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Title: Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick ISBN: 0-679-74066-X Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 29 June, 1993 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.25 (40 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Solid, if not spectacular Dick
Comment: Phil Dick is an author that one either gets or doesn't get. His philosophical, paranoiac brand of science fiction both alienates many fans of "hard" science fiction and attracts many non-genre fans. Two main questions run through all of his work: "What is reality?" and "What does it mean to be human?" This is one of his better-known novels, though it is not one of his best. The basic plot is hardly an original SF one -- unlike most Dick, which basically defines the word "original": a man wakes up in a world in which he does not exist. Dick, however, puts a unique spin on this tried-and-true formula, as only he could. Interspersed throughout the book are long philosophical dialogues on such subjects as the meaning of love, the purpose of pain, the nature of justice, and other such Big Matters that come out of nowhere and disappear just as fast. This sense of half-reality is a defining characteristic of all of Dick's work; one critic put it well when he said that he couldn't decide if Dick's dialogue is totally unreal, or more real than most. Never a prose artist, Dick writes with a hand that belies his pulp origins -- and yet, paradoxically, nevertheless laces his books with obscure literary references, startling philosophical asides, and half-used concepts that lesser authors could build an entire career on. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said, in addition to having one of the absolute greatest titles in all of literature, takes a steady shot at much familiar Dickian subject matter: paranoia, the nature of reality, alienation, and a distrust and suspicion of the powers that be. One need not forget to take into account that this book was written in the early 70's, in the wake of Watergate -- (keep a sharp eye out for the hilarious and disturbing mention of Nixon that Dick subtly inserts into this book --, when the entire country seemed to be falling apart; if this scenario sounds familiar, pay close attention to the police state that Dick envisions in this novel. It actually seemed as if the country might, indeed, be heading toward the future that Dick outlined in this book -- and perhaps, alas, it does now as well. Dick created some great characters for this book. They act as real, living, breathing people do -- irrationally and full of contradictions. Jason Taverner, famous television star and protagonist, is by no means a hero; indeed, in some ways, he is quite a detestable character. On the other hand, the policeman, whom we are ostensibly supposed to hate, is the one whom we ultimately end up feeling sympathy and empathy for. This is yet another instance of Dick's shifting reality of contradictions and subversions. One thing I do not understand is the numerous complaints about this book's ending. I have read about a dozen PKD books, and this is one of the very few that HAD a satisfactory ending. With some of his other books, notably Ubik and The Man In the High Castle, I was quite frustrated at the ending -- not so here. Every loose end, for once, is finally tied up. That said, it would have been better if Dick had left the ending as it stood and not added the epilogue -- but one gets the feeling that Dick did this to parody the pop culture epilogue cliché, especially in light of the book's protagonist. All of this aside, I also think that this is not one of Dick's great books. It's a fine work, to be sure, but he has certainly done better: it is not as original as his best works, and it generally lacks their deeper meaning. This is certainly a great book for the Dick fan to read, but I would recommend starting with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? or A Scanner Darkly.
Rating: 5
Summary: Surreal science fiction
Comment: It had been nearly twenty years since I had last read Flow My Tears. At the time, it had been my first exposure to Philip K. Dick, and it easily motivated me to continue collecting his works, to the point where I have almost all his published stories, even the obscure ones. At long last, I have revisited the work that started it all for me, and I was not disappointed.
The plot is almost Twilight-Zonish: Jason Taverner, a major talk-show host suddenly wakes up to find all traces of his identity have disappeared and no one remembers him. In the oppressive near-future world that he lives in, everything requires proof of identity and it doesn't take much to find yourself suddenly in a forced labor camp, so Jason has some real problems.
Although this in itself doesn't sound all that original, it is in the execution that this story succeeds. Dick goes beyond the lost identity story to show a nightmarish world that could follow from our own. Quaintly, the story takes place in 1988, but just imagine it 14 years in the future (which was the timeframe based on when the story was written). It would not be pleasant to live in this world.
Dick has two common themes running throughout most of his stories: what is it to be human, and what is reality? This second theme is examined creatively in this work. It is a definite loss that Dick died relatively young, before he was really known; now, he is more recognized, and his influence in science fiction is hard to understate. This is a great book to be introduced to him with.
Rating: 5
Summary: My solipsism is better than your solipsism...
Comment: The premise of this novel is that by taking a toxic drug called KR-3 one can become "unbound in space" and start to inhabit alternate spatial corridors branching off from the "real" one. When Alys Buckman, a malevolent, sadomasochistic power-tripper, thoroughly decadent in all matters of sex and drugs, takes KR-3, she is able to pull Jason Taverner, popular TV entertainer, into an alternate reality where no one except her knows who he is. Taverner's "star" status is the reference point for his reality, until he wakes up in a world where people think he's insane, suffering from delusions of grandeur. He's solipsistic because he incorrectly believes the world still revolves around him. But Alys is a solipsist who happens to be right, for she makes Jason a performer on the stage of her mind, and her mind only. Terrifyingly for Taverner, he must survive as a nonperson in a police state where to be caught without identification can mean spending the rest of one's life in a forced-labor camp. Interestingly, the policeman Felix Buckman, Alys's brother, is portrayed sympathetically, even though he represents the State that crushes individuals like butterflies under its heel. He is the character who finally discovers love as a redemptive force. Dick holds out empathy as the only salvation from the unforgiving human and existential forces that try to expunge one's identity and cast one into the outer darkness of insanity.
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Title: The Man in the High Castle by PHILIP K. DICK ISBN: 0679740678 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 30 June, 1992 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Valis by PHILIP K. DICK ISBN: 0679734465 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 02 July, 1991 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: The Transmigration of Timothy Archer by Philip K. Dick ISBN: 0679734449 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 02 July, 1991 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick ISBN: 0679736654 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 03 December, 1991 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by PHILIP K. DICK ISBN: 0679736662 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 03 December, 1991 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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