Just finished Henry James's Wings of the Dove. Kind of beautiful in the severe sense, noted below.

Also reading PK Dick sequel to Valis (Divine Invasion). Kind of beautiful in the wacky sense.

Reading along in PK Dick's novel Valis. Odd parallels to Henry's wacky 70s adventures.

In the novel Valis, protagonist (and author's alter ego) "Horselover Fat" [Philip = greek for "lover of horses"; Dick = german for "fat"] has strange "theophany" in 1974, sending him on a sort of time-warp quest for God, which includes contacting the rock star & film-maker "Eric Lampton" (Eric Clapton, get it?) with secret information about time-traveling Christian world-savers.

In (so-called) real life, poet "Henry" has strange theophany in the fall of 1973, sending him on a sort of time-warp quest for God, which includes traveling to London to see rock stars (& film makers) Rolling Stones (Keith Richards, in particular) with "information" about time-traveling (UFO) Christian world-savers.

(- there's also the parallel (in fate & plot) between Fat's "Gloria" and Henry's Juliet.)

PK Dick is great at evoking the period flavor...

"Horselover Fat". I may have to try to work this into the Fontegaia/Palio sequence, somehow. S.F. is already in there - but I thought it was more San Francisco than Science Fiction.

reading Philip K. Dick's "novel" Valis with enormous pleasure. The quintessential sad clown - morose, but hilarious.

& it's a good thing I didn't read it when it first came out, 30 yrs or so ago. Far too many similarities to my own history & wacky obsessions...