We Can Build You

Philip K. Dick's We Can Build You is a novel of the kind only he could ever write: Simulacrum of Lincoln, schizophrenic love interest for the confused Jewish narrator, disdain for the corporate giants preying on the small businessman, and drug-fueled hallucinations. The schizophrenic child in Martian Time-Slip is more interesting than Pris, but one suspects that Ridley Scott's Blade Runner took some ideas from Pris in this novel when adapting Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep to the big screen. Anyway, much like Dick's other novels, familiar themes of metaphysics, mental illness, and the struggle to define what it means to be human (with the accompanying ethical dilemmas that question raises) are tackled here, with some additional humor from the simulacra of Abraham Lincoln and Edwin M. Stanton. There is talk of imminent colonization of the Moon and other planets, massive rates of mental illness in the general population, and defective people like the narrator's brother, Chester, born with an upside down face (caused by radiation). Unfortunately, the schizophrenic are not gifted with the power of precognitive powers, like Dick's other novels, but like Martian, it questions how society treats and defines mental illness, much like the simulacrum's humanity surfacing in ways not seen in the schizophrenic Pris.

As a rambling side note, sometimes while reading this, one gets the impression Dick's interest in psychology, lady problems, and perhaps some attempt at understanding his own anxieties or potential mental health status were clearly part of Louis Rosen's attempts at making sense of his world. Furthermore, the danger of Barrows and his corporate empire lends some credence to the view of Dick as a quasi-Marxist. Unfortunately, Dick does not expound upon his views on US public education like Martian Time-Slip, but the veiled criticism of the state's abuse of power to incarcerate those it designates as psychotic through two measly tests is just as potent and ludicrous as the propaganda machine schools for children on the Martian settlement of that other great novel.