Philip K Dick discussion
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In Milton Lumky Territory
what do you think?
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How do you interpret "In Milton Lumky Territory"?
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Of the mainstream novels, I've only read "Mary and the Giant" and "Confessions of a Crap Artist." The first, I thought was fair, if not exactly groundbreaking. It's basically about people. The latter I liked, and I especially liked the point of view of the titular character, who is a weirdo who is watching "normal" people who are far more messed up than he is.Both books have problems. Most notably, PKD's signature problems with writing female characters. PKD himself said that he only wrote two female characters, and while I don't think this is quite true, but he certainly had his types. The two varieties of female characters are evident in both of these books; I think "Crap Artist" is the more interesting of the two books.
Matt wrote: "Of the mainstream novels, I've only read "Mary and the Giant" and "Confessions of a Crap Artist." The first, I thought was fair, if not exactly groundbreaking. It's basically about people. The latt..."Matt:
Thanks for the response. I have read "Confessions..." I liked it. At the point when I read it I had read a couple of PKD biographies, so I knew that what I was reading described his relationship with Anne. The wife in the novel would do things that I really doubted where a part of his experience. The wife was crazy-mean and I didn't like it when she insisted that she "had" to meet the young couple when they rode by on their bicycles. Also, I thought the ending was just weird when the husband goes around shooting their animals. Where does that come from?
Yet, many of the events did mirror the early relationship of PKD and Anne. I remember at the time wishing a woman would write the wife's point of view in "Confessions..." My wish came true Anne Dick's "In Search of Philip K. Dick" showed up in our library. It is not a very good book. The only good thing about it is that we do have the woman's point of view. She makes strange claims in the book.
About "In Milton Lumky Territory" as it is sitting with me I realize that it really is a PKD novel. The motivations of each character is very much open to interpretation. We don't know what the hero is going to do next, so we don't know how the story is going to end. It is a book in which no one really understands anyone else and that effects what reality is.
Have not read Lumky.I have read crap artist, Teeth, Puttering, Voices, Humpty, and Mary. I liked Puttering quite a bit. They are all quite good though not up there with the top 5 SF. Had he gotten better feedback from agent and publishers, he might have remained a "mainstream" writer during his following period when he wrote his many of his masterpieces. Certainly, these mainstream books laid the groundwork and should not be considered separately. Had he remained mainstream, and with editing help he may still have developed the same themes only without all the SF trappings that he felt forced to used to be published. Later he would; Valis is only vaguely SF and Archer not SF at all.
Stephen wrote: "Have not read Lumky.I have read crap artist, Teeth, Puttering, Voices, Humpty, and Mary. I liked Puttering quite a bit. They are all quite good though not up there with the top 5 SF. Had he gotte..."
Do you consider "Scanner Darkly" to be SF or mainstream?
Until they invent scramble suits, it's science fiction.
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Stephen wrote: "Have not read Lumky.I have read crap artist, Teeth, Puttering, Voices, Humpty, and Mary. I liked Puttering quite a bit. They are all quite good though not up there with the top 5 SF. Had he gotte..."
If he had stayed in school at Stanford and made the great connections that John Updike made while attending Harvard I think the mainstream novels would have been received quite differently.
"Mainstream" was actually a term used by pkd for his non SF novels of that late 50s early 60s period and that some of us recognize as where he developed his skills for great novels that followed. Of course they are interesting in their own right. Scanner would probably be SF not only because of bodysuits, but also the surveillance technology and police state that was perhaps not that well developed at the time he wrote it.
Do you think the mainstream novels will blow us away once we have been exposed to them a while. I have been avoid them like the plague after I took my initial look at them. They looked like underwhelming stories about characters who are unhappy with their marriages.
I have described "The Exegesis" To my boss and I will be making a PKD display at the library where I work in July. My boss told me to order all of the mainstream books. So, they have been coming in and I got into "In Milton Lumky Territory."
The thing I wonder about, Lumky tells the hero that he thinks there is something wrong with him and that he believes it is that the hero doesn't believe in God. The hero never agrees nor disagrees, he just laughs and laughs.
He loses a power struggle with his new wife. She accuses him of having something wrong with him. To someone else who has read the book, is that statement about the character a minor part of the book that is there because of PKD's life long interest in belief in God, or is it the entire point of the book.
When the book ends the hero has rented a room to think about what he is going to do now that he has lost a major power struggle with his wife of 2 weeks. He imagines himself writing a school composition about what life would be like for him and his wife if he had succeeded in the business venture that the book is about.
The thing that interests me is that the action of the character in that early novel is very much what PKD did do when he had his 2-3-74 experience, only he actually tried to write out an understanding of the event in question.
So, what do you think? Are we going to eventually become blown away by the mainstream fiction the way we are about his sf once we have been around them a while?
Was that question about our hero believing in God a minor or major element of the story? what are we to make of this novel and the other main stream attempts?