Puttering About in a Small Land

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

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.

1907 Cordonnier Walk Out and Urban Labor

Le Nouvelliste (September 20, 1907)

Although much remains to be done in tracking class formation and the conditions of urban labor in Haiti on the eve of the first US Occupation, this captures the voice of shoemakers in a large establishment in 1907 quite well. The establishment, Cordonnerie Continentale, was part of the Tannierie Continentale et Fabrique des Chaussures. An article from the International Bureau of the American Republics (1908) reported on this factory, based on US Consul John B. Terres. According to this report, the establishment employed a total of about 200 people, with a weekly output of 1500 pairs of shoes weekly, according to the Monthly Consular and Trade Reports. It also possessed a contract to supply the government with shoes for soldiers, was foreign-owned, imported most of the machinery, trimmings, and dyes from the US, and must be a great example of the few large-scale industrial workshops in Haiti at the time. 

However, this very same establishment experienced a strike in September 1907, as the shoemakers staged a walk-out when the owner, Marcou, accused them of stealing. Auguste Magloire wrote about visiting the site afterwards in Le Matin, and it would seem in 1907, Marcou was able to replace the strikers with new workers. According to the 1908 US Consul report, the business must have been doing well to employ 200 workers and enter into a contract with the government (although Magloire's visit would indicate about 80 workers in the shoe workshop area of the establishment). 

Nonetheless, the above notice, published in Le Nouvelliste, in the voice of the cordonniers themselves, indicates something, perhaps, of a nascent class consciousness. The workers express a sense of respect, dignity, and understanding of themselves as the ones who produce the shoes and oppose their alienation from the product of the labor. Indeed, a reference to slavery and their assertion of their intelligence and collaboration might indicate something beyond a mere camaraderie between workers in the same trade. Of course, more information must be located about this specific establishment and, if possible, the shoemakers employed there. Moreover, Ethéart (presumably Emmanuel), a lawyer affiliated with the Ecole Libre Professionnelle in the 1890s, would have had exposure to artisans and workers in Port-au-Prince. Thus, in spite of his name attached to the notice, it reads as if written by the shoemakers themselves, "pour les ouvriers."

In Milton Lumky Territory, or PKD on the Road

Philip K. Dick's In Milton Lumky Territory, one of his realist novels, is a short and endearing read about a young man adrift in the Western states. A product of small-town Idaho, Bruce Stevens encounters a quirky salesman, an older woman he knew in his past, and takes a vast drive across multiple Western states to find himself. As Dick reveals in his foreword, it features a happy ending and, although certainly not politically correct to readers of 2018, engages in humorous vignettes of family life, marriage, and finding meaning in the universe. Given his youth, Stevens's major fumble proves to be a learning experience that allows him to grow and succeed. Like many other PKD protagonists, Stevens represents a quirky or slightly out there 'average man,' a small businessman, out there competing against larger forces and trying to find his home. Perhaps, akin to Mr. Biswas, he's searching for his patch of the earth to claim as his own, and not simply waste away or be utterly dependent. In that light, this realist novel is an entertaining and uplifting tale on adulthood, although its utterly quotidian nature and comic tone may conceal its nature. 

The Game-Players of Titan

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. 

Association Ouvrière

Michel Hector's chronology of Haitian labor history includes a reference to a mutualist association founded in July 1894, Association Ouvrière, in Port-au-Prince. Details about this early worker association in Haiti are scarce, but I uncovered the following.

1. Founded in July 1894, the short-lived organization included a bureau of M Laforest (Maximilian?), president, Stanislaus Madour (cabinetmaker whose work was displayed at the 1893 fair in Chicago), vice-president, P. Errié, secretary, I. Vieux (Isnardin), adjoining secretary. L'echo d'Haiti newspaper (associated with Etienne Mathon) reported on the foundation of the Association Ouvrière in July and August 1894.

2. Joseph Jérémie, writer, politician, and intellectual, was also tied to early attempts at worker organization and education in Port-au-Prince in the 1890s. He was involved with Association Ouvrière and, according to Maurice Ethéart (in Revue de la Ligue de la jeunesse haïtienne), he was a pivotal figure in the origin of Association Ouvrière.

3. Maurice Ethéart references Joseph Jérémie for evidence of the Association Ouvrière attracting nearly 200 workers (not defined, but presumably artisans and skilled workers in Port-au-Prince) to the organization's meetings. This indicates something of the appeal of the mutualist society to the workers of Port-au-Prince of the 1890s. Coeurs-Unis des Artisans, a society founded in 1870, cannot be brought into discussion of an earlier history of worker associations due to the limited knowledge available at the moment to the author, although it presumably reflects a previous interest in mutual aid and labor among Haitian artisans in Cap-Haitien.

4. However, the large numbers of people drawn to the organization's meetings and fears of socialism and anarchism, led to its eventual demise. Ethéart alludes to fears of this sort, plus L'Echo d'Haiti likewise alludes to Capoix Belton's exaggerated fears of socialism and anarchism as a threat to the social order ,which Association Ouvrière supposedly represented, despite its mutualist aims and goals.

5. Although certainly not radical, the rise of mutual aid societies among workers in Port-au-Prince by the 1890s indicates a certain incipient class consciousness, as well as the beginning of a search for common interests and social solidarity between different artisans and workers in the capital. One can likely assume most of the workers attracted to such an organization were tailors, shoemakers, barbers, printers, government functionaries, and other skilled and probably educated workers in Port-au-Prince of the era (and, one supposes, not the numerous laborers of the West Indian migrant population or other foreign skilled workers in the Republic at this time).

6. Although members of the Haitian political class and press supported the mutualist organization, one cannot help but wonder if it reflects self-movement of skilled workers in Port-au-Prince of the time. For instance, Michel Hector's chronology references a 1891 strike among coiffeurs in the city. Perhaps this, plus the founding of a night school in 1892 (associated, again, with Joseph Jérémie), reflect a burgeoning interest in mutual aid societies, craft associations, and common identification among skilled workers in late 19th century Port-au-Prince. If Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic are any indication, Haiti certainly would not have been alone if gremios, night schools, and worker associations begin to proliferate near the end of the 19th century in urban areas of Cuba, PR, and the DR.

7. Possible influence of Freemasonry and socialist or anarchist ideology is something that may also explain how and why Haitian intellectuals and workers may have supported some of these mutualist ventures. For example, much has been made of the impact of Cuban immigration on skilled trades in Haiti (especially tailors and shoemakers), and perhaps Cubans and other foreigners in Haiti may have assisted in the spread of socialist, union, and radical ideology beyond mutual aid societies among the Haitians they took on as apprentices or employees and colleagues in period between 1868-1898. More work must be done to explore this possibility, but Cubans were definitely an important influence on Haitian artisans of the late 19th early and early 20th century, if Fleury Fèquiére can be trusted. Certainly, Haitian intellectuals and politicians were aware of debates in France and elsewhere around Europe on capitalism, socialism, labor, and syndicalism, which may also have shaped the larger discourse among artisans in urban areas who interacted with the upper classes in Masonic lodges or other institutions.

8. However, given the important role of upper-class patrons and organizers within Association Ouvrière, and their own belief on the role of education in inculcating proper moral values and appreciation of labor's importance, they may also have limited the scope of the organization by opposing it against trade unions and class consciousness. Jérémie and other like-minded intellectuals also saw the danger of a large unemployed urban population without labor and other distractions, and may have supported workers organizations of a mutualist type as reformism without advocating for unions or self-emancipation of laboring masses.

Until further sources and newspapers of the era are consulted, one cannot say with any certainty what Association Ouvrière represented in Haitian labor history or its larger significance. Yet, it certainly speaks to a burgeoning embryonic proletariat and its gradual political assertion of itself in the affairs of Port-au-Prince. It also speaks to the limits of mutual aid societies and the focus on moral uplift of the toilers without class struggle. However, if events of Haiti were comparable to corresponding trends in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, Haiti's economic structure limited the potential growth of radical and militant labor formation among the nascent working-class. If the works of Angel Quintero-Rivera, Joan Casanovas, Martinez-Vergne, Cassá and Kirwin Shaffer are any indication, events in Haiti probably resembled to a smaller degree trends among artisans and proletarianization in the region. Moreover, Haiti had, already by the 1860s, experienced the role of popular classes in political transition, and reformist elites could support mutual aid societies, night schools, and worker clubs to redirect the weak urban pre-proletariat from action against the upper-class. 

Impressions of Galactic Pot Healer

Although I have been in a state of sleep deprivation and distraction for the last 5 days, I finally completed Dick's Galactic Pot Healer. This is one of his stranger novels involving an overpopulated Earth where the majority of humanity lives under a totalitarian regime and pointless lives. Alien life forms are present, as well as a powerful entity on another planet. This being, Glimmung, brings Joe Fernwright, a pot healer whose family has repaired ceramics for generations, to help raise Heldscalla, an ancient cathedral, and restore balance to his planet. Dualism, religion, fatalism, free will, and Philip K. Dick's comic genius shine here, particularly in the sentient robots, religious references (Islam, Zen Buddhism, Protestantism) and literary references and phrases. In typical Dick fashion, agape and combating fate seem to be the larger themes here, although it is a Sisyphean task if Fernwright's struggle to become a potter indicates anything.