Puttering About in a Small Land

The quest to complete every novel written by Philip K. Dick is nearly at an end. This week, I finished Puttering About in a Small Land, one of Dick's posthumously published realist novels set in 1950s California. Unlike the rest of his realist fiction, this novel takes place in Los Angeles and Ojai, and much of it is centered on the drive between a boarding school near Ojai and Los Angeles, a drive I have a certain familiarity with when accompanying relatives to Ventura County. Like his other realist novels, this one revolves around marital infidelity, personal relationships, and small men fighting against big currents. Here, Roger Lindahl, who has moved through life and lacks the drive to make it, has depended on various women while managing to screw up each opportunity given to him. However, his wife, Virginia, and her mother, have given him the support needed to launch a small-scale television store in LA. Naturally, Roger ruins everything by having an affair with Liz Bonner, a married women with children at the same school Roger's son, Gregg, attends. 

While this novel does deliver a denouement close to the satisfaction of Dick's other non-science fiction novels, it takes far too long to build momentum. In addition, the flashback chapters, to life in Arkansas during the Depression and the 1940s in D.C. or LA during World War II, were a bit clumsily handled by PKD. However, unlike some of his other novels, Mexican migrant workers and "pachucos" of LA make an appearance, adding another dimension to the complex social relations of postwar California. Although Roger Lindahl is a racist, his disdain and aggression is primarily directed at African-Americans, while he eventually learns to take a risk and offer a ride to hitchhiking Mexican farmworkers. However, this novel is perhaps too similar to Humpty Dumpty in Oakland, particularly in the 'low ambition' of Al Miller and Roger, who both flee from their problems (and, in so doing, violate social conventions). Like many a PKD protagonist, Lindahl can't compete with the new forces changing the ways businesses operate. Indeed, perhaps even more a reflection of the changing times, it is his wife, Virginia, who is the one who sees the changing tides and adapts, while her husband continues to "putter" as the world moves. In this sense, Puttering About brings to mind several of Dick's better works and the the individual 'mass man' struggling to make his way. 

Humpty Dumpty in Oakland

Humpty Dumpty in Oakland is one of Philip K. Dick's stranger realist novels. Although it is, for the most part, entertaining and brings the Bay Area to life, the dialogue of the African-American characters does not ring accurate or authentic. Perhaps due to my disjointed readings of the novel, it also failed to coalesce, although the protagonist, Al Miller, does resemble several phildickian protagonists in his "everyday people" manner, who must confront larger corporate and business threats, the petty social divisions of his era, and force himself to stand for something instead of letting life pass by. The encroachment of development, suburbia, and the impersonal corporation descend into Marin County, as well, making flight from the homogenization wrought by American capitalism more difficult than ever. Ironically, one of the drivers of this process, Chris Harman, is searching for the remnants of a folk culture to record for his music label, and things take on a life of their own as small business confronts big business. Al and his paranoid perception of reality, matched by the dying Jim Fergesson's decline, lead to unexpected paths. Ultimately, Al does make a choice in his life, running off with the African-American realtor who always looked out for him. As to be expected, the typical Phildickian protagonist defies conventions, challenging the fantastical nature of reality.

1907 Cordonnier Walk Out and Urban Labor

Le Nouvelliste (September 20, 1907)

Although much remains to be done in tracking class formation and the conditions of urban labor in Haiti on the eve of the first US Occupation, this captures the voice of shoemakers in a large establishment in 1907 quite well. The establishment, Cordonnerie Continentale, was part of the Tannierie Continentale et Fabrique des Chaussures. An article from the International Bureau of the American Republics (1908) reported on this factory, based on US Consul John B. Terres. According to this report, the establishment employed a total of about 200 people, with a weekly output of 1500 pairs of shoes weekly, according to the Monthly Consular and Trade Reports. It also possessed a contract to supply the government with shoes for soldiers, was foreign-owned, imported most of the machinery, trimmings, and dyes from the US, and must be a great example of the few large-scale industrial workshops in Haiti at the time. 

However, this very same establishment experienced a strike in September 1907, as the shoemakers staged a walk-out when the owner, Marcou, accused them of stealing. Auguste Magloire wrote about visiting the site afterwards in Le Matin, and it would seem in 1907, Marcou was able to replace the strikers with new workers. According to the 1908 US Consul report, the business must have been doing well to employ 200 workers and enter into a contract with the government (although Magloire's visit would indicate about 80 workers in the shoe workshop area of the establishment). 

Nonetheless, the above notice, published in Le Nouvelliste, in the voice of the cordonniers themselves, indicates something, perhaps, of a nascent class consciousness. The workers express a sense of respect, dignity, and understanding of themselves as the ones who produce the shoes and oppose their alienation from the product of the labor. Indeed, a reference to slavery and their assertion of their intelligence and collaboration might indicate something beyond a mere camaraderie between workers in the same trade. Of course, more information must be located about this specific establishment and, if possible, the shoemakers employed there. Moreover, Ethéart (presumably Emmanuel), a lawyer affiliated with the Ecole Libre Professionnelle in the 1890s, would have had exposure to artisans and workers in Port-au-Prince. Thus, in spite of his name attached to the notice, it reads as if written by the shoemakers themselves, "pour les ouvriers."