Lawrence Sutin

I don't read literary biographies that often. In fact, I'm hard pressed to remember the name of a single one I've read. Part of the reason is I really hate the author-worship that surrounds so much of literature these days. The writer becomes so big, I can't help but think of them even when I'm reading their stuff. This is largely why I've never read David Foster Wallace, and likely never will.

But Philip K. Dick is different and I'm willing to make an exception here. Oh, I'll make other exceptions if a biography looks interesting, because I enjoy reading about interesting lives. Dick's life was interesting, but in such a strange way. Yeah, he was married five times, but he didn't really do anything. Didn't go to college (for long), didn't really have a job besides writing (he had one in a record store, for a few years out of high school). Didn't do much of anything, except write science fiction.

Of course, as with any figure who is famous enough for anecdotes to be told about and create a kind of mythos around, this book served to dispel a number of rumors. Dick's drug use wasn't really that unusual for the times, and the speed he took was prescribed for him for legitimate reasons. Most of all, however, he wasn't crazy. Well, not entirely, and not in any serious way. He was odd, but he was charming, he had friends, and was generally well-liked.

So what makes him so interesting, and this book so good? Well, I was interested for one. And Dick struggled with the same kinds of hardships that I've struggled with-- nothing too terrible (mostly), but enough to create some baggage. His relationship with his parents wasn't very good, though that was likely his fault more than anything. His twin sister died in infancy, and while I'm skeptical about the idea that this psychically scars surviving twins, the way his mother handled telling young Phil certainly would have left scars.

What really interested me, and what I could relate to, is the auto-didacticism of Dick, and his interest in the nature of things. What is real? What is human? What is god? He asks, and explores, these questions repeatedly not only in his books, but in his conversations with friends and his ongoing "exegesis" that served as a thousand-page inner dialog. Phil was a seeker, in a way that I never really was, but the curiosity and imagination that drove his seeking seemingly had no limits, to the point that it made him seem, and wonder if he was, crazy. I sometimes feel the same. Minus the imagination.… (mer)

Philip K. Dick was no doubt a great man of mystery but also a man of immensely beautiful and of immensely brilliant mind, for he delivered to us so many wonderful and mind-blowing science fiction novels that shall remain with us for many years to come, probably all the way until the end of our life times. I remember reading one of his novels many years ago when I actually started reading science fiction novels for the very first time, and I remember how shocked, how confused, how lost I was when I finished devouring it. This man really knew how to write great science fiction novels and put the mirror right in front of our faces on how the future could possibly look like, by our own fault, or by design of another. Whatever the case, I really enjoyed reading this book and you shall enjoy it too, for this book shall finally explain to you the mystery behind this man's brilliance, and the mystery behind this man's extraordinary writing talent that has conquered the entire world's science fiction community and dare I say it, the entire world of literature. one of the reasons, why I really hope that his legacy shall live with us for many years and for many future generations to come.… (mer)