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juushikaTitle: A Scanner Darkly
Author: Philip K. Dick
Published: New York: Vintage Books, 1991 (1977)
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 280
Total Page Count: 189,690
Text Number: 561
Read Because: buddy-read with Teja, from my personal library
Review: Bob Arctor, a narcotics officer, is tasked to investigate himself in his undercover identity as a drug dealer. I'll admit, this is a strange pick for one of my favorite books. It's an undignified look at drug culture, with secondary and sometimes ineffective speculative aspects and significant PoV sexism. But the central issues of identity work so well in concert with the themes and speculative elements, and the voices—even when characters are that their most inane and infuriating--are strong, including Arctor's PoV, which makes for memorable and profound sections. The entire book is written, with respect, from within: it's self-deprecatory, caricatured, mournful, and loving; an honest experience and personal homage. I respect it, and think it's superbly done.
My first encounter with A Scanner Darkly was the film, which is a fantastic and surprisingly faithful adaptation, and may be why I find the dialog particularly strong.
It's hardest to write reviews for the books I really love, especially books like this which seem so hard to love; here, let me have a lot of feels about social white noise and Dick's afterward, instead (as posted on Tumblr):
aka Scanner: a thesis statement
The Mr. Missy Sparkles and I did a buddy read of this (third time I’ve read the book, and I’ve seen the film adaptation upteen times); allow me to take the accidental wall of text that I sent him at this point in the book and edit it into approximate sentences.
I’d forgotten how similar Scanner is to Don DeLillo's White Noise—in tone, anyway: that titular white noise, a social static that pervades interaction, that soaks up interpersonal and critical energy, that makes people feel smart while they merely regurgitate trivia and pop science (very Fahrenheit 451). Both White Noise and A Scanner Darkly have a knack for that sort of dialog, for a caricatured, self-deprecatory vibe and run-on pointless farcical conversations which are at once hypnotic and frustrating.
This will make me sound pretentious, but that’s okay, I am: I’m invested in the concept of social white noise, both because it’s antithetical to how I approach information (read: media criticism, but, still) and also because, as the very most introvert that has ever introverted, noise over content is particularly draining.
So you wouldn’t pin Scanner as one of my favorite books, because of the white noise, because of the drug use (I’m abnormally sensitive to all depictions of substance use), because the speculative elements are uneven in both presence and execution, and because the central themes of identity don’t speak to me personally.
But where DeLillo is writing about white noise as the opiate of the masses, Dick is writing about the ways that both society and brain revenge themselves; he’s writing a minority experience. A personal experience. In his author’s note, Dick dedicates his love—and this novel—To people “punished entirely too much for what they did”: people killed or disabled by drug use, and he puts his own name on that list. What he does in Scanner, in farce and strong voices and tangents, feels personal, honest, deeply respectful. And I respect that.
Author: Philip K. Dick
Published: New York: Vintage Books, 1991 (1977)
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 280
Total Page Count: 189,690
Text Number: 561
Read Because: buddy-read with Teja, from my personal library
Review: Bob Arctor, a narcotics officer, is tasked to investigate himself in his undercover identity as a drug dealer. I'll admit, this is a strange pick for one of my favorite books. It's an undignified look at drug culture, with secondary and sometimes ineffective speculative aspects and significant PoV sexism. But the central issues of identity work so well in concert with the themes and speculative elements, and the voices—even when characters are that their most inane and infuriating--are strong, including Arctor's PoV, which makes for memorable and profound sections. The entire book is written, with respect, from within: it's self-deprecatory, caricatured, mournful, and loving; an honest experience and personal homage. I respect it, and think it's superbly done.
My first encounter with A Scanner Darkly was the film, which is a fantastic and surprisingly faithful adaptation, and may be why I find the dialog particularly strong.
It's hardest to write reviews for the books I really love, especially books like this which seem so hard to love; here, let me have a lot of feels about social white noise and Dick's afterward, instead (as posted on Tumblr):
"In wretched little lives like that, someone must intervene. Or at least mark their sad comings and goings. Mark and if possible permanently record, so they’ll be remembered. For a better day, later on, when people will understand."
—A Scanner Darkly, Philip K. Dick, 221
aka Scanner: a thesis statement
The Mr. Missy Sparkles and I did a buddy read of this (third time I’ve read the book, and I’ve seen the film adaptation upteen times); allow me to take the accidental wall of text that I sent him at this point in the book and edit it into approximate sentences.
I’d forgotten how similar Scanner is to Don DeLillo's White Noise—in tone, anyway: that titular white noise, a social static that pervades interaction, that soaks up interpersonal and critical energy, that makes people feel smart while they merely regurgitate trivia and pop science (very Fahrenheit 451). Both White Noise and A Scanner Darkly have a knack for that sort of dialog, for a caricatured, self-deprecatory vibe and run-on pointless farcical conversations which are at once hypnotic and frustrating.
This will make me sound pretentious, but that’s okay, I am: I’m invested in the concept of social white noise, both because it’s antithetical to how I approach information (read: media criticism, but, still) and also because, as the very most introvert that has ever introverted, noise over content is particularly draining.
So you wouldn’t pin Scanner as one of my favorite books, because of the white noise, because of the drug use (I’m abnormally sensitive to all depictions of substance use), because the speculative elements are uneven in both presence and execution, and because the central themes of identity don’t speak to me personally.
But where DeLillo is writing about white noise as the opiate of the masses, Dick is writing about the ways that both society and brain revenge themselves; he’s writing a minority experience. A personal experience. In his author’s note, Dick dedicates his love—and this novel—To people “punished entirely too much for what they did”: people killed or disabled by drug use, and he puts his own name on that list. What he does in Scanner, in farce and strong voices and tangents, feels personal, honest, deeply respectful. And I respect that.
"I myself, I am not a character in this novel; I am the novel."
—Afterward
