From the Bookshelf of Philip K Dick…

Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

Philip K. Dick

Start date: July 1, 2015

Finish date: July 31, 2015

Discussion: Group Reads

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Now Wait For Last Year - final thoughts (spoilers)
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last updated Jan 08, 2024 10:11PM

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last updated Jul 25, 2018 08:24PM

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Jan 26, 2018 RJ - Slayer of Trolls rated it really liked it · review of another edition

"So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power."
- Philip K. Dick, "How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later"

It's going to take a while to process this one. PKD's novels often strike an existential chord and FMTTPS is no exception. Amoral TV personality Jason Taverner is attacked ...more

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Jul 21, 2012 Chloe rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: dystopian-fiction, scifi-fantasy

Jason Taverner is on top of the world. He has it all- a house in the Swiss Alps, a beautiful girlfriend, an illustrious singing career, and a hit late-night talk show. In a sense, he is Justin Timberlake (yes, Timberlake doesn't have a talk show... yet). Until one morning he awakens to find that no one knows who he is anymore, all of his IDs are gone and, in the matter of a few hours, he has become an unperson. Which, in the militarized post-Real ID future this book is set in, makes him a very o Jason Taverner is on top of the world. He has it all- a house in the Swiss Alps, a beautiful girlfriend, an illustrious singing career, and a hit late-night talk show. In a sense, he is Justin Timberlake (yes, Timberlake doesn't have a talk show... yet). Until one morning he awakens to find that no one knows who he is anymore, all of his IDs are gone and, in the matter of a few hours, he has become an unperson. Which, in the militarized post-Real ID future this book is set in, makes him a very obvious and tempting target for the military police.

As he goes about trying to reclaim his identity, Jason becomes enmeshed in all sorts of various interactions with various damaged women. First there's Kathy, a 17 year old psychotic forger who provides him with a fake set of papers to move through the police checkpoints and then proceeds to toy with him as to whether she gave him a valid set of papers or not. She seems a stand-in for Dick's fifth and final wife, Leslie "Tessa" Busby, to whom the book is dedicated. If Kathy is in any way based on Tessa, it is understandable that during the time he was writing this book, Dick was committed to a psychiatric ward, went on multiple amphetamine benders, and feared for his safety so much that he placed the manuscript into the care of his attorneys to protect it from the insanity of his home life. She baits him again and again, spins stories about an imprisoned boyfriend out of thin air, and continually wavers between saving Taverner from the police and turning him in herself.

Next there's Alys Buckman, the bdsm-obsessed drug addict sister/occasional lover of the Police General who is investigating Jason Taverner's lack of identity. She inveigles Jason into her home with promises of protection and then doses him with an exceptionally strong amount of mescaline and further complicates his life in ways I will not spoil for future readers. Finally there's Mary Anne, a kindly shut-in neighbor of Alys' who Jason momentarily kidnaps before having a series of existential discussions on the benefits of taking risks and who gives him one of her cherished ceramic vases.

This book is incredibly scattered, even for Dick, and there are numerous plot points that are brought up, expounded upon at length, and then forgotten almost as quickly. For instance, Jason Taverner is a Six- one of a group of genetically-advanced experimental children whose aptitude for logical thinking, persuasiveness, and sheer sexual charisma have been elevated beyond that of normal humans. Yet this has absolutely no bearing on the story whatsoever. Taverner never uses that fabled Six intelligence to find the source of his removal from high society, never acts in any way like the advanced human he is and, in fact, is easily manipulated by normal humans on a number of occasions. There is an ex-girlfriend who attacks him at the beginning of the book but who is never mentioned again. There is a police investigator hot on Taverner's trail who is summarily dismissed from the story.

Taken as a work of science fiction, this is a mediocre effort. Too chaotic and scattershot for me to ignore without comment. However, taken as a bit of autobiography- Dick trying to make sense of his failed relationships and wondering, from the depths of his benzedrine benders, whether his paranoid impulses are correct and all of the women in his life are, in fact, out to get him, the book succeeds admirably. None of the women in the story are purely evil, but mere damaged souls who are re-visiting their own damage upon his character. Definitely worth reading, but I would not recommend this to neophyte Dick readers. ...more

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Mar 01, 2010 Gabriel rated it really liked it · review of another edition

As a part of the science fiction class that I am helping lead, I got a chance to revisit this book. In true Philip K. Dick fashion, enough answers are given and enough questions are left to let the mind continue pondering. A man wakes up after being attacked by a jilted lover in an alternate reality where he doesn't exist. This is not "It's A Wonderful Life," that's for sure. The skyscape described immediately brings the images from "Blade Runner" to mind and the rest of the world is as dark and ...more

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