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Each snowless day Annibale walks up past Sankt Apollonia of the butters and cheese to his baita where once Luigi drove me in his four-wheel through ice flows and frozen speckled pastures in an astonishing scatter of driven skills.

Psychogeographic prose poetry, haunted by mountain ghosts.

Almost done with the beginning of the story . . .

That may have been the most profound exposition on grief that I've ever read. Some powerful writing there.

I've said, in another context, that Philip K. Dick wasn't an author, he was a mad prophet. The comment was made tongue-in-cheek, but I'm becoming more convinced that it isn't a joke, after all. At least it's not a very far-fetched idea.

Dick can plumb the depths of complexity in his characters; or, in this case, the complexity of sanity itself.

"Do you know what you are?" Kathy said. "You're a very good person. Do you understand that?"

He shrugged. Like most truths it was a matter of opinion. Perhaps he was. In this situation, anyhow. Not so in others. But Kathy didn't know about that.

One thing Dick excels at is putting his characters in deep trouble right away. In this case, Jason Taverner. A famous entertainer, has lost his identity while living in an autocratic police state where not having an identity is a crime punishable with hard time in a labor camp. Not a great place to be when you were on top of the world one day ago.

It's time I got some more Dick.

Remember when Goodreads Giveaways were full of great fiction and you might actually stand a chance of winning one and discovering a new, up and coming writer that you loved?

Yeah, it's been a while.

How long?

This would make an incredibly boring movie, but it is an incredibly un-boring book. Clearly there is a literary media barricade around this thing. If you don't read, you are missing out.

Now we get into the actionable stuff! I love the conceit of all the fictional phone numbers and websites (yes, I called and visited, but they're all defunct, which is what I expected, given the publication date).

ZOUNDS!‐--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Z---ds! cried Phutatorious

This is going to bear re-reading.

Trusmegistus ---> Tristram via the phone game, as it were.