Zap Gun

Unfortunately, Zap Gun feels like a dud in Philip K. Dick's vast oeuvre. While introducing some of the Christian elements and themes that preoccupy his later work (agape, caritas) and drug-induced trance, plus a hilarious sub-plot involving a Surley Febbs with a Napoleon complex, this tale of a fake Cold War between the Sino-Soviet Bloc and the Wes-Dems falls flat in other ways. The chitinous life-forms from Sirius, which are invading earth through satellites that are taking entire cities hostage for slave labor, are never depicted. Unlike Now Wait for Last Year or Clans of the Alphane Moon, no alien characters are depicted at all, and the full threat of the invasion feels undercooked. However, the aforementioned sub-plot is quite amusing, as are the numerous references to comic books and the absurdity of the Cold War (instead of developing real weapons, Lilo and Lars, the two mediums who design weapons, know that they are meant to be plowshared and East and West are not really at war). As Cold War arms race parody, this works, but perhaps not PKD at his best. 

Facing Reality

Facing Reality is the one essay by C.L.R. James that I have been meaning to read for the last year. Well, I finally completed it within the last week or so. Here are some of my rambling thoughts on this most anarchist of James's theoretical works. First, I must admit that I have long been sympathetic to forms of anarchism and direct democracy. James, Boggs, and Castoriadis develop a critique of the dominant Communist and Trotskyist parties as well as the Western liberal welfare state model. 

Indeed, to them, "Fascism, Corporate State, One-Party State, Welfare State, Totalitarianism, all of these are ways in which rationalism attempts to adapt itself to the modern community." Building on their insights from State Capitalism and World Revolution, James argues for the self-movement of the workers as the path toward socialism. Like The Invading Socialist Society, autonomous and self-directed action initiated by the working-class against union bureaucracy, the state, and employers is the beginning of socialism. 

Since the work was published after the Hungarian Revolution and in the midst of the Cold War, the analysis is centered on workers in the advanced economies of the US, Britain, France, and the USSR. Clearly, the influence of self-directed workers in Detroit's  auto industry influenced James, Boggs, and Castoriadis, pushing them away from vanguardist socialist parties of the Leninist mould. Indeed, like James's view of popular democracy in ancient Athens, the working masses, when trusted to act of their own volition, shake the world and challenge technocratic elites, the political forms of rationalism, and offer the only solution to the dilemma of state capitalism and nuclear annihilation. 

However, if James et al. were correct, why did things turn out so differently in the advanced industrial nations? The shifting spatial and social relations within the factory and global economy suggest that the authors were guilty of a romanticized and unrealistic perspective on the attainability of workers councils. I remain sympathetic and find their views of events in Hungary or wildcat strikes in the US fruitful for study, but when large industrial workplaces are less common in the US, how can the self-directed workers establish workers councils and seize the means of production? How can the libertarian socialism espoused here, opposed to vanguards, remain relevant to 2018? Even if it proved to be somewhat prophetic about social change in the 1960s and in terms of Solidarity in Poland?

Despite its limitations, Facing Reality is one of the more intriguing theoretical works of James. It shows, as scholars like Matthew Quest have argued, how James's Marxism was influenced by anarchism (libertarian socialism?) and a rejection of central aspects of Leninism. Furthermore, it persuasively suggests the capacities for the masses are far more developed than we realize. Instead of a fear of the crowd, James and company argue that the masses know their interests and can act in it, for a more egalitarian society. The professional bureaucrats and technocratic elites block this aspiration among the working-class, hence the critiques of rationalism and a call for philosophy to become proletarian. Indeed, this central insight to the role of the division of labor and knowledge in a society is one I find powerful. If we want a more egalitarian society, then every cook must be able to and allowed to govern. Perhaps unrealistic, but it remains a powerful idea.

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. 

Eroshima

"Incredible! The idea for this book came upon me one day, suddenly. An image. This one: a young couple making love in the city of Hiroshima, the morning of the atomic Bomb, in 1945. The Bomb falls at the very instant they attain orgasm. Eros and Hiroshima. Eroshima. Sex and Death. The world's two oldest myths."

Eroshima is one of Dany Laferrière's weaker novels. While hardly a single narrative (the text shifts to different characters, sometimes famous individuals as well as the autobiographical narrator), the themes of sex and death are explored by the black writer who examines Japan, identity, interracial romance, and the constant threat of destruction wrought by the Bomb. Thus, at the most basic or primordial level, the text is about life and death, creation and destruction. Unfortunately, the novel does not really go anywhere as in other Laferrière novels, but I do love the intertextuality, allusions, and influence this work has one future works, especially Dining With the Dictator and I Am a Japanese Writer, which feature lesbianism, Japanese culture and literature, a group of young women, and even some of the same characters. 

Laferrière's sense of humor is engaging and includes fictionalized versions of famous writers, including V.S. Naipaul, visiting Port-au-Prince with the young women who appear in Dining With the Dictator. Haiku, Japanese tea ceremonies and cuisine, and even Basquiat populate this bizarre and seemingly disjointed novel. As in other tales by the author, the city of Montreal (also, New York City) is the main setting of this story in which the fictionalized version of the author comments on race relations and interracial sex, just as in How To Make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired. Laferrière's gift for prose also helps carry this novel. Last, but certainly not least, I am impressed by how many objects or persons symbolize the Bomb in this text. It's rich in detail, description, and humor for such a short read. 

Favorite Quotes

"The battle of Zen and Voodoo."

"The first man on the planet was black. The last will be black, too. A Negro in repose."

"The volcanic sexuality of the jungle versus the careful sensuality of Kyoto, Black versus yellow."

"Lennon died so a Negro could make it with a Japanese girl."

"Lao Tsu says that everything comes to he who knows how to stay in bed."

"The fate of Judeo-Christian civilization hangs in the balance, at this very moment, between a black and a Japanese woman born in Los Angeles."

"One of those sunsets whose beauty burns your eyes. A marvel of copper fusion. A show of incredible delicacy created by pollution. There's nothing like smog to create such magnificent sunsets."

"I am interested only in cliches, and the foremost cliche concerning Japan is eroticism."

"The Apocalypse will come, of that there is no doubt, on a magnificent summer's day. The kind of day when the girls are more splendid than ever. It has been said that no one will be recognizable afterwards."