D. E. Wittkower

This was the latest buddy read with my dad, and we both found it kind of disappointing. As a collection it lacked cohesion and structure, and a LOT of the essays felt like new professors phoning in a three page essay to get another publication under their belt for tenure.

BUT it was fun in that it provided structure for having a number of discussion around some of Dick's big ideas with my dad. We are both lifelong fans (my dad used to include VALIS quotes I the letters he wrote to me at college) though casually — there are a tone of his books I still have not read — a lot of the movies and books it had been so long since either of us had seen/read them that it made it hard to really engage with some of the finer details of these essays.

I will say my favorite essay of the bunch was "Matt Damon is a Vast Sinister Conspiracy" — which had a lot to say about pop culture and celebrity and parasocial relationships in a relatively short essay.… (more)

‘In Blade Runner, also, it is an authentic relationship to Being that is taken to be what essentially ensouls both humans and replicants. Such is the import of Roy Batty’s famous final soliloquy:

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-Beams glitter in the darkness at Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die.”’



In “Philip K. Dick and Philosophy – Do Androids Have Kindred Spirits” by Dylan E. Wittkower





I just wanted to say that in my opinion any attempt to construct a coherent interpretation pf Phil Dick’s universe is missing the point. To be able to to construct a Weltanschauung of Dick’s writing we should focus only on philosophy. In all of Dick’s fiction time and causality are of the essence. The point is that, once time and causality become malleable, there is no hope of forming a solid, consistent interpretation of events in Dick’s fiction. That leads to our questioning the Nature of Reality. The focus shifts from epistemology – the problem of knowledge – to ontology – the way different realities are produced. This shift, according to Brian McHale, is precisely what defines the transition from modernism to postmodernism. In its resistance to coherent interpretation, “Ubik” is similar to certain more “literary” works of the 60s, for example the “nouveau romans” of Robbe-Grillet, or Richard Brautigan’s “In Watermelon Sugar”. (Granted these are very different stylistically). Is it because Dick is writing SF that so many assume the incoherence is sloppiness rather than a deliberate rhetorical strategy?



I think Robbe-Grillet was perhaps deliberately, not just stylistically, trying to put thinking and theorizing about the art of writing into the structure of his novels to create novelty, as writing, which he called “Noveau Roman”. I don’t know what Brautigan was trying to do, but Phil Dick’s subjects and concerns about reality weren’t about writing per se, but about living. I don’t think he was trying to deliberately create a new kind of writing or novel. That doesn’t mean his works are narrowly interpretable, but many, many SF novels have time travel, space/time warps, and so on, but are interpretable. Interpretations or readings are just perspectives which aren’t meant to be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Reasonably consistent interpretations are possible, such a everything-is-perfect’s Jungian analysis. Works like Phil Dick’s makes people want to interpret them and present many overlapping and partial possibilities of interpretation and perhaps ultimate impenetrability.





If you’re into Literary Criticism on Phil Dick, read the rest of this review on my blog.… (more)

First of all, I have to make a public admission and state that I love Philip K. Dick and have every book he ever published, at least every book publicly available, meaning over 40 or thereabouts. Some aren't the best, while others are completely brilliant and mind blowing. Others are wildly above average, but virtually all make you think about a lot of things, like reality and what is it exactly, and what is our reality, and is it indeed reality. I love David Weber's military sci fi novels and think he's the best military sci fi writer of all time, but I think Dick is the best overall sci fi writer of all time and perhaps one of the best 20th century writers completely, sadly overlooked by most, but also one of the best American philosophers of the 20th century as well, also sadly overlooked, especially when compared to the French and other European philosophers of the same century.

I have another (sad) admission to make. I was going to write a small review, but in reading over the book's official marketing blurb on Goodreads and other sites, I've come to believe I can't really do better than what the author's publishing/marketing team did for this book, so I'm going to quote a few short paragraphs, as I doubt I can improve on them. Forgive me. Credit to the book's author and publisher:

"Science fiction writer Philip K. Dick is the giant imagination behind so much recent popular culture—, both movies directly based on his writings, such as Blade Runner (based on the novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"), Total Recall, Minority Report, and The Adjustment Bureau, plus cult favorites such as A Scanner Darkly, Imposter, Next, Screamers, and Paycheck, and works revealing his powerful influence, such as The Matrix and Inception. [Additionally, The Man In The High Castle, Amazon's highest watched series of all time, from what I understand, is based on Dick's award winning novel by the same name.] With the ... publication in 2011 of volume 1 of Exegesis, his journal of spiritual visions and paranoic investigations, Dick [has] fast become a major influence in the world of popular spirituality and occult thinking.

In Philip K. Dick and Philosophy: Who Adjusts the Adjustment Bureau?, twenty Dick fans and professional thinkers confront the fascinating and frightening ideas raised by Dick’s mind-blowing fantasies. Is there an alien world behind the everyday reality we experience? If androids can pass as human, should they be given the same consideration as humans? Do psychotics have insights into a mystical reality? Would knowledge of the future free us or enslave us? This volume ... also includes Dick's short story "Adjustment Team," on which The Adjustment Bureau is based.

Philip K. Dick and Philosophy explores the ideas of Philip K. Dick in the same way that he did: with an earnest desire to understand the truth of the world, but without falsely equating earnestness with a dry seriousness. Dick’s work was replete with whimsical and absurdist presentations of the greatest challenges to reason and to humanity—, paradox, futility, paranoia, and failure, —and even at his darkest times he was able to keep some perspective and humor, as for example in choosing to name himself ‘Horselover Fat in VALIS at the same time as he relates his personal religious epiphanies, crises, and delusions. With the same earnest whimsy, we approach Philip K. Dick as a philosopher, like ourselves—, one who wrote almost entirely in thought-experiments and semi-fictional world-building, but who engaged with many of the greatest questions of philosophy throughout the Euro-American tradition."

So, there you have it. The first few paragraphs of the book's description and a good description of what the book is about. It's truly an excellent book with mostly very good chapters/essays that, like Dick's work, leave one thinking about what is and what could be. Unfortunately, not every essay is consistently strong. Thus, the four star review rather than five. Still, a must have book for any Dick fan, and strongly, strongly recommended for any fan of pop culture, sci fi, 20th century philosophy, existentialism (to a degree), and other interested parties. I don't believe and certainly hope you won't be disappointed. I thoroughly enjoyed it and found the book quite stimulating.… (more)