My experience with PKD through The Man In The High Castle is similar. It is beautiful prose and a fascinating idea but the sheer unpleasantness of the reading experience is off-putting. This is not to say I totally hate Dystopias. I think one of the most beautiful pieces of Science fiction (let alone Dystopias) is Walter M. Miller’s A Canticle for Liebowitz . With it’s Sarcastic Humor, and it’s crazy story that interweaves (Spoiler to a 60+ year old story the Wandering Jew wanders through all three sections and it MAKES SENSE) all sorts of mythology and Catholic and Christian trivia into a very odd resolution it is very compelling. I reread it, but not too often, it tears at the soul. Both PKD and Walter Miller (who later commits suicide likely due to PTSD from being a B-17 gunner in WWII in the raids on Dresden) were clearly troubled men. They are also very skilled writers. Their writing, to some degree, drags you into their madness, and this can be a very uncomfortable place to go. I do not find The Man in the High Castle compelling enough to experience the discomfort where A Canticle For Liebowitz seems to ultimately yield some release,
Tag: Philip K Dick
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick – A Science Fiction Book Review
I won’t give a synopsis of the plot. If you’ve seen the movie “Blade Runner” then you have an approximate idea of the world and the action of the story. Rick Deckard is a bounty hunter who kills androids that break free of their service as bond slaves for humanity on Mars. He lives on an Earth where a remnant of humans remain who haven’t emigrated off-Earth. The Earth is contaminated with radioactive fallout called “the dust’ that is slowly mutating and killing every living thing. And many species have gone extinct and there is an almost cult-like love for animals that is expressed by owning farm animals like sheep and goats. And the extension of this cult is something called Mercerism that expresses empathy for all living things (except androids).
Let me give my impressions of Philip K. Dick’s writing and style. He is a very effective writer. His characters are sparingly but clearly represented and his narrative is interesting and cleverly crafted. He has carefully thought out many details of how this strange world works. The interpersonal interactions between Deckard and his wife, his boss, the androids, the other people in his surroundings are all consistent and keep you immersed in the story. He is a very talented science fiction writer. And if this book is representative of his type of story, he is not for me.
If I would sum up this book in one word it would be “dystopia.”
Everything in this book is downbeat. Deckard is depressed. His wife is practically suicidal. His boss is bleak. The owner of the corporation that makes the androids is harried. And finally, the androids are schizophrenic. The only ones who seem cheerful are the tv comics meant to sedate the populace and the pet salesmen who sell overpriced animals and fake animals to the desperate remnant of Earth’s human population.
So, here’s the thing. I think PKD is a major talent and I’m sure his reputation as a talented author is well deserved. And I’m sure there is a large audience for his type of fiction. Unfortunately, I’m not a part of that audience. I’m not a hopeless dystopia kind of guy. That doesn’t mean I need utopia. I don’t mind crises and catastrophes. But a story that has absolutely no one to root for just doesn’t inspire me to keep reading. If everyone in the story is a neurotic basket case and no one can summon the will to try and overcome the awful things that are happening in the story; or if morally speaking, the “good guys” are completely indistinguishable from the “bad guys” then why the hell should I care who wins or loses?
So, yeah, this is a good book. But it’s not for me. I’ll probably read a few more PKD “masterpieces” to see if there’s anything for me. If they’re all like this then I’m going to assume that the author was an extremely unhappy man and if I don’t want to end up that way myself, I should move on to greener sf pastures.
Some Thoughts about Philip K Dick
I was listening to an interview that Philip K Dick (PKD) made back in May 1979. Now I’ve never read any of his stories. Of course, I’ve seen Blade Runner and I have heard him described as one of the best science fiction writers of all time so I’ve always meant to get ahold of a few of his books and read them but between work and wife and kids and life I’ve just never had a chance.
So, when I saw this YouTube audio-file I listened to it. It’s two hours long and some of it is kind of hard to believe. But it is extremely interesting. I would say PKD was a very intelligent man but I’m pretty sure his grasp on reality was extremely tenuous on certain subjects. He believed that at one point he was possessed by some kind of spirit or intelligence that controlled him and fixed a lot of his financial and even health problems. And listening to him describe this chapter in his life it’s hard not to assume that either he was dealing with some kind of split personality or he was suffering from schizophrenia.
Now based on what I’ve read about PKD’s fiction he was intrigued with the idea that reality wasn’t what we think it is. That different people experienced radically different perceptions of reality and maybe none of these perceptions were particularly accurate. And so, with this type of belief I could see how he might accept versions of reality that most people would find absurd.
Now, in the audio-recording he is asked by the interviewer about his use of drugs and their impact on his mind and writing. PKD goes to great lengths to deny that he used LSD more than once. He claimed that the drug he abused was an amphetamine that he used to be able to produce prodigious amounts of fiction writing. The implication was that his drug use did not affect his writing by altering his mind. And maybe this was true. But listening to this man I got the distinct impression that even if LSD wasn’t the source of his delusions, that he was indeed substantially untethered from reality in a lot of his beliefs about the world around him. In short, I think he was in some sense insane.
So, how does this jibe with his undeniable creative talent? I think that both these things can be true at the same time. Look at Vincent van Gogh. He was undeniably a creative genius in his field of art but he was also a tortured madman who finally killed himself to escape his mental anguish. So, whether PKD was driven insane by his drug use (of whatever substances) or whether his mind was damaged for whatever other reasons there might have been, his grasp on reality (or lack thereof) did not stop him from producing very entertaining science fiction. And perhaps it was his delusions that actually made his stories so interesting. Strange man. Well, I’ll start with “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” and see how I like it. Maybe I’ll read some more.