The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike in Philip K Dick

Jul 01, 2012 Jack Stovold rated it it was amazing

My Philip K. Dick Project

Entry #18 - The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike (written early 1960, published posthumously Jun. 1984)

The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike is another solid, entertaining “realist” novel from Philip K. Dick, nearly as good, in my opinion, as Confessions of a Crap Artist. Confessions was about many things, its chief theme being that everyone is probably crazy. Teeth is about causality, how little things we do snowball and affect others around us, and how impo My Philip K. Dick Project

Entry #18 - The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike (written early 1960, published posthumously Jun. 1984)

The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike is another solid, entertaining “realist” novel from Philip K. Dick, nearly as good, in my opinion, as Confessions of a Crap Artist. Confessions was about many things, its chief theme being that everyone is probably crazy. Teeth is about causality, how little things we do snowball and affect others around us, and how impossible it is to see where it’s all going.
By now, Dick’s “realist” novels are much tighter and better constructed than his early efforts, and the writing is much better, too. More and more, Dick’s humor shines through. His characters’ frustrations and tirades make for entertaining reading. In fact, like all of Dick’s mainstream novels, this book certainly has its moments of disturbing darkness, but this may be his funniest book yet. The dialogue and the character’s inner monologues are some of his best.
With only occasional passages devoted to their wives, the book jumps from the perspectives of Jewish Leo Runcible, a big-shot realtor, and Walt Dombrosio, a graphic designer, neighbors in Carquinez, near San Francisco. The night Leo has an old friend over to close a deal on a house nearby, Walt happens to invite his black mechanic over for dinner. When Leo’s friend makes an issue out of it, Leo, enraged, ends the friendship and loses the deal. That doesn’t stop him from having it out with Walt, however, and their argument starts the chain of bizarre occurrences that culminate with a publicity storm over supposed Neanderthal remains found on Leo’s property, Walt’s wife getting pregnant, and Leo buying a failing water company.
Dick has never been shy about dealing with race relations in his novels, and he takes it for granted that racism is wrong, without being didactic or feeling the need to explain why. In this novel, race plays a large role. Much is made of Walt’s comfort around black people, as well as Leo’s Jewishness. Yet Dick handles it deftly, illustrating its realistic impacts on society. How different the 50s were from today. Once again, Dick really brings to life 1950s California.
The characters are well sketched out, as well. Leo, obsessed with his principles, is an upstanding man, but can become a vindictive ass at times, too. Walt, on the other hand, is more of an unassuming guy, but lets his neurotic insecurities get the better of him. The interaction between these two is really great, and Dick has a good supporting characters in driven, spoiled Sherry (Walt’s wife, and another manipulative Dick woman), Janet (Leo’s lushy wife), and Wharton, the fourth-grade schoolteacher who fancies himself as the town historian and intellectual. Watching them all bounce off each other is a real delight. In particular, as in Confessions of a Crap Artist, Dick has a real gift for getting into the strange and endlessly complicated workings of the relationships between men and women.
Finally, after all the hoopla surrounding the skulls in question (which is really a hilarious sequence), we end up with our four, their lives going on, but they will not be quite the same. In the final chapter, Walt reflects on the crazy chain of events that brought them here, and can’t help but be amused, although he has a disturbing vision of the future to come. However, perhaps my favorite line in the book opens the last chapter. “At their Christmas Eve party, Janet Runcible became drunk and talked to everyone about personal problems.” It sums it up perfectly. Their lives may be different than before, but they aren’t. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

My edition: Paladin Grafton books, paperback, 1984

Up next: “Vulcan’s Hammer”!

July 9th, 2012
...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jun 24, 2008 Themistocles rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: scifi, p-k-dick

A thoroughly enjoyable early Dick book, at least for Dick's fans. While at some points the scenario *almost* seems to be all over the place, there are lots of Dick's later ideas spurting up: authenticity/reality, the oppressive wife and the broken man, defeat in life...

While there's no real culmination (and even the supposed focal point, the teeth, appears very late in the book), the story is interesting and well described.

On one hand, one feels pity for Dick's failure as a mainstream literatur ...more

1 like · Like · see review