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layout: post title: Cry me a river, the Light Bringer thought to himself. date: '2017-08-26T05:39:00.001-07:00' author: Adam M. Dobrin tags: modified_time: '2017-08-26T05:39:15.361-07:00' thumbnail: 2.bp.blogspot.com/-Hix2IqEi3JY/WaFr9NBL0KI/AAAAAAAAFLg/jkL47kz_-cUKkSS5YA5foKNiZxyxrWFRQCK4BGAYYCw/s72-c/Screenshot%2B2017-08-25%2Bat%2B7.32.43%2BPM-755362.png blogger_id: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4677390916502096913.post-7550842067457994928 blogger_orig_url: ./2017/08/cry-me-river-light-bringer-thought-to.html
IF I KNOW IT'S NOT ME, AND YOU KNOW IT'S NOT YOU, LIGHT MY FIRE
- Flow, my tears, fall from your springs,
- Exiled for ever, let me mourn
- Where night's black bird her sad infamy sings,
- There let me live forlorn.
- If you didn't get yesterday's message, click on "how"
- Please understand, it is you that really must try
- Know that I am no king, nor a king maker
- I am here to set you free, and "why"
- This thing was never about "us or them"
- That's that kind of mentality that tears us apart
- In my own mind, this days is the beginning of Baruch Ha'shem
- But for "the collaborators" it's really the day you start.
The novel is parodied as The Android Cried Me a River in VALIS.[6]
Author's interpretation
In his undelivered speech "How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later," Dick recounts how in describing an incident at the end of the book (end of chapter 27) to an Episcopalian priest, the priest noted its striking similarity to a scene in the Books of Acts in the Bible. In Dick's book, the police chief, Felix Buckman, meets a black stranger at an all-night gas station, with whom he uncharacteristically makes an emotional connection. After handing the stranger a drawing of a heart pierced by an arrow, Buckman flies away, but he quickly returns and hugs the stranger, after which they strike up a friendly conversation. In the Book of Acts (chapter 8), the disciple Philip meets an Ethiopian eunuch (i.e. a black man) sitting in a chariot to whom he explains a passage from the Book of Isaiah, and then converts him to Christianity.[7]
Dick further notes that eight years after writing the book, he himself uncharacteristically came to the aid of a black stranger who had run out of gas. After giving the man some money and then driving away, he returned to help the man reach a gas station. Dick was then struck by the similarity between this incident and that described in his book (approaching a black stranger, and returning again).[7]
Dick also recounts an unusual dream experience he had in the writing of the book, and how he felt compelled to get into the text of the novel.[7][8] Years later, in retrospect of the Biblical coincidences he experienced following the publication of the novel, he came to interpret this dream as the key to understanding the real meaning of the story, stating:
Deciphered, my novel tells a quite different story from the surface story (…). The real story is simply this: the return of Christ, now king rather than suffering servant. Judge rather than victim of unfair judgment. Everything is reversed. The core message of my novel, without my knowing it, was a warning to the powerful: You will shortly be judged and condemned.[7][8]
