Nick and the Glimmung

Philip K. Dick's Nick and the Glimmung is Dick's only children's novel and a sequel of sorts to Galactic Pot-Healer, one of his strangest 1960s novels. As a fellow cat lover, this children's novel is an enjoyable read of a family forced to either give up their cherished cat, Horace, or emigrate to a colony on a different planet. Needless to say, the family chooses to keep their cat and leave the overpopulated Earth. Unfortunately, for children's fiction, this novel is rather bare and doesn't capture as much of the sense of wonder one would expect from Dick (especially after reading Galactic Pot-Healer). However, if read as a continuation of Galactic Pot-Healer's planetary eternal struggle between Glimmung and anti-Glimmung, one can read the novel as a dualist tale calling for the harmony of light and darkness. Nick, as the child protagonist who ultimately restores the balance, is the child hero who, driven by his love for his pet cat and his determination to resist the totalitarian government on Earth for it, is the hero. Interpreted in this light, Dick's children's novel fits in quite well with his other work in its metaphysical and moral dilemmas, plus the role of children and animals in 'sniffing' out the simulacra from the real.

Gather Yourselves Together

Gather Yourselves Together is one of the earliest Philip K. Dick novels and, although full of occasional typos and some awkward passages, is actually an endearing tale of a love triangle in China after the Communist victory. Three Americans left behind as representatives of the Company learn about themselves, relationships between men and women, and adulthood. Two of them, an older man and a young woman, Verne and Barbara, were once lovers (Verne taking her virginity some years earlier), and Carl, a blonde "boy" (and virgin) who sounds a lot like Philip K. Dick himself, is left with the two. Like all of Dick's subsequent realist fiction, the fundamental problem of love and relationships between men and women are fleshed out in all their problematic ways, as the three characters struggle to make sense of themselves and their lot in a rapidly changing world. Communist China, the end of the American company, and their shifting realities and recollections of life in the US intersect almost seamlessly in this early work. Unfortunately, perhaps too much time is spent on some of the characters' recollections, but one cannot help but find Barbara Mahler to be one of the most interesting female characters of PKD. She's fundamental to the story, and her own sense of herself as a woman with sexual agency and development brings to mind Mary in Mary and the Giant. This is a frustrating and endearing novel worth a read for a hint at some of the common themes throughout PKD's later work.

Deus Irae

Deus Irae is one of the stranger Philip K. Dick novels. Coauthored with Roger Zelazny, it's quite brief, and although quite seamless, feels disjointed by the length of time the writers took to complete the novel. Nonetheless, it feels like something of Dick's. One of the main characters, Tibor, is a phocomelus, a human without limbs, which also appeared in another of Dick's works. Of course, in a post-apocalyptic setting, one needs new religious cults and moorings, so the Servants of Wrath compete with Christianity to make sense of the wasteland world. Although much could be said about this short novel and its ruminations on the meaning of life, religion, and Christianity, I am unsure how to begin tackling it...but perhaps its hilarious take on religion and the question of truth or validity for the dissemination of religious ideas is the best take-away. Phildickian sense of humor drives this absurd tale of a limbless man on a pilgrimage, and only Dick could make that work.

Voices From the Street

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.  

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."