In praise of: Philip. K. Dick
I think Philip.K. Dick is not only the greatest sci-fi writer of all time, but one of the greatest writers in any genre. Few people have blown my mind the way he did-the kind of wonderfully original and complex stories that take you days or weeks to work out in your head. I was talking to Tommy. B (who is also a fan) about him the other day and that got me thinking about him again and thus writing this inevitably rambling post.
Dick didn't have the writing skills of Kurt Vonnegut or the elegance of Isaac Asimov or the vision of Arthur. C. Clarke but he managed to rise above them all. It's no suprise that holywood loves him- films like Minority Report, Blade Runner, paycheck, impostor and Total recall are all based on his work, although it must be said with varying results.
Where do you start? There is Ubik a very bold and complicated story which-like most of his work- preys on the uncertainty of what is real and what is not. You never know where a story is going when all the characters very literally fall apart and turn to ash as the story progresses. Just as good and even more complex is The three stigmata of Palmer Eldritch which on one level is a drugs tale and on the other is an incredibly original work of science fiction about a man who provides a powerful new drug that seems to alter reality and which allows him to insert himself into the user's reality. It's so mind-bending you need a recovery period to take it all in. Do android dream of electric sheep? (the inspiration for Blade Runner)asks all the moral and ethical questions about robots that we are asking now that they are not really the stuff of science fiction anymore.
And you couldn't read Dick without reading through his short story collections especially The Father Thing which is class from beginning to end while Second Variety also has some amazing stuff. With Philip Dick, words like 'genius', 'visionary', 'brilliant' don't do him justice. He is so good and so mind-blowing that it's hard to find the right superlatives. It was when I read A scanner Darkly-his best book- that I finally gave the man the full respect he deserved. This is barely even a science-fiction book- it's more of a dangers-of-drugs-story. The main character is a policeman who has gone undercover and becomes a user in order to find the source of a very dangerous drug and sort of finds that he is investigating himself because he is in effect a prime suspect but doesn't know it(you have to read it to see how that twisted situation comes about)the book is full of people destroyed and broken by the drug (based on Dick's own experiences and the people he knew) and you just know there cannot be a happy ending. It's incredible stuff- I don't even remember eating any food while I was reading this. A scanner Darkly would without doubt be in my top 10 favourite books. There's a film of the book coming out this year with Keanu Reeves and its shot in partly-animated way like the film Waking life- a very clever decision because so much of the book takes place in an almost dream-like state between reality and a much grayer area.
Most of his short stories are quite chilling, but some of them are quite cheeky and morbidly funny. One that made me smile was Fair Game in which a scientist believes he is being stalked by aliens because of his expertise as one of the greatest scientific minds in America. When he is finally abducted, it turns out they merely want to eat him. It's a dark but cheeky twist ending that completely subverts the common alien-abduction stories you get in the genre. Most of his stories just show interesting angles about humanity and what we cling to- Do android dream of electic sheep? for example shows us a world in which animals are virtually extinct and almost everyone is forced to settle for a robotic equivalent. Finding a real animal to keep as your pet becomes a kind of holy grail mission. It also wonders what would separate us from robots if we created robots who looked and felt exactly like us. Many deal with that common preoccupation of sci-fi- what a post-apocalyptic world would be like. Some defy description- one favourite of mine Upon this dull earth is like a mad and endlessly inventive fairy tale that cannot possibly be explained to anyone else who hasnt read it.
Dick had fairly severe mental problems for most of his life- the troubled genius; how many times have we seen that before?- and he died in 1982 the year I was born. Still despite- or maybe partly because of- the paranoid delusions and the crazed visions, he managed to create works of fiction that kick some serious literary ass. Phillip, I salute you.
Dick didn't have the writing skills of Kurt Vonnegut or the elegance of Isaac Asimov or the vision of Arthur. C. Clarke but he managed to rise above them all. It's no suprise that holywood loves him- films like Minority Report, Blade Runner, paycheck, impostor and Total recall are all based on his work, although it must be said with varying results.
Where do you start? There is Ubik a very bold and complicated story which-like most of his work- preys on the uncertainty of what is real and what is not. You never know where a story is going when all the characters very literally fall apart and turn to ash as the story progresses. Just as good and even more complex is The three stigmata of Palmer Eldritch which on one level is a drugs tale and on the other is an incredibly original work of science fiction about a man who provides a powerful new drug that seems to alter reality and which allows him to insert himself into the user's reality. It's so mind-bending you need a recovery period to take it all in. Do android dream of electric sheep? (the inspiration for Blade Runner)asks all the moral and ethical questions about robots that we are asking now that they are not really the stuff of science fiction anymore.
And you couldn't read Dick without reading through his short story collections especially The Father Thing which is class from beginning to end while Second Variety also has some amazing stuff. With Philip Dick, words like 'genius', 'visionary', 'brilliant' don't do him justice. He is so good and so mind-blowing that it's hard to find the right superlatives. It was when I read A scanner Darkly-his best book- that I finally gave the man the full respect he deserved. This is barely even a science-fiction book- it's more of a dangers-of-drugs-story. The main character is a policeman who has gone undercover and becomes a user in order to find the source of a very dangerous drug and sort of finds that he is investigating himself because he is in effect a prime suspect but doesn't know it(you have to read it to see how that twisted situation comes about)the book is full of people destroyed and broken by the drug (based on Dick's own experiences and the people he knew) and you just know there cannot be a happy ending. It's incredible stuff- I don't even remember eating any food while I was reading this. A scanner Darkly would without doubt be in my top 10 favourite books. There's a film of the book coming out this year with Keanu Reeves and its shot in partly-animated way like the film Waking life- a very clever decision because so much of the book takes place in an almost dream-like state between reality and a much grayer area.
Most of his short stories are quite chilling, but some of them are quite cheeky and morbidly funny. One that made me smile was Fair Game in which a scientist believes he is being stalked by aliens because of his expertise as one of the greatest scientific minds in America. When he is finally abducted, it turns out they merely want to eat him. It's a dark but cheeky twist ending that completely subverts the common alien-abduction stories you get in the genre. Most of his stories just show interesting angles about humanity and what we cling to- Do android dream of electic sheep? for example shows us a world in which animals are virtually extinct and almost everyone is forced to settle for a robotic equivalent. Finding a real animal to keep as your pet becomes a kind of holy grail mission. It also wonders what would separate us from robots if we created robots who looked and felt exactly like us. Many deal with that common preoccupation of sci-fi- what a post-apocalyptic world would be like. Some defy description- one favourite of mine Upon this dull earth is like a mad and endlessly inventive fairy tale that cannot possibly be explained to anyone else who hasnt read it.
Dick had fairly severe mental problems for most of his life- the troubled genius; how many times have we seen that before?- and he died in 1982 the year I was born. Still despite- or maybe partly because of- the paranoid delusions and the crazed visions, he managed to create works of fiction that kick some serious literary ass. Phillip, I salute you.
posted by Minzo at 12:03 AM
3 Comments:
Someone once told me that they stopped writing good sci-fi in 1970. Apparently not. I shall certainly look up this unfortunately-named author.
severe mental problems? He was actually insane having fried his brain with LSD.
well said! i thoroughly agree with you.
i think though that do androids..? goes deeper than that. Being based in a society where the ability to feel empathy for animals is what defines humanity, and upon coming to terms with the androids ability to empathise, it leads deckard to question his own humanity, since he retires androids for a living...
whatever, PKD is the greatest sci-fi author around, extremely original and brilliant and diversified plots.
its also the pessimism in all his works that appeals to me
Post a Comment
<< Home