Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
I listened to it read by Paul Giamatti. Pretty good. I added the movie to my Netflix after that. I'm not very hopeful.
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
malice wrote:
Philip Dick had mental illness, btw.
Don't all great artists?
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
Was he a scientologist?
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 11:17 pm Posts: 13551 Location: is a jerk in wyoming Gender: Female
B wrote:
Was he a scientologist?
That's the same as schizophrenic, yeah?
actually, I don't think he was ever officially diagnosed with mental illness, but he had a lot of mental issues throughout his life, and really DID believe he'd been contacted by aliens.
actually, I don't think he was ever officially diagnosed with mental illness, but he had a lot of mental issues throughout his life, and really DID believe he'd been contacted by aliens.
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 11:17 pm Posts: 13551 Location: is a jerk in wyoming Gender: Female
Spike wrote:
malice wrote:
B wrote:
Was he a scientologist?
That's the same as schizophrenic, yeah?
actually, I don't think he was ever officially diagnosed with mental illness, but he had a lot of mental issues throughout his life, and really DID believe he'd been contacted by aliens.
Joined: Fri Jan 14, 2005 5:55 am Posts: 4213 Location: Austin TX Gender: Male
i just saw the movie tonight. gonna have to bump this book to the top of my queue i think. had read a lot about pk dick but have never read any of his stuff. really enjoyed the movie. interesting read about the autobiographical nature of the novel on wikepedia:
Between mid-1970 (when his fourth wife Nancy left him) and mid-1972 (when he entered the X-Kalay program; see below) Dick lived semi-communally with a rotating group of mostly teenage drug users at his home in Marin County. During this period, the author ceased writing completely and became fully dependent upon amphetamines, which he had been using intermittently for many years. The character of Donna was inspired by an older teenager who became associated with Dick sometime in 1970; though they never became lovers, the woman was his principal female companion until early 1972, when Dick left for Canada to deliver a speech to a Vancouver science fiction convention. This speech, "The Android and the Human", serves as the basis for many of the recurring themes and motifs in the ensuing novel. Another turning point in this timeframe for Dick is the alleged burglary of his home and theft of his papers.
Because of his firsthand experience, Dick captures the language, conversation, and culture of drug users in the 1960s with a rare clarity. This is further explained in the moving afterword, where Dick dedicates the book to those of his friends—he includes himself—who suffered debilitation or death as a result of their drug use. Mirroring the epilogue are the involuntary goodbyes that occur throughout the story--the constant turnover and burn-out of young people that lived with Dick during those years.
In the afterword, he states that the novel is about “some people who were punished entirely too much for what they did” and that “drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to move out in front of a moving car.”
After delivering "The Android and the Human", Dick became a participant in X-Kalay (a Canadian Synanon-type recovery program), effortlessly convincing program caseworkers that he was nursing a heroin addiction to do so. This is portrayed in his 1988 book The Dark-Haired Girl (a collection of letters and journals from this period, most of an achingly romantic nature). Presumably, this is a source for the vividness and accuracy with which the novelistic clinic is portrayed. It was at X-Kalay, while doing publicity for the facility, that he devised the notion of rehab centers being used to secretly harvest drugs (thus inspiring the book's New-Path clinics).
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