Eye in the Sky

Dick's Eye in the Sky is a novel on so many things, such as simulated reality, the Cold War, McCarthyism, religious fundamentalism, race relations (Bill Laws, an African-American with an advanced physics degree, is screwed in all the universes imagined by the whites in the group), mental illness, and psychology. Ostensibly about the fuzzy nature of reality and imagination, the 8 characters who experience the accident with the Bevatron are forced to experience reality as seen by others in the group, including a retired soldier (as well as a religious fundamentalist and racist whose fierce religion combines Islamic and Christian fundamentalist concept), a neo-Victorian middle-aged woman, a paranoiac, and a Communist. However, what is most interesting of this, is how Dick shows the limitations of each of the aforementioned idealist formations of reality.  However, we see how the Communists attacked individualism (the "cult") through McFeyffe's false accuations against Marsha Hamilton, bringing to mind Richard Wright's experiences with the Communists in Chicago (he wanted to be a writer, to express himself, but the Party wouldn't allow it). Perhaps this helps explain Dick's personal inclinations and political sympathies, since he's certainly sympathetic to left-wing causes (such as Jack Hamilton's friendship with Bill Laws, and defending Laws against the segregationist Silvester) and critiques of corporations and capitalism, he's also drawn to the significance of individual experience and rejecting larger groups. 

Perhaps this explains a pattern in Dick protagonists being alienated men working for large outfits or the government, or, alternatively, small business owners struggling against the chains and the dangers of postwar US capitalism.  Thus, Dick could poke fun at Communist interpretations of American society as overrun with debauchery, class exploitation, hedonism, and Chicago gangsters while expressing sympathy for the masses, an appreciation for the importance of religion or spirituality (without a fatalistic Islamic God), the necessity of the arts, and a sense of trust for one's environment and in others. In other words, Dick was too noncomformist and open-minded to the 'weird', the spiritual, and the idealist conceptions of the world to ever fit in with some of the American Left of the 1950s, nor could he stomach the religious conservatives, segregationists and military warlords of the postwar military-industrial complex. Significantly, like his later famous novels of the 1960s-1980s an openness to a a spirtual renewal may be expressed here through the encounter with God in one of the reality simulations experienced in the novel. More will be said later....

Mary and the Giant

An early novel by PKD, Mary and the Giant features a young woman adrift in a small California town of the 1950s. Mary is not sure what she wants, like many young people, but she rejects the mainstream aspirations and habits of her peers and community. She feels a certain affinity for African-Americans since they too are excluded from the mainstream, but despite her relationships with various men, she doesn't find what she's looking for. Tweaney, her African-American lover and singer, falls short. She also rejects her fiance Dave Gordon, who accepts the status quo and doesn't deviate from the mainstream. Joseph Schilling also falls short. However, what interests me the most about this realist novel of Dick, is the use of jazz. Jazz operates as an aura of urban cool and popular taste that rejects the mainstream. Jazz is urban. Jazz is Negro. Through Paul Nitz, her final lover in the novel, Mary experiences bop jazz, as well as life in San Francisco. The tiny town of Pacific Park couldn't hold her, so the big city wins in the end. Jazz and jump provided the context for black-white intimacy, Mary's independence from her family, and, ultimately, her liberation. Classical music, the genre preferred by Schilling, though stimulating to Mary, loses to the jazz musician Paul Nitz and the chance to break out of the mold represented by the genre. The battle between the urban and rural in California plays out in this novel (a pattern in some of Dick's realist fiction), but here the musical element predominates. Sure, Dick's Mary has a rather condescending view of African-Americans at times, but jazz as a symbol of a very American fixation on breaking from the confines of society and establishing oneself are powerful themes. All in all, a sweet and casual read, but not unworthy of one of the 20th century's greatest science fiction authors. One truly feels the turmoil of young adulthood and sailing adrift.

The Broken Bubble

The Broken Bubble was one of Dick's realist novels published posthumously. It's prose is awkward and clunky. The four central characters, two couples, brings to mind the more successful Confessions of a Crap Artist. However, 1950s San Francisco truly emerges as a character in this novel, and intergenerational conflict between teenagers (with their affiliated gangs, clubs, maltshake diners, skating rinks) and the older generation sheds a fresh light on Philip K. Dick. Presumably, his teen characters reflected some of his fan base (science fiction readers of the day), and perhaps he wrote this novel with that in mind? Indeed, one of the teens writes a science fiction short story himself and despite its corny nature, one cannot help but think Dick was defending some of the virtues of the genre for moral value. In spite of the novel's horrendous depictions of the struggle of married life and selflessness, Jim Briskin (not the same first black president Briskin in Crack in Space) sticks by his ex-wife while Art and Rachael struggle through with their marriage. Unfortunately, most of the minor characters and subplots are not as seamless as they should be, so the whole narrative is disjointed. But as an early example of Dick's writing and with a San Francisco setting, one sees how the rise of the teenager complicated life in American culture of the time. 

The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike

This PKD novel is a tale of Negroes, Jews, Neanderthals, and marital strife in rural Marin County. Like some of Dick's other realist fiction, certain plot points and settings are recycled. Here, for example, the idea of planting a fake artifact over land and community disputes (like in The Penultimate Truth) is used. Furthermore, like The Simulacra, a community of 'chuppers' (or Neanderthal-like people) in Northern California is repeated. However, where this novel gets interesting for fans of PKD are the questions of racism, marriage, and anti-Semitism. Leo Runcible, one of the major characters, and a Jew in a lily-white rural Marin County community, must deal with the anti-Semitic remarks and social discrimination Jews of the time experienced. Moreover, despite serving in World War II, and making a fuss about defending the rights of African-Americans, Runcible begins a conflict with neighbor Walt Dombrosio because the latter invited an African-American mechanic (and friend) into his home when Runcible's friends were visiting (Runcible was hoping to sell a home to his friend and involve him with the future development of Carquinez). Unfortunately, Dick only uses the black mechanic as a prop for understanding the way racial and social prejudices of the time impact the two dysfunctional married couples at the center of the novel. 

Rape, abortion, alcoholism, racism, and the dilemma of loving and understanding another person abound in this novel, particularly with Walt and Sherry Dombrosio. Sherry, the product of an upper-class family, belittles and controls her husband, works outside the home against his permission, and Walt must confront the gender battles of the day, and like everyone else in the community, must confront the larger social totality which defines and limits their actions while trying to find some principles to abide by. Runcible attempts this through the noble effort of purchasing the water company and improving sanitation, and perhaps like the Indian relics they find and the ersatz Neanderthal-like residents of the more recent past, they're trapped with the fundamental uncertainty of the world around them. Will Carquinez experience "development" and invasion of the city? What about the negative impact of capitalist development on the environment, the dying descendants of the oyster farmers? Regardless of how one feels about the battle of capital and labor, simulation and reality, this realist novel is a hilarious account of rural life in Marin County. 

Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb

Philip K. Dick's Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb has all the characteristics one usually finds in Dick's writing: unstable worlds, blurred distinction between reality and unreality, "average Joe" type central characters or protagonists, Christianity and religious overtones (Christ-like and God-like beings, allusions to reincarnation and Eastern religions), marital strife, dystopic settings, and, in this case, a somewhat jarring read which shifts seven years in time quite rapidly, similar to problems in Lies, Inc. That said, the novel is a fun take on post-nuclear apocalypse life, uses the Northern California setting very well, and manages to tell the tale through multiple points of view quite seamlessly. Like Androids, animals feature quite prominently as the mutations wrought by nuclear war caused some of them to evolve in increasingly intelligent ways, just as "funny" people, or humans with mutations caused by radiation, also play a prominent role in this novel, especially regarding abilities like the precogs of other Dick novels (and, strangely, magic). 

Although certain important points in the novel remain unexplained, such as Dr. Bluthgeld's belief in his god-like power actually causing nuclear war again, after his horrific mistake in 1972 already changed the face of the world, or precisely how the structure of the US economy works after society's collapse, but the point of much of Dick's novels is the thrill of the ride. Indeed, Dangerfield, trapped in a satellite orbiting Earth for several years, becomes a Christ-like figure communicating via radio transmissions while humanity rebuilds itself in a fundamentally altered world. Indeed, memories of Three Stigmata, Radio Free Albemuth and The Divine Invasion were a consistent part of reading this novel, even though the overt Christian and Jewish allegorical content of those later novels is far less pronounced here, despite some equivalent symbolism of the Demiurge and Savior-like beings, not to mention shepherds, communal living as represented by Hardy's small homeostatic vermin trap company in Berkeley at the novel's conclusion. 

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of this novel is the importance of Stuart, an African-American with a Master's degree who, in the beginning of the novel, works in a Bay Area TV store. Stuart faces racial hostility and, when not around, racist jokes from the white characters in the novel, but is depicted in a very human and (mostly) unbiased way. Stuart, despite coming from an oppressed background, despises Hoppy, who has phocomelia, and all other "freaks" and "funny" people, but has an enduring spirit and enthusiasm for life even as the Bay Area is struck by nuclear bombs and society collapses, even growing to love some of the "unnatural" results of the bomb. Stuart is one of many central characters, but his rise and tenacity for life is admirable and reminiscent of, to me at least, some of the characters in Camus's The Plague. Other novels by PKD featuring black characters were not always as nuanced, although references to the Civil Rights Movement and discrimination against "funny" people and those mutated or darkened by nuclear war's consequences are most definitely allusions to the ongoing struggle in the US during 1965, the year this novel was published. 

What is most memorable from this novel is the optimistic but realistic ending. In spite of the death of the majority of humanity and the loss of much of the advanced technology that characterized 20th century life, roads are being rebuilt, mail services reestablished, and other key plot points in the novel show a way forward for humanity if such a calamity were to occur. Redemption and selflessness are key to this path forward, and it is a theme that will reappear in Dick's more overt Christian-inspired novels. 

The Transmigration of Timothy Archer

Philip K. Dick's The Transmigration of Timothy Archer is definitely worth a read. Telling a fictionalized story inspired by James Pike, only Dick could get away with writing a novel from a first-person female narrator and juxtapose transmigration of souls and theology themes with Berkeley "professional students," the drug subculture, mental illness and the death of John Lennon. Poking fun at the Bay Area "scene," Dick successfully weaves together these seemingly disparate themes to tell a story of Angel Archer, the daughter-in-law of Bishop Archer, as she experiences the deaths of her loved ones and struggles to move on. Since James Pike is the inspiration for Timothy Archer, and, of course, the author is Philip K. Dick, there's a religious conspiracy at the heart of the novel (Zabokites predating Christ by two centuries, anokhi mushrooms) and the ultimate question of life after death, theophany-type experiences (Dick experienced this in the 1970s, and his literature was forever changed). Although this is, to my knowledge, the only Dick novel with a female narrator, Angel is not too different from what one relative tells me is the typical profile of Dick's characters: people on the lower socioeconomic scale, working basic or lower level jobs, but thrust into situations of immense importance. Angel is the epitome of this trend, and is forever tied to the university and struggling to escape, never willing to go so far as to take that leap of faith, that will to believe in the impossible because it is impossible. In that regard, she is not like the character in A Maze of Death who is willing to take the chance and believe in the impossible. Naturally, Dick leaves things rather ambiguous and up for the reader to decide on their own on how to interpret Archer's character and transmigration...

Being Black in San Francisco

Came across this interesting article today about the experiences of a black woman living amidst white hipsters who have taken over the 'progressive' city of San Francisco, the very same city that has essentially put all the niggas on the other side of the bridge, to quote Chappelle. Although I have never lived in or even visited the Bay Area yet, I can speak to hipster and 'progressive' white racists from a similarly stereotyped 'progressive' or 'liberal' American city. White folks from a local progressive party (including one loser and former drug addict who lost in a race for political office, thank God), hipsters I lived with in a housing cooperative, and many others all made me sympathize with the writer of the above piece.

Fruitvale Station

I haven't cried while watching a film in a very, very long time. Fruitvale Station had me tearing up more than once. Even though you obviously already know how it ends, the film humanizes Oscar Grant by showing all his faults as well as all his strengths. Sure, he was in prison, sure he may have cheated on his girlfriend and mother of his daughter, but no one is perfect and people can and do change all the time. Moreover, this film came out at the perfect time, right after the George Zimmerman trial, where another African American person was unnecessarily and senselessly murdered for no reason. The film does a great job showing the worlds Oscar Grant lived in, too, and the role of race and class in determining who and where one resides in for the most part. We see Grant playing with his daughter, struggling to get his job at a grocery store back, and getting rid of marijuana he could have sold. Since I am around the age of Grant when he was shot, the film also spoke to me in that obvious way, since none of us are free from police oppression and we're all potential targets.

Michael B. Jordan, who I first saw as Wallace in the first season of The Wire, plays Oscar Grant perfectly, with appropriate slang, style, and depth for a complex individual. The film's overall atmosphere of understatement, relaxed, simple shots, and the intimacy seen between Oscar and his loved ones are undeniably impressive. This film must be perhaps the best so far of the decade on race relations, a portrait of a man's life in one day (and how everything good and bad in one's life can go down) and the vagaries of the police state. I only hope that Oscar Grant's daughter will benefit from this film not only through additional exposure of the ugly capacity of humanity to take another's life, but also monetarily. And all this occurred in the same area where the Black Panthers emerged, based on the very same issue of police brutality and harassment! Huey P. Newton must be rolling in his grave...