Was rereading Dick recently and started with this book specifically, hence why I’m starting the thread with it. But I’m open to this being a /PKD general/, as I read a LOT of his novels compulsively many years back, and also got obsessed with the man himself, his spiritual experiences, and his life before and after that in general, so I also read a biography of him and consumed lots of interviews of him, and statements and speeches he put out. Also even some of his Exegesis, comprised of his journal entries + lots of (totally /lit/) letters he sent out to many people, whether he knew these people before sending the letter or not.What are the ontological, theological, spiritual, and psychosocial implications of Philip K. Dick himself, the man and his life’s oeuvre, his spiritual experiences towards the end of this life, and also how these spiritual experiences inspired him to retroactively interpret his career’s oeuvre?Flow My Tears is an interesting one, if you’re as interested in PKD’s post-VALIS experiences and thoughts as I am, because PKD gave especial weight to it (as one of his pre-VALIS works), claiming it was a subconsciously channeled encoded message of warning about a rising future totalitarianism, besides allegedly containing an encoded spiritual message of hope and Christlike transcendence beyond this evil.Kooky as this all sounds, for one instance, at least, there’s a passage in the novel close to being a modern recounting of a story from the Acts of the Apostles (or Book of Acts). But PKD claims he’d NEVER heard or read this story from the Acts before, and only later saw the similarity. He claims he was subconsciously channeling these things.Besides that, a core plot point of the book is strangely similar to some modern conspiracy theorists’ canards and most dire warnings: of the threat of some type of digital ID, universal ID, or even universal digital ID that would be a Trojan horse for unprecedented totalitarianism. Tracking of everyone and their purchases and whereabouts at almost all times, as well as the elites and law-enforcement of this society being able to shut you out of society or punish you harshly if you don’t have the requisite ID, or a forged one. Pretty similar scenario to the book, from some 50-odd years ago.So, what do you think of Dick?
>>24745978>So, what do you think of Dick?Don't like 'em, sorry. I always back out whenever I spot a futanari tag.
>>24745978haven't read flow my tears but, I always thought the sections on the female nipple augmentations of the future were pretty basedidk too much about his actual life but from valis / a scanner darkly I got the impression he spends too much time with druggies
>>24745978That novel is beautifully written, but the story goes off the rails into idiocy - as his stuff almost always does - barely halfway through. He should have spent more time crafting instead of churning.
>>24746134>“Like Emily Fusselman’s rabbit.” She glanced up at him. “A woman I knew, married, with three kids; she had two kittens and then she got one of those big gray Belgian rabbits that go lipperty lipperty lipperty on those huge hind legs. For the first month the rabbit was afraid to come out of his cage. It was a he, we think, as best we could tell. Then after a month he would come out of his cage and hop around the living room. After too months he learned to climb the stairs and scratch on Emily’s bedroom door to wake her up in the morning. He started playing with the cats, and there the trouble began because he wasn’t as smart as a cat.”>“Rabbits have smaller brains,” Jason said.>Ruth Rae said, “Hard by. Anyhow, he adored the cats and tried to do everything they did. He even learned to use the catbox most of the time. Using tufts of hair he pulled from his chest, he made a nest behind the couch and wanted the kittens to get into it. But they never would. The end of it all—nearly—came when he tried to play Gotcha with a German shepherd that some lady brought over. You see, the rabbit learned to play this game with the cats and with Emily Fusselman and the children where he’d hide behind the couch and then come running out, running very fast in circles, and everyone tried to catch him, but they usually couldn’t and then he’d run back to safety behind the couch, where no one was supposed to follow. But the dog didn’t know the rules of the game and when the rabbit ran back behind the couch the dog went after him and snapped its jaws around the rabbit’s rear end. Emily managed to pry the dog’s jaws open and she got the dog outside, but the rabbit was badly hurt. He recovered, but after that he was terrified of dogs and ran away if he saw one even through the window. And the part of him the dog bit, he kept that part hidden behind the drapes because he had no hair there and was ashamed. But what was so touching about him was his pushing against the limits of his—what would you say?—physiology? His limitations as a rabbit, trying to become a more evolved life form, like the cats. Wanting all the time to be with them and play with them as an equal. That’s all there is to it, really. The kittens wouldn’t stay in the nest he built for them, and the dog didn’t know the rules and got him. He lived several years. But who would have thought that a rabbit could develop such a complex personality? And when you were sitting on the couch and he wanted you to get off, so he could lie down, he’d nudge you and then if you didn’t move he’d bite you. But look at the aspirations of that rabbit and look at his failing. A little life trying. And all the time it was hopeless. But the rabbit didn’t know that. Or maybe he did know and kept trying anyhow. But I think he didn’t understand. He just wanted to do it so badly. It was his whole life, because he loved the cats.”
>>24746138https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow,_my_tearshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flow,_my_tears.oggAlso that novel introduced me to Dowland's work, which is exquisitely beautiful.
>>24746134https://philipdick.com/mirror/essays/How_to_Build_a_Universe.pdf>It is my job to create universes, as the basis of one novel after another. And I have to build them in such a way that they do not fall apart two days later. Or at least that is what my editors hope. However, I will reveal a secret to you: I like to build universes which do fall apart. I like to see them come unglued, and I like to see how the characters in the novels cope with this problem. I have a secret love of chaos.
>>24745978 >So, what do you think of Dick?The GOAT. However, you seem to be going beyond appreciating him artistically and into trying to imitate his psychosis. I don't think PKD himself would approve.
For me it's this cover.
>>24746148He starts each book thinking he's going to be a real novelist this time, but then the deadline catches up, the drugs wear off, the rent's due, the food's running out, and he rushes to wrap up the manuscript in the bluntest, most retarded way possible. I was a Dick fan before I read more than three of his books and realized they're all like that. His short stories are better when they at least stay tonally consistent.
>>24745978speed freak.citation: "Zoob of Endko"
>>24746216>but then the deadline catches up, the drugs wear offNot true. PKD was notorious among contemporary publishers for having no concept of a deadline. And he got the central ideas for his novels from his drug trips and psychotic episodes, and those central ideas are almost always what the midwits describe as "rushed wrap ups" or "unravellings". While in actuality those are the core, and the ostensibly "regular sci-fi" elements are mere decorations that he did come up with while sober.
>>24746297I think my favourite concept in a PKD book is Ubik. Been years since I read it though. Smth about talking to cryogenically frozen dead people and reincarnation, and Ubik reverses the backwards entropy.
>>24746297You just said what I said in different words and pretended to disagree
I love PKD, probably my favourite author.I do think that all his stories end up falling apart, but he consistently build incredible worlds first so I end up getting immersed and when things start to unravel I just end up dreaming of how things could have continued for this world.I've been reading his short stories and they're both really good and somewhat bad : you can often tell what the punchline will be 1/4th into the story but somehow the world is good enough to forgive him. He paints so much in as little as 3 pages...You also have to keep in mind that he wrote from the 50s to the 70s and his theme are extremely ahead of his time. He's just really brilliant.
my favorite part of flow my tears was the crazy girl who was hired to make fake ids
>>24746134>He should have spent more time crafting instead of churning.Fair enough judgment, even later PKD agreed with it. He was a confessed speed freak, taking amphetamines much of his writing career to churn out books for money (besides because of his love of the craft itself). But I precisely love the kookiness and chaos of his novels, so I forgive him for it.PKD himself admitted though, once he got off speed and spent more time crafting his novels, as well as got a better editor, they became better. A Scanner Darkly (1977) was supposed to be that turning point.>>24746208Lel, fair enough warning, but I was already interested in parapsychology and mysticism independently of ever getting into PKD, so it dovetailed really neatly when I did end up getting into PKD’s books.I believe ESP could be a latent function of human consciousness, and sometimes be manifested through creative works of art. Far out as that sounds. So PKD was a great discovery for me.>>24746138Great passage you chose, coincidentally got to that recently, and it was one that blew my mind the first time, that whole discussion with Ruth Rae.>>24746209That is a great cover
