Shadow Wrought's Journal: Four by Philip K. Dick

I read a volume that had 4 Philip K. Dick stories in it. The Man in the High Castle, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Ubik, and the ever famous, Do Andoirds Dream of Electric Sheep.

Dude was depressed.

I'm not sure if it was reading them back to back or not, but they carried a weight of darkness with them that went beyond just the story. I know he is a cornerstone of SciFi, and deeply influenced many, but I can't help but think how much better his stories would've been if he had given his characters the entire gamut of emotions instead of just baseline to low.

He'd write a book over the course of several days.

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Wide awake, on Methamphetamine.

Dig into his bio. Amazing stuff, in ordinary wraps.

I'd recommend his 1978 lecture "How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later" [deoxy.org]

One day while my son Christopher, who is four, was playing in front of me and his mother, we two adults began discussing the figure of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels. Christopher turned toward us for an instant and said, "I am a fisherman. I fish for fish." He was playing with a metal lantern which someone had given me, which I had nevel used... and suddenly I realized that the lantern was shaped like a fish. I wonder what thoughts were being placed in my little boy's soul at that moment--and not placed there by cereal merchants or candy peddlers. "I am a fisherman. I fish for fish." Christopher, at four, had found the sign I did not find until I was forty-five years old.

Re:

[Shadow Wrought]

I read the lecture and it is interesting, but I think the simplest solution to some of his larger questions is that he doesn't remembering hearing the story in Acts. I have had enough dealings and difficulties with mental illness in my personal life, that reading his lecture perks up those flags. I love a discussion about alternate realities, what is real, and so forth; but I am still firmly rooted in reality. Even if it is my own. It's like speaking with people about ghosts and UFO's. Fun to speculate

Kinda the whole point

[Captain Splendid]

I'll agree that his works have a certain flatness to them, but that's how he perceived the world. Like JC said, reading up about the man, especially the interviews he gave, throws his writing into a whole new light.

Re:

[Shadow Wrought]

I replied to JC about the PKD speech he gave, but I think a large issue with the flatness has to do with my own personal experiences with depression. having dealt with it enough in real life, it's the last thing I want to encounter in a story. Reading them one after the other just made it all the worse.