The Divine Invasion, Philip K. Dick, 1981. Timescape Books (July 1982). Cover by Rowena Morrill. 223 pages.
I love Rowena’s cover for PKD’s second entry in the VALIS trilogy. (Saddam Hussein was a fan of her art too, btw.)
The James Joyce riff from early in The Divine Invasion—
Into the stereo microphones Asher said distinctly, ” ‘O tell me all about Anna Livia! I want to hear all about Anna Livia. Well, you know Anna Livia? Yes, of course, we all know Anna Livia. Tell me all. Tell me now. You’ll die when you hear. Well, you know, when the old cheb went futt and did what you know. Yes, I know, go on. Wash quit and don’t be dabbling. Tuck up your sleeves and loosen your talktapes. And don’t butt me- hike !-when you bend. Or whatever-‘”
“What is this?” the autochthon said, listening to the translation into his own tongue. Grinning, Herb Asher said, “A famous Terran book. ‘Look, look, the dusk is growing. My branches lofty are taking root. And my cold cher’s gone ashley. Fieluhr? Filou! What age is at? It saon is late. ‘Tis endless now senne- “The man is mad,” the autochthon said, and turned toward the hatch, to leave.
“It’s Finnegans Wake,” Herb Asher said. “I hope the translating computer got it for you. ‘Can’t hear with the waters of. The chittering waters of. Flittering bats, fieldmice bawk talk. Ho! Are you not gone ahome? What Thom Malone? Can’t hear-‘
The autochthon had left, convinced of Herb Asher’s insanity. Asher watched him through the port; the autochthon strode away from the dome in indignation. Again pressing the switch of the external bullhorn, Herb Asher yelled after the retreating figure, “You think James Joyce was crazy, is that what you think? Okay; then explain to me how come he mentions ‘talktapes’ which means audio tapes in a book he wrote starting in 1922 and which he completed in 1939. Before there were tape recorders! You call that crazy? He also has them sitting around a TV set — in a book started four years after World War I. I think Joyce was a– The autochthon had disappeared over a ridge. Asher released the switch on the external bullhorn.
It’s impossible that James Joyce could have mentioned ‘talk- tapes” in his writing, Asher thought. Someday I’m going to get my article published; I’m going to prove that Finnegans Wake is an information pool based on computer memory systems that didn’t exist until a century after James Joyce’s era; that Joyce was plugged into a cosmic consciousness from which he derived the inspiration for his entire corpus of work. I’ll be famous forever.
Biblioklept 