The Man Who Japed

I finally finished The Man Who Japed. I attempted to read it 2 years ago, but the clunky prose turned me off. It's one of Dick's earlier novels, and there is an aura of incompleteness to the narrative. However, it's Dick's humorous insight at its best, as a totalitarian society is gradually unraveled by Alan Purcell, who "japes" the statue of the morally conservative founder of the regime. Striking a balance between the lack of moral inhibitions in the Resorts run by psychoanalysts and the Morec regime established after nuclear war (founded by a South African, and clearly a reference to the Dutch Reformed Church and the Protestant ethic), the novel concludes hilariously with a Swift-like "jape" at the expense of the Morec regime's founder and moral rectitude. All in all, an entertaining read which hints at some of the humorous elements in Dick's darker novels. 

Clans of the Alphane Moon

Although not his best work, Clans of the Alphane Moon is a hilarious self-referential novel about Dick's marriages (several, many not ending well), his workload (Chuck, the central character, writes scripts for simulacra), and the narrow boundary between mental health and psychosis. As someone who wrote similar novels about precogs, psionic powers, and time travel involving schizophrenia, Clans takes this interest in new directions. A colony of various schizophrenic types have formed an autonomous society on a moon in the Alpha system by rebelling against the hospital (which was established there to provide psychotherapy for the schizophrenics settled there by Terra). Now, after 25 years of isolation from Terra, a mission led by Chuck's psychologist wife is sent there to provide therapy, reassert Terran authority (a war between the Alphane race and Terra recently concluded, not to mention ongoing tensions between the US and the USSR), and impose therapy on the various clans of schizophrenic inhabitants. Chuck and his wife, who separate after years of acrimony, predictably duke it out on this moon in the later parts of the novel, after a series of manipulative moves and quirky characters (including a slime from Ganymede that communicates telepathically) culminates in a final showdown over the state of their marriage. Where this novel's hilarity reaches its peak is Chuck's use of alien drugs to stay up all night and write (scripts for Bunny Hentman's show, and scripts for the simulacra sent to accompany his wife to the lunar colony), something Dick must have meant as a humorous self-referential commentary on his own use of drugs to stay up all night and write science fiction novels (and support his wife). Despite it all, one sees through the fateful reunion of Mary and Chuck that effort, persistence, and selflessness are necessary for a marriage to work, and mental illness is more of a continuum and capable of change. Indeed, the the paranoid schizophrenic, Gabriel Baines, can change. 

The Penultimate Truth

PKD's The Penultimate Truth involves time travel, post-World War III apocalypse, world government propaganda, quasi-feudal relations on the Earth's surface of the elite ideas men who supply the government propaganda (plus their armies of robots from World War III and newer models), and the vast majority of humanity living in subsurface tanks because of the surface government's lies. However, due to the numerous internal power struggles and conflicts between different power-hungry individuals on the surface, the Agency which, uniting the former USSR and US, thereby ruling the world and rewriting history in the process, creating some rather bleak associations between Nazi Germany and the Fuhrer Prinzip and the current regime), the strength of the regime is waning and no one knows how the subsurface population will react to the news. Like other PKD novels, the Cold War fears and dystopian themes abound, but there is a fundamental moral ambiguity about resolving the conflict and the what path society will take. As one can see in Counter-Clock World or The Simulacrum, the very forces against the major antagonist possess questionable motives, since Lantano, Brose, Runcible, Foote and Adams are not heroic in any sense of the term. Nicholas, the unlucky schmuck character type common in PKD's work, comes closest to being the protagonist, but the aura of moral ambiguity lingers for him, too. Perhaps, when compared to his numerous similar novels, The Penultimate Truth lacks the tighter writing and religious themes of his better known novels, but this is another thought-provoking read that tackles some of the same fundamental problems as his more illustrious novels. 

Counter-Clock World

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. 

Vulcan's Hammer

Vulcan's Hammer is a less rewarding PKD novel than his better known work, but still an entertaining read on the pitfalls of technocracy and rational bureaucratization. The "iron cage of rationality" under the Unity world government (which feeds data to Vulcan 3, a computer that is sentient, to administer world government after a series of wars devastated the planet) has led to backlash in the form of a world movement (partly organized by an earlier model of the computer/AI) known as the Healer Movement, led by the charismatic Father Fields. Although this novel does provide an example of the limitations of technocracy, it also acknowledges the potential limits of charismatic and other sources of authority from non-bureaucrats. In the end, it's not clear who really 'won' since Vulcan 3 was sentient and acting in the interests of self-preservation against forces which were also willing to use any means possible to achieve their end. However, the novel does suggest a possible alliance with technocracy and democratic forms of governance as Barris, the protagonist (and a typical Dick hero, a bureaucrat who is unhappy in the larger organization he is a part of, struggling to find something close to "reality"), works out a compromise with Fields to salvage parts of Vulcan 3 to aid in the post-revolutionary government. Technology, and the technocrats, have a place in the future, but only as long as manual labor is equally valued and all have a voice besides members of the vast Unity bureaucracy. Needless to say, the development of advanced AI capable of destroying the world is also to be avoided, since it will act in the interests of self-preservation and destroy the entire world again if replicated.

The Simulacra

Philip K. Dick's The Simulacra explores much of the same themes and tropes as his other novels of the 1960s. Prehistoric human species, time travel, intrigue, time travel, World War II, nuclear war, and the obsessive fixation on the real and the artificial drive this novel. While it seems like a typical PKD novel of the decade, the ending is less clear-cut than some of his other work. Furthermore, intrigue between various cartels and government departments in this totalitarian society (Matriarchal, and guided by the Magna Mater figure of Nicole) bring down the government and the population of the United States of Europe and America must confront "reality." This novel actually brought to mind a point from Jeremy Jenning's book on Sorel, in particular the distinction between artificial nature, artificial nature, and human knowledge of the world. If I remember correctly, Sorel's point was that experimentation to progress scientific knowledge was "artificial nature" because it reproduced "natural nature" but in controlled settings, shaped by human knowledge. Perhaps the distinction between the simulacra/ersatz world and that of actually-existing conditions in this 21st century dystopian novel point to the limitations of human reasoning to understand the difference, and social myths (such as the Great Mother figure and its mythic/archetypal connotations) as a basis for a post-apocalyptic government will end in ruin. Perhaps this is the limitations of social myth as a basis for metaphysics?

Contribution à l'histoire du mouvement syndical en Haïti: Janvier 1946-Novembre 1947

Due to my ongoing interest in the history of Haiti's labor movement and leftist social parties, I finally perused Contribution à l'histoire du mouvement syndical en Haïti: Janvier 1946-Novembre 1947 by Daniel Fignolé. Fignolé's self-aggrandizing account of his pivotal role in the formation of Haiti's first important (and officially recognized) labor unions in the aftermath of the 1946 revolution is fascinating because of his correspondence with various government officials and managers of companies where the staff were attempting to unionize. Unfortunately, without access to all of Fignolé's correspondence and his party's newspaper, Chantiers, there are several gaps in the narrative. For example, the role of the Parti Socialiste Populaire and its influence in the Fédération des Travailleurs Haitiens is downplayed while Fignolé plays up his leadership and skills in securing union rights for Haitian workers, job protections, and even "civilizing" the Haitian worker through his leisure centers for the Haitian urban working-class. Perhaps, unsurprisingly for Fignolé, one realizes how fundamentally condescending his view of the Haitian proletariat was, but one must admire his broadly social democratic vision and opposition to 'esclavagiste' politicians and companies.

In terms of HASCO and the labor force, it is of interest that the first formal union of HASCO employees emerged in 1946, even though an attempt was made in the 1930s. Moreover, Haitian canegrowers for HASCO organized and included a woman in their leadership, Rebecca Jean-Baptiste. From other sources I've read, I think HASCO, at least in its initial stages, recruited its labor force through native recruiters, but I have to locate more information about the labor force, the role of the independent sugarcane cultivators, and the impact of proletarianization in the Haitian countryside. My long-term research project, if I ever attain access to certain archives and documents, is to document the impact of HASCO, SHADA, Plantation Dauphin, and other companies on the Haitian peasant, the development of a "rural proletariat," and the role of unions and socialist parties. Fignolé is useful for providing some early context and correspondence, as well as the labor federation he dominated.