Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick

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Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

by Philip K. Dick

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English (10) Spanish (1) German (1) All languages (12)

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This book was fantastic. Though it follows the traditional Dick formula of "being out of reality", it takes it in a philosophically new direction. The sense of self is not threatened in Flow My Tears, but rather a person's sense of others; for the protagonist Jason Taverner, that's worse than not knowing who you are.

An amazing book by a literary giant. (

)

Kunzelman | Sep 6, 2009 |

My favourite Dick novel to date (I've read about 6).

An obnoxious yet famous celebrity wakes up after surgery to find out that no one knows who he is any more. Set in a dystopian police state the novel follows Jason in his increasing desperation to find out why no one knows who he is.

The setting is dated (set in a future world of 1988), with some of the technology long having be superseded, whilst others are still well out of reach. Yet this is just backdrop to the real story so does not really matter.

Well worth the read, only Dicks tripped out mind could think up this story. (

)

SystemicPlural | Jun 14, 2009 |

@ wirkman:
It reads like a movie too. Somehow all troughout the book it felt more like I was watching a movie than reading a book.
My second PKD (first was Ubik). I thought I was not much of a Si-Fi person, but looking at my tag-cloud Si-Fi seems rather big. Anyway, PKD is brilijant (

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dbrouwer | Jun 6, 2009 |

weird

etrainer | Jun 14, 2008 |

Link to a review on my personal website (might be in Swedish). (

)

www.snigel.nu | Nov 17, 2007 |

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Series (with order)

Canonical Title

Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

Original publication date

People/Characters

Important places

Important events

Related movies

Awards and honors

John W. Campbell Memorial Award (1975)

Hugo Nominee (Novel, 1975)

Nebula Nominee (Novel, 1974)

Epigraph

Flow my tears, fall from your springs!

Exiled forever, let me mourn;

Where night's black bird her sad infamy sings,

There let me live forlorn.

(Part One)

Down, vain lights, shine you no more!

No nights are black enough for those

That in despair their lost fortunes deplore.

Light doth but shame disclose.

(Part Two)

Never may my woes be relieved,

Since pity is fled;

And tears and sights and groans my weary days

Of all joys have deprived.

(Part Three)

Dedication

The love in this novel is for Tessa,

and the love in me is for her, too.

She is my little song.

First words

On Tuesday, October 11, 1988, the Jason Taverner Show ran thirty seconds short.

Quotations

"Listen," he said, haltingly. "I'm going to tell you something and I want you to listen carefully. You belong in a prison for the criminally insane."

Last words

(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

Disambiguation notice

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▾References

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Wikipedia in English (3)

Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

Karlheinz Stockhausen

SF Masterworks

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▾Book descriptions

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 067974066X, Paperback)

>On October 11 the television star Jason Taverner is so famous that 30 million viewers eagerly watch his prime-time show. On October 12 Jason Taverner is not a has-been but a never-was -- a man who has lost not only his audience but all proof of his existence. And in the claustrophobic betrayal state of Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, loss of proof is synonyms with loss of life.

Taverner races to solve the riddle of his disappearance", immerses us in a horribly plausible Philip K. Dick United States in which everyone -- from a waiflike forger of identity cards to a surgically altered pleasure -- informs on everyone else, a world in which omniscient police have something to hide. His bleakly beautiful novel bores into the deepest bedrock self and plants a stick of dynamite at its center.

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:16 -0400)

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