Philip K. Dick and the World We Live in by Evan Lampe
396 pages, Paperback
Published: 2015 by Wide Books
In the
early days of the Dickheads podcast I found Evan Lampe’s solo podcast covering
PKD. Many of the episodes shared the same research DNA as this book, and I
suspect if I were to go back and listen, you could hear Evan forming his ideas. It
is a treat of these types of podcasts, our first episodes of Dickheads I knew
hardly anything. Evan’s journey on the podcast is more than a decade ago, but
here is where he is now…
Evan's podcast
This book
is in the limited sub-category of non-fiction titles about Philip K. Dick by
folks who have read the entire canon. It compares nicely to Palmer’s PKD
Exhilaration and Terror, Rossi’s Twisted Worlds of PKD, and most
recently Lapoujade’s Worlds Built to Fall Apart.
There are
several reasons you can accuse me of bias. Evan was a long-time guest on my
podcast, but more importantly, I share much of his negative view of Capitalism.
One person told me they were afraid that the book was all Marxist politics, but
it is actually more Kropotkin than old Karl. He is a trained labor historian,
so it is going to happen. I love a PKD book that quotes from The Conquest of
Bread. It was also interesting timing because Ray Nayler’s Palaces of
the Crow (my favorite new release) also quoted the old anarchist theorist.
The gist
of the skepticism is that a radical left narrative based on PKD’s canon might
seem off. After Thomas Disch called Phil a Marxist, he was mad and often
pointed to the Man Who Japed as supercritical of Chinese communism. Lampe’s argument for anti-capitalist leanings
might have gotten the same reaction out of Phil that Disch got, but it is well-sourced.
Just as PKD’s fiction presented animal rights ideals he didn’t live up to, tons
of political and social concepts came out of the 44 novels and 120 short
stories, and no one has done a more top-to-bottom look at the ouvre that Lampe
has here.
So what
was the intention…
“What I
hope to do in this book is offer Dick as a potential guide to currently
existing late capitalism. My hope is that this may make Philip K Dick less of a
prophet and more of a companion as we face the increasingly bleak and
horrifying future that goes beyond just the condition of the postmodern and the
posthuman that seems to sap our very freedoms.”
I found
every chapter meaningful and helpful, but let's go a little deeper.
The first
chapter, which is about the end of work, becomes even more interesting
considering how much we are debating the loss of work. It was fine when the
lower classes were losing hard labor jobs, but now that the middle class and
even some upper class are losing wages to computers, the debate is becoming important. A decade ahead, Lampe wisely points
to when PKD jumped into this debate in the 50’s. There is a sub-chapter devoted
a story written in 1953. For the morality of technological post-scarcity, “To
Serve the Master.” Lampe highlights how PKD weighs into the ethics of scarcity
and machine workforces. This post-war tale is set after a conflict between Leisurists
(who want computers to do everything) and moralists.
That chapter,
combined with The Tragedy of Post Scarcity:
A Detailed Look at the Crack in Space are great examples of the strength of
the book. Deep cut stories and a novel that is admittedly not a high point in
PKD’s career get as much attention as the masterpieces. He highlights not just
the messages and themes, but PKD’s growth, for example, how the expanded Penultimate
Truth develops a smarter and more thoughtful political stance over the
source short story The Defenders, a decade earlier. The early version
seems to show the robots deciding on their own to keep humans underground, but the
novel shows a ruling elite of tech oligarchs who control the robots. (Sound familiar?)
Another
chapter I thought was one of the best, The Empire Never Died: The search for
order, political power, and global capitalism. Stretching from Stability
written when he was a teenager to High Castle and The Zap Gun
this chapter looks at the forces of political power in PKD’s fiction. It is worth
the book alone.
One of the
best and most in-depth chapters is Window Shopping at the Commissary: Consumerism,
Conformity, and Power. Here, Lampe veers into something that affected me because
I just read Christopher Palmer’s book. One of the new Ideas for me in that book
is how PKD writes about consumption. Lampe expands on this and ties to left-leaning
political takes on deep cut stories.
A
subchapter on war and consumption, for example, looks closely at a deep cut
short story, Some Kinds of Life, Autofac, and Foster You're dead in
just one subchapter. Even deeper cut stories like Service Call and the Little
Movement are mentioned alongside novels like Now Wait for Last Year,
that's a lot of titles, but it shows you how deep cut this book goes
One of the
directions of Lampe’s ideas I have not seen elsewhere is in chapter The Significance
of the Frontier in Martian history Philip K Dick meets Frederick Jackson Turner.
On the podcast for years, whenever I brought up the frontier, I always referenced
Lampe. I think his writings here are something no one has really dived into as
deeply.
A few of
Evan’s appearances on DHP:
First five PKD novels
2nd five novels
The 3rd five
