More creeping respectability

[womzilla]

I haven't had a chance to post over the last couple of weeks--my last weekend was consumed by NYRSF, and I've been working late during the week again--so I missed the initial discussion of the fact that the Library of America is going to publish at least one volume of Philip K. Dick's works: Four Novels.

The novels are The Man in the High Castle, The Three Stigmata of Roger Elwood Palmer Eldritch, Do Androids Dream of Harrison Ford, and Ubik (or, as I think of it, Stanislaw Lem Says I'm a Genius).

I think it was nellorat from whom I first heard the observation that everyone agrees that Phil Dick wrote about ten absolutely brilliant novels, out of around 40 total, but no two people can agree on which ones. Of those four, I've never really been impressed by Three Stigmata (though I love "In the Days of Perky Pat", the short story from which it sprang) and am quite aware that Androids is only canonized because of the movie loosely based on it. I think his high-water mark was Martian Time-Slip, which tends not to get noticed. A Scanner Darkly makes not much sense as sf, but as a study of addiction and addict culture, it's terrific; my late brother couldn't stand it, viewing it as War on Some Drugs propaganda. (Notice that we are never given any sense of why anyone would ever actually start taking Substance D--it's described entirely in terms of need and damage.)

Anyway, congrats on storming the walls of literature, PKD.

Comments

[sarah-ovenall.livejournal.com]

Martian Time-Slip is my favorite P.K. Dick too.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

My first thought when I saw the announcement was that they should have done Martian Time-Slip instead of Androids. And I agree with your brother about A Scanner Darkly. The movie was fun, but I still don't believe in the suits.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

My top four PKD novels include Valis, so I know I'm weird. But what PKD reader isn't?

[baldanders.livejournal.com]

Androids was firmly in the canon of his best novels before Bladerunner was made. I'll bet the first edition of the Nichols encyclodepia would back me up on this.

I've never been a big fan of Martian Time-Slip, but I've seen it listed among his best several times. Rarely top two or three, I guess.

I'd say the canon of most important Dick sf novels, more or less, involves picking from these, with asterisked ones most likely to show up on short lists:

Eye in the Sky
*The Man in the High Castle
Martian Time-Slip
*The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
*Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
*Ubik
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
A Scanner Darkly
the Valis Trilogy

It seems to me that Ubik has gained in critical popularity over the years. A Scanner Darkly is my favorite. And I think We Can Build You is an underrated book.

[readwrite.livejournal.com]

I've read a great many of Dick's novels, and a lot of his short fiction, too, and I tend to think of it as a kind of giant cooperative multiorganism, like a coral bed or something. (I think of other prolific writers, such as Jim Thompson, similarly.) Even many of the lesser novels The Zap Gun, Now Wait for Last Year, Counter-Clock World... have great parts. That said, I would have to agree with you that Martian Time-Slip is one of the best. I'm also fond of Time Out of Joint. But it's hard to pick a favorite.

Dick's view of drugs in Palmer Eldritch, A Scanner Darkly and others is compelling, but it always seemed far more paranoid than the reality of even the scummier side of things in my personal experience. Of course, you could say that about pretty much everything in his world...