Philip K. Dick: Four Novels of the 1960s: The Man in the High Castle / The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch / Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? / Ubik
Known in his lifetime primarily to readers of science fiction, Philip K. Dick (1928-82) is now seen as a uniquely visionary figure, a writer who, in editor Jonathan Lethem's words, "wielded a sardonic yet heartbroken acuity about the plight of being alive in the twentieth century, one that makes him a lonely hero to the readers who cherish him." Posing the questions "What is human?" and "What is real?" in a multitude of fascinating ways, Dick produced works-fantastic and weird yet developed with precise logic, marked by wild humor and soaring flights of religious speculation-that are startlingly prescient imaginative responses to 21st-century quandaries.This Library of America volume brings together four of Dick's most original novels. The Man in the High Castle (1962), which won the Hugo Award, describes an alternate world in which Japan and Germany have won World War II and America is divided into separate occupation zones. The dizzying The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965) posits a future in which competing hallucinogens proffer different brands of virtual reality. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), about a bounty hunter in search of escaped androids in a postapocalyptic future, was the basis for the movie Blade Runner. Ubik (1969), with its future world of psychic espionage agents and cryogenically frozen patients inhabiting an illusory "half-life," pursues Dick's theme of simulated realities and false perceptions to ever more disturbing conclusions. As with most of Dick's novels, no plot summary can suggest the mesmerizing and constantly surprising texture of these astonishing books. About the Author "Dick's great accomplishment was to turn the materials of American pulp-style science fiction into a vocabulary for a remarkably personal vision of paranoia and dislocation." Jonathan Lethem Classic four together Great Volume of Sci-Fi Revernt treatment of science fiction classicsProduct Details
Editorial Reviews
Jonathan Lethem, editor, is the author of six novels, including Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude; a story collection, The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye; a novella, This Shape We're In; and a book of essays, The Disappointment Artist. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire, The New York Times, and The Paris Review, among other places. Customer Reviews
A must-have hardcover of PKD's classics. His humor and imagination ameliorate the bleakness of the out-of-control future he draws, though often presented as comforting, his perennial questions emerging-- what is real, what does it mean to be human.
"Mindbending" is a frequent adjective used to apply to Philip K. Dick's works; after reading through all of the Library of America's first Philip K. Dick volume ("Four Novels of the 1960s), it seems entirely appropriate. The man can make my brain hurt, in a good way. The four novels included here are "The Man In The High Castle", an early alt-history where Germany and Japan won WWII; "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch", where a hallucinogenic virtual reality tycoon is threatened by sudden competition; "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", the basis for the movie Bladerunner, where a bounty hunter has to track down escaped, almost human androids; and "Ubik", which follows a group of anti-psychics after a disastrous mission.
A common thread among these 4 of Dick's books is leaning more heavily on plot and setting than on characterization; especially with shorter length the characters tend to lead towards the archetypal over the complex. However, since his plots and setups are unconventional - even a straightforward alt-history uses a slightly unorthodox caste - and the novels brief, this doesn't become a problem. The dizzying world of "Palmer Eldritch" and the empathic, authenticity-obsessed world of "Electric Sheep" don't have stereotypical responses, and are intriguing enough on their own.
The author has admitted that the I Ching was not only on his mind when he wrote "The Man In the High Castle", but was used in plotting the book. Set on the Japan occupied west coast of the US in a world where Germany and Japan won WWII, the book doesn't dwell too much on how the Allies lost the war, but doesn't depend too much on it either. The cast, which includes an antique dealer and a couple forgers, initially seems like an odd mix; but as the novel progresses it becomes clear where Dick is going with everything (for once).
Dick also has the conceit of a alt-history book within his alt-history; a (somewhat suppressed) tale of the Allies winning the war is an important plot thread. There's actually some nice subtleties in the way the inner book is plotted, in it's own way more of a reflection of the world they're in than the world being written about.
"The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" is perhaps the hardest to describe. The initial plot is simple enough - a drug tycoon selling hallucinogenic VR drugs to colonists desperate for escapism is threatened when a famous traveler returns from an alien solar system, hawking a competing drug. But with precognitives that can see the future and the complicated realities of the drugs, you end up dealing with far more than expected.
Dick has long been famed for his drug-infused writing, and "Palmer Eldritch" shows why he became so - reality is undermined without ever losing coherence or stuttering into cliches. And here it moves smoothly, even as Dick needs to reveal a lot of what is going on. The denouement escapes disappointment by leaving enough interesting questions while resolving the plot.
Bladerunner is rather well known as a movie, so it's interesting to see where it diverges from the source text "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". The Voigt-Kampff test, designed to separate humans from androids is a test of empathy, and the idea of empathy - for animals, and for fellow humans - is a foundational religious concept in the culture. It's a more central concept here than in the movie.
But how much of it is a difference in empathy, as opposed to a difference in the targets of empathy? Deckard is increasingly battered and dependent on obscure, sterile tests that lack much of the empathy and emotion they're supposed to test; and the subplot of Mercerism adds in a dimension that the movie couldn't have reasonably had. Much of the themes and basic plot carried over to the movie, but there's still a fair amount that's distinct here.
"Ubik" is another of the more elliptical works; it doesn't work quite as well as "Palmer Eldritch" does and ultimately ends poorly. Still, the tale of dubious realities and sparsely lived half-lives following death is still a reasonably good read. Dick oddly leaves a couple of plot drives largely on the floor as he switches up, but this is as much due to a surfeit of ideas as anything else. The slow deterioration and disappearances that move along with the novel are extremely creepy even without bringing in everything the book was setup with.
The Library of America edition itself is well made; the texts are slightly cleaned up (typos corrected) versions of the first printings, the paper is thin but good, and the binding is very nice. "Four Novels of the 1960s" is well worth the premium price, both in content and in this edition.
These four novels are Dick, whose erratic brilliance lead to frustration in his lesser works, at his finest. "The Man in the High Castle" in particular is brilliant piece of alternate history elucidated by some of the best prose the author ever wrote. For those only familiar with the film "Blade Runner", the subtlety and humor of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" will be a real eye-opener. This fine volume is highly recommended both for science fiction fans and for those who want to complete their knowledge of twentieth century literature.
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