The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick 2: We Can Remember it for You Wholesale in Philip K Dick

Mar 13, 2015 Ümit Mutlu rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, foreign, favorites, science-fiction, stories

Daha 50'li yıllarda bilimkurgunun hemen her türlü kalıbını yaratan/kullanan müthiş dehadan bahsediyoruz burada. K. Dick. Onun yazdığı ne varsa zaten muhteşem.

Yine bu kitaptaki birçok öykü de günümüzdeki sayısız bk eserinin çıkış noktası, esin kaynağı. Hal böyle olunca yüzde minik müstehzi bir gülümseme bâki kalıyor okuma sürecinde. 60 yıldan yaşlı olan bu öykülerin hepsi hâlâ güncel ve içinde yaşadığımız dünyaya birebir uyarlanabiliyor. Hepsi.

O yüzden PKD ölümsüzdür, PKD peygamberdir.

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Apr 19, 2012 Jack Stovold rated it really liked it

Having never read any Philip K. Dick, but long having an interest, I’ve decided to read through all his works in chronological order as best as I can (for various reasons, I won’t be able to read his first novel, Gather Yourselves Together, until July). I want to give you my impressions of his works as a first-timer and observe the evolution of his writing.

Entry #3 – The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick, Volume 2: We Can Remember it for You Wholesale. (1953-1954)
Right off the bat, I have to
Having never read any Philip K. Dick, but long having an interest, I’ve decided to read through all his works in chronological order as best as I can (for various reasons, I won’t be able to read his first novel, Gather Yourselves Together, until July). I want to give you my impressions of his works as a first-timer and observe the evolution of his writing.

Entry #3 – The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick, Volume 2: We Can Remember it for You Wholesale. (1953-1954)
Right off the bat, I have to ding this collection not for any fault of Dick’s, but for the compilers of this edition, previously known as Second Variety. All the stories in this volume are from 1952-1953, except for “We Can Remember it For You Wholesale”, written nearly a decade later, which was included to capitalize off the release of Total Recall. That was swapped with “Second Variety” so now both stories are off chronologically in their respective volumes. It sticks out sorely considering how meticulously chronologically placed every other story in these collections is.
That being said, this is another excellent collection of gems from Dick, on par with or better even than Volume 1. Dick’s prose certainly seems to have improved when compared with Volume 1, and his ability to craft whole worlds and concepts in so few pages has been sharpened.
However, perhaps inevitably, the freshness has worn off a bit after Volume 1. A lot of the twist endings in this collection one can see coming pretty far off. (“The Trouble with Bubbles”, “Impostor”, “Human Is”, “Small Town” “Survey Team”) Dick seems to be straining a bit, and no wonder considering how many stories he wrote and published in the early 50s.
Some of his motifs are overused. It seemed to me like nearly every other story in this collection took place in a post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland (how many times can you describe fields of metal slag and ash? I don’t think I’ve ever seen the word “slag” so many times in one place). Another almost laughably recurring motif in here is the protagonists of the pieces “shakily” lighting cigarettes minutes after or even during mind-blowing or horrifying events. (“A Present for Pat” comes to mind, in which the protagonist sits down for a cigarette in the immediate aftermath of his wife being transformed into stone by a miniature Ganymedian god. His friend was also turned into a toad and he’s about to be fired.)
However, Dick’s gift for memorable imagery grows throughout these stories. I doubt I will forget anytime soon the demented orgy of miniature world-smashing in “The Trouble with Bubbles”, or the sad and haunting ending of “The Cookie Lady”. The almost was city in “The Commuter” slowly fading into existence, or the sad, dusty, almost dead Martian heaps from the sky in “Martians Come From Clouds”.
Dick’s humor is more evident throughout this collection. “A Present for Pat”, his first straight-up comedy piece I can remember (or at least that’s how I perceived it) had me laughing. More subtle humor can be found in the escalating ridiculousness of “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” (enjoyable in entirely different ways from Total Recall), and his satirical jabs in “Some Kind Of Life” and “James P. Crow”, among others.
Other stand-outs in this collection include “Adjustment Team” (basis of the The Adjustment Bureau), “Impostor” (which instantly brought to mind Boomer from the new Battlestar Galactica), “The World She Wanted”, “Jon’s World”, “Progeny”, and “Souvenir”. As in the first volume, I also greatly enjoyed the trippy little fantasy stories like “Beyond the Door”, “The Cookie Lady”, “Of Withered Apples”, and “Small Town”, something I had never expected from Dick when I started on this endeavor.
This collection can be a little repetitive but is greatly enjoyable. The weird worlds and images Dick creates will stay with you for a long time. Highly recommended.

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