The Divine Invasion

And yet -- his ultimate move had fallen through because Linda Fox ... it had been the wrong time. Her menstrual cycle, he thought. Linda Fox has periods and cramps? he asked himself. I don't believe it. But I guess it's true. Could it have been a pretext? No, it was not a pretext. It was real.(201)

Herb Asher experiences cognitive dissonance when faced with the biological reality of his Linda Ronstadt fantasy, while readers face similar uncertainty about the entire text. Which is the real timeline? Who is dead and who is alive? What do these weird names signify? Who knew that eyelashes could emote?

But I guess it's true. This is not a pretext. This is real.

[visit blog linked below to see BINGO card]

• One diagonal BINGO. That's a fail.
• Not many BINGOs, but it hits peak boob-ogling, biblical-scholaring vastness.
• Best use of "vast": "It was an animated horror: a vast hemorrhoid that swelled and pulsed angrily." (36)
• This is, perhaps, the most adverb-happy PKD I've read so far.
• Starting to think PKD's fascination with the words "sidereal" and "ergic" occupied only a small moment in his output.
• Technically there's no precinct or jail, but I think I need to change that box to "Confrontation with Law Enforcement" to be more accurate. I might cheat and do that next month.

The Divine Invasion is messy, quirky, odd, and off-putting, -- like any PKD novel -- but it might be the only PKD novel (so far) that has eluded me enough to think it deserves a reread. After a hearty dose of critical interpretation, that is. Those mystical-sounding references and biblical-sounding names (like, you know, "The Big Noodle") are as mystifying as apprehensive facial hair.