Some Words

When it comes to science fiction, I am a forgiving reader. Philip K. Dick, despite his amazing imagination, wrote amazingly flat prose. It has a way of just sitting on the page, not doing anything much on its own. This is usually compensated for by the fact that almost every idea that came out of his head was interesting. For years the man just churned out novels like some of us take a long shit.

Almost all of those novels have a hero confronting the disintegration of what they think of as their reality. So, I was was saddened when I completed Confessions of a Crap Artist, his realistic novel. Without the science fiction element, I can’t say there was very much to recommend it. The lack of broad ideas highlighted how much he relied on simple character archetypes to populate his books. There are also numerous characters who fail to act in a believable way. That would be fine, if Dick could sell me on why they did it, but he can’t. At one point a character contemplates how he is acting irrationally, and concludes that it is because he wants to. Even he does not sound convinced. The fact that he is trying to get a way from a sociopath and deciding she is worth staying with, even knowing she isn’t right in the head, puts a big neon sign over his head.

I could forgive this, if only there were an interesting technology or some general conflict, but I have just outlined what is probably the biggest moral dilemma of the entire novel. Other than that, the characters just sort of float along, letting things happen to them, or not. The climax happens four fifths of the way though and then it takes forever to finish up.

Usually these things are crazy little gems. Maybe I’ll read Electric Sheep again to cleans the palate.