Phillip K. Dick liked to say reality is a forgery. His
stories challenged reality. They challenged the norm. He fully embraced the
drugs and counterculture of the sixties. At one point, it is said, he was
taking 1,000 amphetamines a week, but I can’t verify this statistic. He
suffered many mental breaks from reality, and his writing portrayed his
strangeness. In the end, P. K. Dick was insane, and spent some time institutionalized
after an attempted suicide in 1972. Dick lived in a different reality than the
rest of the world, but that is what makes his books interesting.
Some say his identity crisis derives from the death of his
twin sister. She died six weeks after their birth. His paranoia and schizophrenia
come from the part of him that went missing when she died. He spent his entire
life trying to find himself through the use of religion and drugs, and he
shared the search through his stories.
Dick published 44 extremely strange novels and over 121
short stories. He worked in the science fiction genre telling stories of
metaphysics, alternative history, religion, drug abuse, paranoia and
schizophrenia. His writing voice screamed of an alternative reality, and his
lifelong search for wholeness.
The books are not well written. Dick is not famous for his
prose. He is famous for his uniqueness. When you finish one of his books, you
sit back, and go WTF. The story does not draw in the reader rather its oddness hooks
the reader. You find yourself trying to figure out where the story is going,
and what is Dick trying to say.
At least eleven of his books have been turned into movies, Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner
Darkly, Minority Report and The Adjustment
Bureau are just a few. Only Matheson may have more stories converted to
movies.
Recently I read The
Man in the High Castle. He won his only Hugo Award in 1962 for this book. Japan
and Germany won World War II. Germany controls the east coast of the former
United States and Japan runs the West Coast. The middle part of the country
including Denver is technically free.
We don’t meet the protagonist, Juliana, until half way
through the book. We are introduced to her earlier in a scene about her
ex-husband, but we don’t actually meet her until much later. Are we getting the
story from her point of view; I’m really not sure.
I tried to stop reading the story a couple of times, but it
strangeness kept me intrigued. After finishing, I still think about it. What
did I actually read? What was the story about? I’ve come to the conclusion it
is a schizophrenic’s view of post World War II, but I haven’t figured out what
is reality and what isn’t in the book. Possibly, you should give it a try.
Be warned it is not an easy read. On a number of occasions,
you will ask yourself, why I’m a wasting my time with this? It is also very
non-politically correct, and many may find it offensive, but then it is a world
ruled by the Nazis.
What makes a good book? Certainly a book should be well
written. It should entertain. But shouldn’t it also cause us to question our
beliefs and our values? After reading a book are we content to throw it on the
floor, and walk away. I think, a good book is one that causes us to think about
long after we have finished reading it.
