The Divine Madness of Philip K. Dick by Kyle Arnold
As we enter our fourth year researching and podcasting about Philip K. Dick I was struck but an interesting thought. Phil would have been very surprised that as prolific as he was in life the people researching him have written an equal number of books on the subject of the person behind all these stories. I am sure one day I’ll probably write my own, but for now, I slowly make my way through these books. Before reading this book I often said that Divine Invasions by Laurence Sutin was the only MUST read, keep in mind I think all PKD non-fiction texts are important. Only Apparently Real for example is important but the most important moments are quoted in Sutin’s book.
As for the Divine Madness of Philip K. Dick, I am going to add this to the must-read list if you are interested in how PKD’s mind worked or didn’t at times. At our Podcast, we often talk about what motivated Phil who often snuck autobiographical moments and felt really close to the surface of his fiction. I also got curious when in an interview we hosted a long-time friend of Phil’s Bill Sarill said the book had valuable insights.
It is tough I was worried that the book would be lots of negative looks at the storyteller. There is a tough balance for the Dickheads reading this. This book doesn’t paint a pretty picture of Phil but with all the many struggles I actually gained respect for the fact that he released as many books as he did.
In the process of doing the podcast there was nothing in this book about Phil I didn’t know or hadn’t read before. But what makes this book special is Kyle Arnold takes that research and his clear knowledge of the fiction. Paint a vivid picture of the psychological issues Phil had that were made worse by the extensive damage he did to himself.
I could go deeper into parts and passages of this book but I would like to have the author on the podcast so I am going to keep my thoughts short here.
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