PKD Otaku Issue 27 - Philip K. Dick Fan Site

Now, there is in Markus’ Swiss Diploma Thesis one potentially
fatal flaw, and that is the perverse “poseur” of
postmodernism. Like a majority of other scholarly works
about Philip K. Dick, Markus uses postmodernism with
little specific effort to first justify its validity and viability,
let alone to in turn apply it to
Phil’s novels and stories. It seems
to be yet again a given with unquestioning
allegiance, as though
found on a dusty rock shelf deep in
a cave in France. Then, as Professor
Frederick Crews, Professor Emeritus
of English of the University of
California, Berkeley, eloquently
characterizes these purveyors of
postmodernism, “…cockamamie
commandos of correctitude,” proceed
to engage in “…the desperate
, self-important, theory-infatuated
scramble to reach the top of an academic
anthill.” (Postmodern Pooh,
NY: North Point Press, 2004, pp.
66-67; the best academic study of
PoMo I’ve come across to date! Of
comparable importance and quality
is Yale Professor of Philosophy
Keith DeRose’s long essay, “Characterizing
A Fogbank,” posted in October
2005 at the Certain Doubts
website, available at: http://certaindoubts.com/?p=453
) All this for a word that is a baffling
combination of “post” (after) and “modo” (just now),
and wasn’t first used in English until 1939, in two different
ways, by the theologian Bernard Iddings Bell. (From Modernism
to Postmodernism: An Anthology, Malden, MA.:
Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 1996, p. 2)
From Switzerland we now travel north, northwest for
about 1,600 miles and end up at the
hotbed of Philip K. Dick criticism, Iceland.
Therein at the University of Iceland
(situated in the heart of Reykjavik,
the capitol of Iceland), in spring 1994,
Hrafnhildur Blödal Hrafnkelsdóttir had
her MA Thesis approved, titled Empathy
Will Save Us – Eventually: A Reading
Of Nine Novels By Philip K. Dick. (still
available online at: http://www.krumma.net/MA-thesis/ma-thesis.pdf
)
The novels she includes in her 78 page
study are: VALIS, The Divine Invasion, The Transmigration
of Timothy Archer, Counter-Clock World, Ubik, The
Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Do Androids Dream
of Electric Sheep?, The Man in the High Castle, and A
Scanner Darkly. Hrafnhildur also mentions three of Phil’s
short stories: “Human Is,” “The Father-Thing,” and “Foster,
You’re Dead.”
She uses three important literary/critical perspectives
with these works: narrative technique,
characterization, and theme,
seeking to demonstrate that:
“…the pervading questions, occurring
and recurring in
novel after novel, are the questions
“What is Human?’ and “What is
Real?”. When it comes to humanity
and reality there are no such concepts
as correctness and incorrectness:
correct human behavior does
not exist;
only human behavior. Whatever
may be the origin of the universe,
reality is only that which we experience
in the daily struggle for survival.”
(Empathy Will Save Us, 1994, p.
69)
In doing so she manages apt use of
Aaron Barlow’s 1989 dissertation,
Reality Religion and Politics in Philip
K. Dick’s Fiction, to support her
astute critical observations. As she
writes in her “Introduction,” “…I have to agree with Aaron
John Barlow in saying that in the seventies, Dick reaches
his climax, not only as a writer but as an original thinker
whose vision knew no limits.” (ibid., p. 3)
With respect to narrative technique, Hrafnhildur incisively
notes Phil’s use of an open-ended narrative, mix of plots
and sub-plots, use of humor, and most intriguingly a Raymond
Chandleresque dialogue style.
She writes, “Chandler’s prose is famous
for its cynical dialogue where characters
who are products of the Forties,
speak hard-boiled slang. Conversations
are often metaphoric, always innovative
and very funny.” Then, “Moreover,
Dick – like Chandler – always lets his
protagonist have the last word. The
last word is often a remark understanding
the plight he is in and is his way of
outwitting the opposition.” (ibid., p. 21
in passim)
What makes this even more fascinating is what Raymond
6 ...the coyly sweet malevolence of the creature situated behind her table, dealing out trouble.