Confessions of a Crap Artist in Philip K Dick

Jun 23, 2012 Paul Dembina rated it liked it · review of another edition

This was the 1st of Dick's "mainstream" (ie. Non-SF) novels to be published. 2nd time around for me and it's not too bad actually.

The "crap artist" of the title is Jack Isidore, a chap who's an obsessive collector of useless objects like bottle tops and also of useless "facts". Today we'd say he's probably on the autistic spectrum.

He's by far the most sympathetic character. His sister is lazy and manipulative, his brother-in-law is a violent, boorish man.

It doesn't turn out well for most of the ...more

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Jun 28, 2012 Jack Stovold rated it it was amazing

My Philip K. Dick Project

Entry #17 - Confessions of a Crap Artist (written Mid 1959, published 1975)

Confessions of a Crap Artist contains Dick’s most assured and confident writing yet, at turns both bracing and hilarious. After the disappointing Dr. Futurity, a throwback to Dick’s earlier, clunkier style, this book was a joy to read. This is the only “straight", non-sci-fi novel of Dick’s to be published during his lifetime, and it’s not hard to see why. It’s easily the best of the bunch so far My Philip K. Dick Project

Entry #17 - Confessions of a Crap Artist (written Mid 1959, published 1975)

Confessions of a Crap Artist contains Dick’s most assured and confident writing yet, at turns both bracing and hilarious. After the disappointing Dr. Futurity, a throwback to Dick’s earlier, clunkier style, this book was a joy to read. This is the only “straight", non-sci-fi novel of Dick’s to be published during his lifetime, and it’s not hard to see why. It’s easily the best of the bunch so far. After making a side trip to Idaho in In Milton Lumky Territory, Dick returns to his favorite setting, the San Francisco bay area, this time in a more rural small-town area. The bulk of the action takes place in the house of Fay and Charley Hume.
Fay is the sister of Jack Isidore, the title character, dubbed a “crap artist” by Charley, his brother-in-law. Jack is one of Dick’s best characters, and his chapters are my favorites. Although never explicitly stated by anyone in the book, it’s fairly obvious Charley has some mental problems. He’s clearly obsessive-compulsive. He collects useless junk, like rocks, lengths of string, and the like, and also “crap ideas”. He is an “amateur scientist" who believes the Earth is hollow, that sunlight has weight, and is causing the Earth to become steadily heavier, and most importantly, after falling in with a local group of crackpots, that the world is going to end in about a month, on April 23rd. Jack has no real system of distinguishing fantasy and reality. He believes fervently in anything that’s presented to him interestingly enough.
After being charged with shoplifting by a Seville grocer for stealing chocolate-covered ants (after reading about toads in suspended animation), foul-mouthed Fay and her schlub husband Charley decide to bring him to live in their opulent ranch house in the country, thinking it will be good for him. But it soon becomes evident to Jack that Fay and Charley are as troubled as he. For the first time I can recall, aside from possibly a few of his short stories, Dick writes in the first person, in Jack and Fay’s chapters. For whatever reasons, Charley and Nat’s chapters are written in the third person. Dick has perfected his multiple viewpoints technique, and he plumbs the characters’ minds here as he has never before. In effect, Dick is exploring his favorite theme, the nature of reality here, as the world is vastly different for each of the main characters. In some ways, it reminds one of Eye In The Sky in a more literary way.
At first, Charley seems like little more than a simple-minded wife-beating lummox. But as we see the world from his eyes, we begin to appreciate him as a fully developed, complex human being. The same goes for Fay, initially seeming like a simply a lazy and manipulative housewife, and for Jack, who initially comes off as a useless screwball. In particular, it becomes obvious that Jack for all his eccentricities, is also a decent person, fair, and honest to a fault. His inability to interact with people socially in any way normally propels the action began with Fay’s reckless affair to the book’s most shocking development, the culmination of Charley’s suffering.
Everyone’s a nut. The last chapter, detailing Jack’s epiphany as he calmly awaits the end of the world, is one of Dick’s best passages ever, at the same time humorous and yet sad. Jack may believe in a lot of crap, but everyone around him is as crazy as he is. They hurt the ones they love and they don’t even know why. They lie to each other, and most damningly, they lie to themselves.

My edition: Vintage Books, July 1992, paperback

Up next: “The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike”!

July 8th, 2012 ...more

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Mar 20, 2011 Jason rated it did not like it

Shelves: time-wasted, contemporary-fiction, pkd

This is Dick's first attempt at writing contemporary fiction. It is NOT science fiction in any way though he theme of characters with major mental health problems is ever present. It is an absolute bore from cover to cover & it pains me to say this about P.K. Dick since I'm an ardent fan. I completely understand why he wrote it--trying to prove he can write more than just sci-fi--but it is a weak attempt. The reader feels nothing for the characters &, soon, wants the whole novel to be over with. ...more

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Jul 30, 2024 Logan Young rated it really liked it

This is a rare non-science fiction offering from one of the greatest science fiction writers ever. Perhaps he wanted to prove he could write proper fiction? Well, he did! The characters of this complex family melodrama were excellent.
Do not go into this book with any expectations. The title is provocative but has almost nothing to do with the plot of the novel.

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