The Philip K. Dick Thread

rathbone · Post by **rathbone** » 22 Jun 2005, 14:00

This thread was Dadaist's suggestion and a good one too!

Use this thread to post interesting, eccentric, arcane or downright provocative information on Philip K. Dick.

Who knows, someone might come up with the meaning of the ending of The Man In The High Castle.

Alternatively it might just become the domain of PKD geeks like me.

rathbone · Post by **rathbone** » 22 Jun 2005, 14:02

" Often people claim to remember past lives. I claim to remember a different, very different, present life. I know of no one who has ever made that claim before, but I rather suspect that my experience is not unique."

Philip K. Dick, September 1977.

Discuss............

mr magnolia · Post by **mr magnolia** » 22 Jun 2005, 14:15

rathbone wrote:This thread was Dadaist's suggestion and a good one too!

I agree

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 22 Jun 2005, 14:20

I read a third of "time out of joint" last night. Finished it.

I don't think there is another author who can spook you out and really force you to re-think everything you perceive like PKD.

I'm going to start the Simulacra but I want a break first, might read a "norm" book or something.

mr magnolia · Post by **mr magnolia** » 22 Jun 2005, 14:22

rathbone wrote:" Often people claim to remember past lives. I claim to remember a different, very different, present life. I know of no one who has ever made that claim before, but I rather suspect that my experience is not unique."

Philip K. Dick, September 1977.

Discuss............

In September 1977 I had just left school and was working in a factory building things I can't for the life of me remember now and hoping for a very different present life. Philip K Dick (PKD?) helped nudge me towards that different life that is, strangely, gloriously unique and also horrifyingly similar to everyone else's.

mr magnolia · Post by **mr magnolia** » 22 Jun 2005, 14:28

Actually thats cobblers.

that bit I can't remember came a bit later. In 1977 I was working in a factory building things that I CAN remember but am deeply ashamed of now. My old boss at the time is, oddly, nowadays a fervent attender of 'make poverty history' marches all over the globe. Which just goes to show what WMD can do to a man.

Porty · Post by **Porty** » 22 Jun 2005, 15:53

As a result of the Dick lovers on POL I have just ordered MITHC from Amazon and I'm excited.

I simultaneously ordered Shadow of the Wind as recommended by dcCairns.

mr magnolia · Post by **mr magnolia** » 22 Jun 2005, 16:05

Porty

I strongly suggest you read other PKD books before TMITHC. I hate that book. OOPS no, I find that book very hard to engage with...

Porty · Post by **Porty** » 22 Jun 2005, 16:06

mr magnolia wrote:Porty

I strongly suggest you read other PKD books before TMITHC. I hate that book. OOPS no, I find that book very hard to engage with...

Ok

I will see if Dada can lend me a more user friendly one first.

Thanks for the tip Mr M

Porty

xxxx · Post by **xxxx** » 22 Jun 2005, 17:15

I think you'll be alright with TMITHC. I think its one of the easier ones to get into, the tough ones are the three stigmata of Palmer Eldritch,transmigration of timothy archer, Martian Time Slip, Valis.
Galactic Pot healer is very light and A scanner darkly is the most affecting.
Fing Genius

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 22 Jun 2005, 17:25

Porty, pop round any time and I'll give you as much Dick as you can handle.

Obviously I'll start you off gently.

Etc etc.

MITHC is a fine book and you won't need to read any others first.

Post by **wangi** » 22 Jun 2005, 17:36

Dadaist wrote:MITHC is a fine book and you won't need to read any others first.

It put me off reading any more of his books...

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 22 Jun 2005, 18:30

wangi wrote:
Dadaist wrote:MITHC is a fine book and you won't need to read any others first.
It put me off reading any more of his books...

Meaning you realised later that you were wrong?

MITHC is not typical sf, but on so many levels is a fine work of fiction.

What didn't you like about it?

mr magnolia · Post by **mr magnolia** » 22 Jun 2005, 19:45

Jump in with TMITHC if you wish - it is indeed a fine work; just a bit too fine for me.

I'd start with some other 'non-sf' books that are nevertheless 'weird' enough to get a flavour - Mary and the Giant, The man Whose Teeth were All Exactly Alike, Humpty Dumpty in Oakland - all weird enough but more readily readable IMHO

edit: spelling and titles!

xxxx · Post by **xxxx** » 22 Jun 2005, 19:46

Dadaist wrote: MITHC is not typical sf.

He is if you see SF in terms of Homer,Poe,Verne,Welles,Capek,Burroughs andMatheson rather than the vapid, sickly fantasy of star wars and its ilk.

I can understand why people won't like his work, he's interested primarily in existential, ontological ideas and downtrodden characters, plot and style are of little interest to him. The multiple viewpoints and spiritual interludes can get confusing or hallucinogenic depending on your taste.

Plus he was completely nuts.

His books are more a trip than a story, which is why you can reread them so many times.

Henry Rollins said something interesting(the only time I'm aware of) when he said "There's two kinds of people in this world, those that get DEVO and those that don't", I think the same of PKD, I'm suprised he's so popular here. Noone I like gets him at all.

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 22 Jun 2005, 20:37

Yes, xxxx. It does help if your worldview is a bit wonky to start off with, because then in PKD you meet someone who fills in the gaps and sets you off on even more interesting philosophical whimsy.

xxxx · Post by **xxxx** » 22 Jun 2005, 20:41

I read them first at school, in the yellow hardback gollancz editions, and I've always wondered if they warped me slightly, or if I was that way anyway...a rather dickean conundrum in itself

foxy · Post by **foxy** » 22 Jun 2005, 22:13

Not a single female point of view in this thread so far and I can't comment as I haven't read any of PKD's stuff. However judging by the comments so far... I don't think I'll bother...sounds way too weird for me. I'm not a Sci-fi fan at the best of times and this sounds like a whole new dimension.

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 22 Jun 2005, 22:38

foxy wrote:a whole new dimension.

Boom boom.

Pretty much my whole reason for loving PKD's work - he messes with time brilliantly (the political themes in Counter Clock World for example) and forces you to think like a physics student grasping with applying many dimensions to a brain far too used to a 3-dimensional view with time running forwards.

The corporate spin is the icing on the cake - from not being able to get out of a house (where everything is coin operated) because you don't have the right change for the front door to competing firms of precogs and anti-precogs.

Blessed be the maker and his typewriter.

rathbone · Post by **rathbone** » 27 Jun 2005, 15:13

Dadaist wrote: It does help if your worldview is a bit wonky to start off with, because then in PKD you meet someone who fills in the gaps and sets you off on even more interesting philosophical whimsy.

" You look under your parked car and you find a pool of water. Now, you don't know that the water came from your motor; that is something you have to assume. You have evidence. As an attorney, I understand what constitutes evidence."
"Is the car parked in your own parking slot?", Bill said. "Or is it in a public parking lot, like at the supermarket?"
Slightly taken aback, Tim paused. "I don't follow you."
"If it's in your own garage or parking slot", Bill said, "where only you park, then it's probably from your car. Anyhow, it wouldn't be the motor; it'd be from the radiator or the water pump or one of the hoses. Also, your transmission, if you have an automatic transmission, uses the same kind of fluid. Do you have power steering?"
"On what?, Tim said.
"On your car."
"I don't know. I'm speaking about a hypothestical car."
"Okay. The first thing is to figure out is what kind of fluid it is. So you reach under the car. You may have to back it out first. And dip your finger in the fluid. Now, is it pink? Or Brown? Is it oil? Is it water? Let's say it's water. Well, it could be normal. It could be overflow from the relief system of your radiator. After you turn off an engine, the water gets hotter sometimes and blows out through the relief pipe. What kind of car are you driving?"
"I think it's a Buick", Tim said.
"It's a Chrysler," I said quietly.
"Oh", Tim said.

The Transmigration Of Timothy Archer

rathbone · Post by **rathbone** » 27 Jun 2005, 17:42

foxy wrote:I don't think I'll bother...sounds way too weird for me. I'm not a Sci-fi fan at the best of times and this sounds like a whole new dimension.

"We who read science fiction," Dick wrote in 1981, "read it because we love to experience this chain-reaction of ideas being set off in our minds by something we read, something with a new idea in it; hence the very best science fiction ultimately winds up being a collaboration between author and reader, in which both create--and enjoy doing it: joy is the essential and final ingredient of science fiction, the joy of discovery of newness."

rathbone · Post by **rathbone** » 28 Aug 2005, 15:30

Just bringing this back up to the top for the hell of it.

Another quote from our friend Phil:

" If I had known that it was harmless I would have killed it myself."

Epykat · Post by **Epykat** » 28 Aug 2005, 18:55

You could have remembered that one when we found that fly thing in the bathroom!

mr magnolia · Post by **mr magnolia** » 30 Sep 2005, 23:20

Sandra - how are you doing with Mary and her big chum?

Sandra · Post by **Sandra** » 30 Sep 2005, 23:23

mr magnolia wrote:Sandra - how are you doing with Mary and her big chum?

Have got the book but BC has said I won't like it - though determined to start it!!!!!! and once I start a book I hate not finishing it - hopefully it will be an easy read

and I am goihing to start it tommorrow!

Sandra · Post by **Sandra** » 07 Nov 2005, 22:17

Mr Magnolia, really enjoying Mary and the Giant, nearly finished it too, thanks for recommending it.

mr magnolia · Post by **mr magnolia** » 07 Nov 2005, 23:34

Sandra wrote:Mr Magnolia, really enjoying Mary and the Giant, nearly finished it too, thanks for recommending it.

Hurrah - even if you're jst being polite, that's a relief!

Sandra · Post by **Sandra** » 08 Nov 2005, 10:49

mr magnolia wrote: Hurrah - even if you're jst being polite, that's a relief!

no it was enjoyable if a bit odd and I do like a happy ending

Talk Porty ~ Portobello

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