out there who have read VALIS?
Clacked by Bob Degon
on Oct 05, 2008 @ 19:25 EST5EDT
