on the real author's name part .....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VALISThe main character in VALIS is Horselover Fat, an author surrogate. "Horselover" is English for the Greek word "philo-hippos", lover/friend of horses, and "fat", being English for the German word "dick". Philip is a personal name, derived from Greek Philippos (Φίλιππος), meaning "lover of horses", from philo "brotherly or comradely love" and hippos "horse".
Even though the book is written in first person, for most of the book Dick treats Horselover Fat as a separate person, describing conversations and even arguments with him, and criticizing his opinions and writings; this can all be viewed by the reader as a form of mental illness. The major subject of these dialogues is spirituality, as Dick/Fat's character is ostensibly obsessed with several religions and philosophies, including Taoism, Buddhism, Gnosticism and even Jungian Psychoanalysis, in the search for a cure for what he believes is simultaneously a personal and a cosmic wound. Near the end of the book the messianic figure, incarnated by the child Sophia, cures him (temporarily), and he describes his surprise that Horselover Fat has suddenly disappeared from his side.
VALIS is a 1981 science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick. The title is an acronym for Vast Active Living Intelligence System, Dick's gnostic vision of one aspect of God. VALIS is the first book in an unfinished trilogy that (together with his thematically related final novel) represents Dick's last major work before he died. As Dick's Radio Free Albemuth is actually an earlier version of Valis, it is not included as a component of this trilogy.
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