More creeping respectability
Dec. 9th, 2006 10:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
womzillaI 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 ofRoger 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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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.
The novels are The Man in the High Castle, The Three Stigmata of
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.
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Date: 2006-12-10 08:29 pm (UTC)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.