And, yeah, Dick is pretty trashy at times. I felt that some of the elements I saw as trashy became actually kind of markers of a pathetic obsession the more I read of his books and noticed how exactly certain things were repeated. Certain relationships. Certain women. Certain objects have the same poetic meaning. It felt confessional in a way, and when you get to read his biographical details you can see the person who was doing the confessing would have basically every reason to not confess those details like this, and yet he does. Like who wants to be known as a desperately dependent person who loves women that remind him of his mother or dead sister and has extreme paranoid delusions? It’s interesting to me.
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Dick would also pound out a book in like, a three-day meth bender, so that goes a long way toward explaining why the trashy/repeating elements.
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that’s the one
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yeah, that one rules. it’s “the one you want”. There are two other PKD collections from that publisher that are good for if you want more after that, but you picked the right one to start/end with.
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the part with the unstable salesman character going “wow the couple is so beautiful and dark skinned and japanese and elegant and have such artistic sensibilities and I am the lowly white barbarian making a fool in their presence” like ok dude thanks
and then the character makes a 180 going oh wait i am the superior american being and these two are animals who only mimic culture and not learn it
like it makes me wonder how much separation there is between Dick and the sensibilities he’s trying to illustrate in the postware american mind
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oof!! i haven’t read that one yet. it’s on my list.
In a pile next to my bed:
“Oxford Handbook of Epistemology” (Moser)
“An Introduction to the Philosophy of Physics” (Lange) - neat book but super weird, to me. At least substantially departs from where fundamental physics is these days because it develops its entire argument on the basis of a matter of fact definition of spatiotemporal locality. Totally classical.
“Modern Quantum Mechanics” - JJ Sakurai (has profoundly rewarded a close reading)
“Quantum Ontology” by Lewis (convinced this is a waste of time)
“The Structure and Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics” - (Hughes) Painfully lucid.
“The Road to Reality” (Penrose) - I’m an eccentric old british physicist but still staggering.
“Mathematics - Its Content, Methods and Meaning” (Aleksandrov, Kolmagorov, Laverent’ev) A very soviety Mathematics primer from the 70s (and it shows, but still useful).
“Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell” (A. Zee) Actively hostile to the reader in the guise of being merely insouciantly off hand. Not nut shell sized.
“Covariant Loop Quantum Gravity” (Rovelli and Vidotto) - Mostly incomprehensible to me but agonizingly constructed of recognizable material. Features sort of luke warm praise from Lee Smolin in the form of a pull quote on the opposite side of the author’s page
“Symmetry” (Weyl) - surprisingly bad.
“The art of doing science and engineering - learning to learn” (Hamming) unbearably liberal.
“Lisp in Small Pieces” (Quennec) - I’ll get to writing that compiler one of these days.
“Monstrous Manual - AD&D 2nd Edition” - I have the 5th edition but this one is better.
I have realized that I don’t really like reading fiction.
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So the best book in the pile is the textbook on established science?
I have realized that I don’t really like reading fiction.
I had a period where I thought the same thing, but more recently I found it fit my life better to reintroduce fiction in audiobooks I listen to while driving or walking the dog. There are times when I want to sit down to read “as a project”, others when I want to be carried away by a story, and I found the latter is more when I am out and about.
Now I mostly listen to fiction during the day and read nonfiction before going to bed. Something to consider.
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unsurprisingly I am the exact opposite – I find my mind wanders too much and I get impatient with fiction audiobooks, and I also much prefer nonfiction in the daytime and fiction in the evening.
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Agreed that Valis is where Dick really sings, although A Scanner Darkly is also up there.
FWIW there’s a fair amount of overt racism in Dick to the point where I think a fair amount of it (although likely not all of it) is Dick writing racist characters.
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“I’ve been reading some”
this was a draft in this thread for god knows how long, and no further details are apparent. i have, indeed, been reading some
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Man in the High Castle is the one “big” Dick book I haven’t read. I don’t trust him at all with race and politics in that kind of setting, and frankly I’m not willing to do the work of separating the author from his characters in this instance. I’m sure it’s a good book though!
Ubik is amazing though. That and Scanner Darkly are the essential Dick to me.
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i went on a dick bender a long time ago that lasted long enough for me to try to read one of his posthumously published non-sci fi novels, and got to this part that was like an extended interior monologue of a guy furious at the thought of having to buy tampons for his wife (or sister? can’t remember) and decided, whether or not this represented the author’s actual opinions, i had consumed enough dick for one life time
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allegedly that is based on a true story! I can’t remember which of his wives he did that to. That book (Confessions of a Crap Artist) fucking sucks lol
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like it is still really sad to me that there have been so many dick adaptations, and not a single one of them has been bold enough to make the protagonist a sweaty, self-loathing misogynist, which is like the typical pk d protagonist. i think this would actually work really well in a kind of contemporary alt sci fi movie. like rodney dangerfield vs the space mutants. like “as if being persecuted by the intergalactic time police wasn’t enough, my ex wife keeps bustin’ my balls! ack!” but it gets so unbearable to read over and over again once you recognize the schtick.
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From these descriptions which would you say I think is the best book?
I thought it was “Modern Quantum Mechanics” when I replied above. It could also be Penrose, or possibly another one that you take for granted it’s a great book so you don’t need to praise it, like the D&D manual.
From a certain perspective, textbooks should generally be the best books, since they are intended to distill the best insights from a whole generation of thinkers. Given that, it’s paradoxical that they have an aura of the boring instead of the inspirational
you mean besides Blade Runner?
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yeah, but blade runner is like a perfect example, since because its harrison ford you still kind of like him. i am thinking more like steve buscemi’s guy in ghost world. i mean i know buscemi is really likable too. but just like some kind of paranoid schlub
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In that case, I agree
Total Recall remake starring Danny Devito
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