Someone recommended Steinbeck's In Dubious Battle to us at the blog a few years ago, perhaps in 2018. Now, after three years, we finally read the novel and cannot even recall why exactly it was recommended. Perhaps due to our interest in Georges Sorel, labor radicalism, communism, and anarchism during the years of 2017, 2018, and 2019. Regardless of the uncertain reasons why it was suggested reading for us, it was a worthwhile read. Steinbeck's short novel about a doomed strike and the ways in which their dubious battle harms all parties remains a timeless tale of the deeply unequal American society of the 1930s. And despite the casual racism and, as expected, problematic gender roles of these working stiffs and the Communist agitators Jim and Mac, there is a charming quality to these beaten and downtrodden working fruit pickers in the fictional Torgas Valley.
The novel also brings to mind our experience with the nefarious ways of various incarnations of communists who believe the ends justifies the means. And we see some truly reprenhensible behavior from Mac and Jim, True Believers who want to use the strike to agitate and push their socialist vision, even as they know the strike will fail. Steinbeck faced criticism for his depiction of the Party in this novel, but to us at the blog it rings true of so many types encountered in today's world. Sure, let's hope they don't assault high school children like Mac, and their heart is in the right place.
But one cannot help but feel that Doc Burton is the most compelling character in the novel. He rightly calls to question the difference between group-man and individuals, and need for something besides blood to motivate the crowd (or, mob). Burton can see the totality of the problem, whereas Mac and Jim are so obsessed by their ideology and the requirement of "blood" for motivating the strikers to continue their doomed struggle against the Growers. Perhaps, like Sorel suggested, the strikers need that sense of heroic sacrifice, violence, and a 'myth' to rally their forces and continue their strike. But Burton serves as a voice of reason, pointing out how the violent tactics and repercussions of the strike will only result in more violence. We here at the blog will continue to ponder the question of the dangers of the crowd, doctrinaire Marxism, and the disastrous outcomes considered in Steinbeck's ouevre.
Why do we commit ourselves to absurd things without end? Psych, a mystery show I watched back when it first premiered occupied about 2 or 3 months of my life. It never matched Monk in terms of the intricacy of its cases or the emotional and comedic heights of the defective San Francisco defective. However, I found myself watching at least 1 episode per day for months to complete the show. While it's 8 seasons fortunately only amounted to 120 episodes, it still occupied too much of my time to justify watching it.
Nonetheless, for comfort television in the mystery genre, it's light-hearted and simple entertainment that fills a niche. Like Monk, it's comedic nature and mostly episode of the week format are compelling features. One can skip or miss several episodes of Psych but resume watching at nearly any point. Of course, this can be a drawback when the series is on the air too long, which happened with Psych. The show probably should have ended after 5 or 6 seasons, given a proper conclusion instead of the finale setting the show up for a film.
However, after one tolerates the rocky pilot and initial episodes, the show begins to grow on you. The premise is undeniably absurd, but as a mystery-comedy series, it works. James Roday's character, Shawn Spencer, is mildly insufferable, sarcastic, and full of interminable pop culture references. Somehow, despite his immaturity and other character flaws, women are drawn to him. His keen sense of observation, honed by his cop father with whom his relationship is also flawed, makes him seem extraordinary to many. His best friend, Gus, is often a flat Watson to his Sherlock.
While Gus is undeniably book smart and has a wealth of knowledge in pharmaceutical products, which sometimes plays a key role in solving cases, he's usually the butt of jokes, becomes an excuse for bland racial humor, or serves as a babysitter for Shawn. Julia, the Santa Barbara police detective who is a love interest for Shawn, is part of the series endless will they-won't they love angle. Lassiter, another police detective, dislikes Shawn but gradually grows to work beside him despite never believing in his "psychic" detective methodology.
At its best, Psych depicts a great detective who is defective in other ways (childish nature) confronting the darker side of sunny Santa Barbara. Murder, kidnappings, assassinations, ethnic slumming (Indian, Chinese, and other cultures are exploited for local color in some episodes), ghost stories, grisly past crimes, and even serial killers are brought down by Shawn and Gus. Along the way, genre-bending, homages to great TV series or films (like Polanski's Chinatown), and mild emotional growth occur. For instance, the relationship between Shawn and his father improves over time.
His romantic life also develops, first with a serious relationship with a high school flame, then with Julia (although this one is dragged for far too long). Moreover, fans of Phylicia Rashad are treated to her guest appearances as Gus's mother. Some cases, particularly the first one involving a serial killer who targets Shawn's mother, is well-written and suspenseful. Naturally, as many shows of this ilk are wont to do, Yang is brought back too many times and loses her creepiness. Some of the other episodes, which attempted to break out of the conventions of the show, such as a musical, were also less than spectacular.
Overall, Psych is acceptable comfort television. Anyone searching for a serious mystery drama will not find what they're searching for here. As a successor of sorts to Monk it falls short. But it does bring a contradictory Santa Barbara to life. The Watson-type character should have been better, yet the show does feature a large cast of quirky characters who are endearing. Woody, the inappropriate and comedic relief of a coroner, is especially funny with his innuendo or when coming on to Chief Vick. If only the show ended after season 5 or 6, then it would be easier to rewatch.
James Gavin's biography of Chet Baker is a welcome relief compared to the biography of Keith Jarrett I read last week. Instead of the constant and fulsome praise, Gavin reveals himself to be an objective fan and biographer of Baker's inconsistent musical work and self-destructive life. Although it occasionally became tedious to read in great detail much of Baker's efforts to stone himself into oblivion with heroin, coke, or other drugs, this biography manages to stay interesting and readable. After a certain point, however, one bores of hearing about all the many people Baker disappointed, exploited, or neglected.
But, Gavin manages to balance the sordid details of Chet's life with the trajectory of his musical career. As an objective observer, he notes how Baker's sound was defined early in his career and he spent the remainder of his time endeavoring to perfect that smooth, lyrical tone. Unlike, say, Miles Davis, he often surrounded himself by inferior sidemen, which weakened his live performances and recordings. Baker's declining physical and mental health likewise contributed. The loss of teeth, learning to play the trumpet again, and the impact of decades of drug use on his body led to a prematurely aging man who, perhaps, proved what some early critics noted all along: Baker was lifted to the heights of trumpet stardom without necessarily possessing the required chops or discipline.
Mulligan noted it, and a number of black jazz musicians were aware of Baker's shortcomings. Baker happened to come along at the right place at the right time: southern California, the rise of a West Coast jazz aesthetic, white, and good-looking. The alleged values and virtues of West Coast jazz could be perfectly encapsulated in Baker's angelic face and easy-going, yet vulnerable music. Women and girls loved him, his whiteness opened doors that few black jazz musicians could have accessed at that time. Yet, Baker, who perhaps was a small-minded person who only wanted to stay high, play trumpet, and be "cool" comes off as an irredeemable man with a career littered with sub-standard recordings.
As a tortured genius or artist, one can see why Gavin speculates that Europeans appreciated Baker more than Americans, but it is difficult for me to justify listening to most of Baker's recordings after the early zenith of the Gerry Mulligan Quartet, Baker's own Quartet with Russ Freeman, and a handful of later recordings in Europe. Of course, after losing more teeth in the late 1960s, Baker did come back stronger as a player in a "harder" style, more akin to bop and Miles, but not enough to sustain my interest. In the end, Baker's life and music remain a tragic reminder of the importance of one's decisions and ultimate responsibility. Chet, unfortunately, chose the path of no responsibility and suffered the consequences of failing as a father, husband, provider, and artist.
The fictionalized autobiography of Charles Mingus is as fascinating as it is irritating. Since much of it is likely fictionalized or exaggerated (particularly the tales of pimping), it's a priceless testament to how a major figure in the history of jazz wanted to present his life story. Given the centrality of his attempts to display himself as a masculine figure, and the comparison of jazz musicians to prostitutes, Mingus unsurprisingly runs with the theme throughout the text. Jazz musicians, especially colored ones, are used and abused by the record labels, agents, critics, and club owners, mostly white. The black jazz musician is forced, by necessities of survival, to prostitute themselves, but their creativity and ability to support themselves is limited by their meager pay and the greater rewards to white jazz musicians. However, by becoming pimps and hustlers, black men were able to accumulate greater sums of cash than any honest work of the era available to them, and one presumes the various pimps (Billy Bones from Santo Domingo, a wealthy black pimp in San Francisco, included) provided an outlet for Mingus to reassert his manhood and dignity as an independent jazz musician. Yet, Mingus's ambiguous embrace of pimping and eventual abandonment of it suggests emotional growth.
The best aspects of this autrebiography are the plethora of details of life in Watts and Mingus's upbringing. In fact, most of the book is centered on his upbringing and early career in California (LA, San Francisco) instead of New York, the jazz capital. Mingus regales us with details of growing up in a very different Watts. There were still whites living in the area, as well as Japanese, Mexican, Chinese, and blacks. Central Ave had its fair share of jazz and entertainment. Mingus's family were of mixed-racial origins, but he was neither light enough nor dark enough to find acceptance. Thus, as a child, he turned inward and to music, until he discovered love and sex. Surprisingly, he does not dwell too much on his early musical career in LA, although his friendship with Buddy Collette and other local musicians clearly shaped him. Just as learning the harsh realities of racism in pre-Civil Rights Movement Watts taught him important lessons, Mingus chooses to delve into personal details of his various attempts at finding happy romance, including an elopement with Lee-Marie that ends in tragedy. In terms of the music, Mingus also alludes in his own way to other budding talent in 1930s and 1940s LA, such as Eric Dolphy, plus visiting luminaries from New York (Charlie Parker, Art Tatum). Whether or not most of these tales of neighborhood roughs, early Watts Towers, or fantastic sexual escapades truly occurred is not the point.
Unfortunately, for those eager to find more about Mingus's life once he permanently relocated to New York, Beneath the Underdog skips around chronologically. We learn of his time in Bellevue, plus some other additional experiences with the irrational Jim Crow of the South, but nothing like a detailed account of his musical evolution. For instance, his welcome party to New York City sounds almost certainly fictitious, with Charlie Parker, Monk, Leonard Feather and other prominent figures in the jazz world attending a party in a home "Donnalee" received for Mingus through their work as prostitutes. Here and there, Mingus hints at his self-perception as a composer who wants to surpass the limitations of the jazz world. This, I assume, is due to Mingus's Third Stream inclinations and desire to elevate the status of jazz beyond the Jim Crow music industry's needs. Strangely, Mingus leaves out his attempt to establish an artist collective label with Max Roach, although such an initiative definitely links with his desire to escape the confines of the white man's world and assert his dignity. Nonetheless, I would have loved to learn more about various recordings and club dates of Mingus at the time, as well as his relationships with Eric Dolphy, Roach, Donnie Richmond, and others in the 1950s and 1960s.
Ultimately, Mingus, who partitioned his being into at least 2 or 3 selves, and desired a raceless world, could never find solace from the squalid racial categories thrust upon him. While today his legacy as a composer and musician of the finest caliber is unquestioned, I am not certain how Mingus saw himself: as artist, man, composer, genius, pimp, black man, "racially ambiguous," or something else entirely? The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady? Corrupted by vices and pleasures, yet striving for something his faith and theistic belief encouraged? Is this representative of the jazz musician of the era, exploited, abused, underappreciated, ripped off, Jim Crowed, and creatively stifled? As Mingus allegedly explained to a British jazz critic, without the black jazz musician, none of the popular music of the world would be around today, but look at the conditions of life for jazz artists. Or, for that matter, the "underdogs" of the world, toiling at work unfit for humans, as Mingus states in reference to his brief attempt at skilled industrial labor in his youth. Perhaps the jazz musician was truly beneath the underdog.
Ishmael Reed's Conjugating Hindi is a hilarious work of satire clearly modeled on his past novels, particularly Japanese by Spring. A story inspired by Indian-American right-wingers like Dinesh D'Souza and the current political climate under Trump, it involves hysterical xenophobia and racism directed against India and its Diaspora after a politically assertive prime minister, Si, is blamed for a destroyed plane. The self-hating and racist Indian conservative commentator, Shashi, is forced to depend on Peter Bowman, or Boa, during this time until the situation cools down.
Along the way, Ishmael Reed inserts himself into the novel (unafraid to mock himself or the wounds of aging on his body), consistently criticizes gentrification in Oakland and rails against the Far Reich presidency (clearly an allusion to Trump), intersectionality, white feminism, and the racist practices of non-white immigrants who leap to join America's oldest pastime: putting down blacks. Reading this novel as someone who has never visited Oakland, it is apparent how devoted Reed is to the city and preserving its past and unique culture.
While a thrilling and very concise work of satirical fiction, I was a little disappointed by this recent Red novel. First of all, it reads too much like Ishmael Reed's articles in Counterpunch or his social media accounts. While I usually enjoy those, I was expecting something more subtle instead of many lines that almost read exactly like his nonfiction. Expecting more distance between the author and the work, one nevertheless cannot help but enjoy the way Reed inserts himself into the story as well as a character from Japanese by Spring.
However, the constant references or parodies of Hamilton and other lines inspired by Reed's earlier essays took away from developing the Si storyline. It never really goes anywhere, despite Si threatening a no fly zone over London and international tensions between the US and India. Moreover, Boa's mother is introduced into the story, but disappears, although I would like to think she may have played a role in the killing of Si. Instead of an off the rails wackiness, we get a wacky narrative featuring Maman Brigitte, racial stereotypes, and a growing awareness on the part of Shashi and Boa to their understandings of India, the US, and solidarity between oppressed peoples.
Of course, Conjugating Hindi is still worth reading. It provides a hilarious satirical perspective on the frightening political climate our of time. Reed's numerous rants, expressed through Boa, deliciously skewer white liberal sensibilities, deconstruct gentrification, critique the out of control costs of living in the Bay Area, and unpack the troubled racial, gender, and cultural dilemmas at play in India, the desi communities of the US and African-Americans. Considering the rise of Trump, resurgent alt-right voices, and the demographic shifts in the US, almost everything in this novel is disturbingly possible and relevant. Plus, it brings a smile to this reader's face to see Reed bring back in a clever yet outrageous manner the neo-Hoodoo/Vodun aesthetic. His illustrations accompanying the novel are also entertaining, provocative, and enhance the trickster aesthetic of the work.
Dick's Voices From the Street is a hot mess. One of his posthumously published realist novels set in 1950s California, the novel begins with some of the exact same passages used in another of his realist novels. Furthermore, he recycles some of the same names, occupations, and character types here, with a TV salesman, the universe of small retail, and an unhappy marriage. However, where Voices From the Street departs from PKD's other realist novels is the omnipresence of fascism, in the shadows and bulging at the seams. In this novel, the unlikable "Nordic" protagonist, Stuart Hadley, meets a woman whose small literary magazine turns out to be a fascist rag. Despite her having an affair with an African-American millenarian movement leader, she also had met Oswald Mosley and echoes many of the common fascist interpretations of the ills of modern society.
Of course, anti-Semitism and race play a major role, despite her relationship with a black man. For a while, Hadley is attracted to her, and her fascistic worldview, even going as far as employing anti-Semitic slurs against his old high school friend, David Gold. Hadley, who has ambition, creativity, and is unhappy with the way of the world, oscillates between the fascist persuasion of modern life, and that of the religious cult (while also attempting bourgeois existence, for a stint). Ultimately, the fascist persuasion loses, but Dick's novel might provide some utility for understanding the fascist predicament and its threat to the future of humanity in his science fiction novels. Indeed, the appeal of fascism to middling sectors of society with declining status, the bankruptcy of American life during the Cold War (as well as the Korean War), plus Dick's perpetual questioning of the meaning of reality means Hadley questions the social fabric of his time, while fumbling repeatedly along the way. Examples abound, such as Hadley's rape of Marsha, his initial pull toward the fascist persuasion of modern life.
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 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.
The Game-Players of Titan is a typical Dickian novel blending suicidal male protagonists with romantic troubles, paranoia, drug-induced hallucinations, unstable realities, psionic powers, alien political factions, and a dystopian, post-apocalyptic (and depopulated) world ruled by players of a board game resembling Monopoly and poker. Needless to say, it is also hilarious because of the petty feuds among the few humans left and their bratty auto-mechanic cars and machines. Despite it's inconclusive ending and rather slow beginning, this novel picks up where amnesia and a few plot twists throw the reader off the edge of their seat. The vug aliens from Titan and the remaining human populations of Terra continue the status quo, although the extremist faction persists, leaving the future of humanity uncertain (despite many expecting birth rates to soar after Peter Garden's team in California defeats the game-players of Titan). Much like his other novels, one may detect here a push for solidarity and cooperative practices for the survival of the species, and it is only after Garden's wife, Carol, becomes pregnant, that he truly pursues a selfless devotion to his group of California Bindmen and the fate of the planet. Thus, far from being one of his better novels, like Galactic Pot-Healer, it's comic nature and consistent ruminations on the meaning of marriage, community, and survival in the worst circumstances provides for interesting reading.
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....
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 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.
Confessions of a Crap Artist has successfully inspired me to pursue PKD's other non-science fiction novels. It possesses the perfect mix of heart, humor, tragedy, and social reflection with some of the same themes and topics as Dick's science fiction. The only non-science fiction novel of Dick I had read prior to tackling this engaging novel of Jack, his sister, and his brother-in-law in rural Marin County, was The Transmigration of Timothy Archer. Here, however, we are treated to country life in Marin County (with occasional trips to San Francisco and the Bay Area) and the likely OCD Jack Isidore, who resembles several protagonists in the oeuvre of PKD (mentally ill, socially awkward, working odd jobs, dominated by a woman). His willingness to hear out any idea, apply it to his scientific method, and focus on what is real (or, eternal) separates him from his sister, Fay, her husband, Charley, and the young man Fay eventually has an affair with, Nat Anteil.
Along the way, we are treated to a series of events told from the perspective of the aforementioned characters, posing deep questions about the meaning of marriage, family, free will, loyalty, love, and mental illness. And much like the dream house Charley and Fay build in rural Marin County, each of them fall for something that brings more problems than expected. Tragically (and hilariously), Jack falls into a UFO cult that believes the end of the world will occur near the end of April 1959, but he's possibly the most sane and selfless individual in the novel, suggesting some of the profound religious and spiritual themes of PKD's later work. Both in his willingness to believe and his service for the animals on Charley and Fay's property (plus taking care of their daughters), Jack by far possesses the most redeeming qualities. For a portrait of life in 1950s California, plus seeing Dick's other themes and ideas in realist fiction, this is essential.
PKD's Counter-Clock World is another one of his lesser known yet fascinating novels which intimates his future leanings in the 1970s and 1980s. Bishop Pike, for instance, is alluded to in this 1967 novel as a major influence on Anarch Peak, the former jazz musician and religious founder of the Udi religion, as is the inevitable California setting and historical references (Pike, religious cults, the Watts Riots). Racial tensions also play a role in this future dystopian America. The Western United States is predominantly white and opposed to the Udi religion, whereas the Free Negro Municipality dominates the eastern part of the former United States. However, Hell breaks loose when Anarch Peak is "reborn" as a result of the Hobart Process (time is being reversed, so that those who have died in the past are eventually returning to life). Various groups want Anarch Peak (some prefer dead, others alive) so that his experience of rebirth does not topple the social order (or will be used by the Free Negro Municipality's leader, Raymond Roberts, to strengthen the religion and bring forth new doctrines which will usher in a new age). However, the novel ends in a slightly ambiguous manner, one that is also profoundly Christian in some ways (while also influenced by ecumenical concerns, idealism, and African-American history and religious culture) in that selflessness on the part of Sebastian Hermes, the 'messenger' of God (through the rebirth process, and slight psionic powers), may help propagate a new sense of faith and belonging.
As is the standard fare for Dick, gender roles and problematic marriages abound, as do the bureaucracies (the Library, which eradicates knowledge, thereby defeating the original purpose of a library) which overwhelm the common person, Martian colonization plans, and a small company struggling against the big players in the industry (Sebastian's vitarium). Like his future novels, Dick's neo-Platonic Christianity (with some influences of Orientalism, as well as rejections of dualism) is displayed in an early form, before his own theophany in the 1970s. That Dick was already exploring these topics in the 1960s points to the persistence of such thinking while establishing an early framework for his late novels, especially the beautiful Transmigration of Timothy Archer. Fundamentally, Sebastian Hermes, like the female protagonist in that novel, searches for redemption. And Philip K. Dick always sought it through these 'ordinary' or mass man characters.
Walter Mosley's Rose Gold received an astonishingly accurate review in the Los Angeles Times. It's satisfactory, draws the reader into LA's various social classes and geography, and is always entertaining and keeps one on one's toes. That said, the novel was uneven and not as well-written or interesting as the earlier Easy Rawlins novels. Despite naming the novel after the missing Patty Hearst-like character behind Easy's case, Rosemary remains largely unknown and we barely hear her in her own voice. The same could be said about the radical group that "abducted" Rosemary, who are not anywhere near interesting like previous cases Rawlins took involving radicals (A Red Death). In addition, this novel could have cut maybe 20 or 30 pages by removing some probably superfluous sub-plots or minor cases Easy takes on the side. If it is unclear what I am alluding to, I am referring specifically to the Percy Bidwell problem and the issue regarding a white mother and her black baby, but at least the latter was relevant to the central case in a small way. Nevertheless, Mosley is a master of the trade and never fails to write addictive entertainment and interesting social commentary.
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.
"Jim Jones, never an original man, was dealing in a common currency. On the day when Huey Newton was talking to those Boston students, the ideological irresponsibilities of a promiscuous decade were coming home to roost in Jonestown."
One of the strangest but most intriguing parts of Shiva Naipaul's Journey to Nowhere: A New World Tragedy, written about the Jonestown Massacre, is an interview with Huey P. Newton of the Black Panthers. Yes, Shiva Naipaul's famous brother met C.L.R. James, as well as attending a GOP convention featuring former Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver, so Vidia has met some prominent black radicals, but Shiva Naipaul struck me as more sympathetic to the plight of those on the receiving end of white supremacy. Certainly no leftist, Shiva Naipaul is critical of the posturing and bearing of arms by the Black Panthers, and even goes so far as to insinuate the extremist and alarmist rhetoric of Huey Newton and Angela Davis, talk of genocide and extermination of blacks, partly legitimate considering the racial backlash and failure of the Civil Rights Movement and Great Society to address poverty, actually fueled support for Jim Jones (Angela Davis herself allegedly supported Jones). The argument, if I may so crudely summarize, is implausible or at best, an exaggeration, but it may partly explain why so many black Americans joined Jones in Guyana and were willing to believe in him. Why not, if, as white and black radicals were saying, white America was hell-bent on destroying black America and the reality of living conditions for poor blacks were so horrific. That said, Shiva Naipaul is far too harsh on Huey P. Newton and does not seem to understand or concede to Newton that blacks patrolling the police is itself a radical act. Carrying guns and adopting militant titles and names is too much for Shiva, and morally or politically irresponsible, but perhaps that reflects Shiva's own political biases.
Despite the flaws and "blindspots" of Naipaul's understanding of race and the Black Panthers in the US, I actually enjoy his travel writing. He is witty, possesses an endearing sense of humor (in one of his other books, he jokes that he prefers the genial criticism of a West Indian who suggests Vidia actually writes Shiva's books for him!), is more perceptive than one would realize on issues of culture or race, but avoids the disturbing negrophobia of his brother. Despite sharing an 'Afropessimistic' attitude at times, Shiva occasionally shocks the reader by alluding to the dehumanizing way Europeans spoke of Africans, shares jokes about being cheated by a Kikuyu shoeshine boy, recognizes the ingenuity of Swahili civilization, and even has some insightful commentary on culture and identity in Australia. I think I prefer his travel writing to that of his brother...
"The U.S. and the U.S.S.R., I understood, were the two portions of the Empire as divided up by the Emperor Diocletian for purely administrative purposes; at heart it was a single entity, with a single value system. And its value system was the concept of the supremacy of the state. The individual counted in its scales as nothing, and individuals who turned against the state and generated their own values were the enemy."
Radio Free Albemuth is actually better than I thought it would be. Philip K. Dick's novel is very similar to the other Valis-themed novels of his late period, but more restrained than the more self-referential Valis with less overt Gnostic and Jewish references than Divine Invasion. In fact, I think Dick inserting himself as a character but creating Nicholas as a similarly autobiographical character for his own experiences with Valis succeeds marvelously here. Nicholas, like Dick, not only undergoes a theophany, predicts his infant son's ailment, worked as a clerk in Berkeley, dropped out of the University, and moves from Berkeley to Southern California, but also shares with Dick a similar paranoia and experience of being recruited to spy by the FBI. Phil Dick in the novel is, of course, another extension of the same person, and the juxtaposition of both 'halves' of the same being as narrators works well here. It's familiar ground for any fans of Dick, employed excellently in A Scanner Darkly. Indeed, Radio Free Albemuth brings to mind the optimistic conclusion of Scanner (sowing the seeds)with the dystopic vision of Flow My Tears and conspiratorial Nixonian nightmare of Valis. Like Divine Invasion, one finds two seemingly opposed forces that represent the same evil, Fremont's fascist US and the USSR, united against the people, which could almost be read in a libertarian or leftist light, more likely left-wing given Dick's background with Berkeley bohemia.
Moving on, Divine Invasion, Christian themes and Gnosticism play a significant role, as well as numerous allusions to Rome, early Christianity, and references to Philip K. Dick's struggle as a writer, artist, and self-doubt. For that reason alone, it's fascinating to read this work. Radio even hints at his late masterpiece, Transmigration of Timothy Archer, through Nicholas's experience with the "professional students" and leftist scenes of Berkeley. Even more so than in Valis, what particularly stands out here is Phil's conversation with Leon, an ex-pastor who stresses the importance of faith and millennialism in the present, material reality (a reality that is, when you stop believing in it, ceases to disappear, to paraphrase Dick). Much like Maze of Death, for those willing to put their faith in Valis or the higher power, beaming to the Aramcheks through satellite, one can still effect change in the surrounding real world of suffering or physical ailment. He somehow manages to avoid hitting the reader over the head with the dense spiritual and religious references.
As for "ranking" the Valis-period work of Dick, I believe I would rank the four novels in this order:
1. Transmigration: Amazing female narrator and central character, effusive prose, inspired by "true" story of Jim Pike, Christian conspiracy, and a central idea of agape and life after death.
2. Radio Free Albemuth: More restrained and still exciting Valis hinting at the masterpiece above
3. Valis: An emotional and theological rollercoaster into Dick's life after 1974
4. Divine Invasion: A little too melodramatic and Gnostic for my tastes, but intriguing use of Zoroastrian and Jewish ideas and metaphors with an intriguing conclusion and idea of parousia.
Side Note: One of Futurama's best episodes revolves around a similar deity/entity Bender encounters in space. Methinks the writers of the show were fans of Philip K. Dick. Unfortunately, the film adaptation of the novel is horrible, and Alanis Morisette does not have the "Afro-natural" hairstyle of the character she plays from the book, Aramchek (I suspect an Afrocentrist reader would have a field day with the hair texture of Aramchek). Similarly, the film, from what I recall, omits the redemptive ending of the novel while underplaying the role of Rachel and Johnny, the wife and son of Nicholas.
Philip K. Dick's Dr. Futurity is an early novel in his oeuvre but quite interesting. Written in the 1950s and published in 1960, Dick's novel is clearly inspired by decolonisation in Asia and Africa as well as confronting the history of white supremacy and colonialism throughout the Americas. Dick always struck me as one of the more progressive white 'fathers' of science fiction, despite some of his issues with women and perhaps inappropriate "racial humor" in A Scanner Darkly, Ubik and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer. In this tale, Parson, a doctor, in the early 21st century is transported to the 2400s, a world dominated by mixed-race people organized in tribes. Whites are no longer around (everyone is "amalgamated"), death is accepted to maintain society and keep population levels lower, and there are small prison colonies on Mars. Parsons, finding out that medicine is illegal in this civilization, finds out things are far more complicated than they should be and has to, through more time travel, ensure history doesn't change. Despite its anticolonial and antiracist stance, the novel does not, ultimately, rewrite history and kill the explorers and conquistadors, but the novel's attention to details of ethics, life and death, cultural relativism, and exploration of timelines are interesting to compare to his future work. For example, time travel in Now Wait For Last Year is employed in a more compelling and intriguing setting (time travel through drugs) but never explained in this novel. The plot is, compared to his later great works in the 1960s, underdeveloped, too. In the end, we're treated to a liberal retelling of the Pocohantas myth in which the white man and the "Indian," Loris, actually do feel for each other.
