In my newfound love of science fiction and fantasy as a mode for exploring entirely modern questions and engaging in social criticism, I’ve spent time with the great Ursula LeGuin as well as Ted Chiang, and now, finally one of the most famous of them all, Philip K Dick (PKD).
What perhaps sets PKD aside from the others is how much his works have been popularized. His short stories became movies like The Minority Report (I read this one in a separate volume subsequent to my reading this collection), Bladerunner, and the TV show, The Man in the High Castle.
I decided to start with his early writing, literally, ordering from the library a collection of his early short stories from the 1950s, titled The Early Work of Philip K Dick Volume 1. Some were just fun or thought provoking, like the person who goes back in time to solve a national social problem, only to find out…well, I don’t want to spoil the ending. Most of them, however, are aimed at a kind of social critique. PKD suffered from mental illness and had quite a bit of experience, it would seem negative, in the 1950s and 1960s, with the psychiatric establishment. While I read that this becomes a deeper theme in his later writing, a critique of how mental illness is treated is the theme of one of the stories in this collection. Another is a veiled reference to racial disparities, with a character named James Crow as the protagonist leading a revolt against the powerful, racist establishment. Another, the title story “The Variable Man,” is a critique of men (it’s still the 1950s after all) of intellect in favor of those who do things with their hands (you can read this fabulous recent article on the same theme from Ted Gioia in the Free Press).
Each story was fun, fascinating, and thought provoking. The literary trifecta!
Just Because I Liked It:
- It’s probably worth listening to anything Haviv Rettig Gur says about what’s happening in Israel today. Two I’ve listened to recently, with a decent amount of overlap (but equally fascinating) are his interviews with Eli Lake of the Free Press, and Sam Harris, as well as his latest thoughts on the war with Iran.
This is a beautiful piece by the academic Ido Hevroni, about teaching the Iliad to soldiers after October 7.