Dark, scary book about drugs by one who has been there
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Dick doesn't just write about drugs, or paranoia -- he has really been there. This is a truly great book (much better than the film, though that wasn't too bad), touching on all the issues about drugs - the doper scene, the paranoia, the obsession, the blurry line between the good and bad guys, and the dodgy politics and practices of some of the 'anti-drug ' institutions.
Read it if you need any further education as to why the "War on Drugs", like the "War on Terror", is doomed to failure.
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Simply brilliant!
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This is one of my three favourite books (the others being 'The Affirmation' by Christopher Priest and 'Leviathan' by Paul Auster). Philip K. Dick wrote a huge number of books - some of which were IMHO very weak (in the sense of being slight nonsense e.g. 'Galactic Pot Healer') and others which are brilliant in their extrapolating of potentially 'present day' situations into fiction which questions reality and so helps to provide perspectives on our existence. Written like this, you might think that this sounds like pretentious nonsense instead of the slight nonsense mentioned earlier. However, books like 'Man in the High Castle' and 'A Scanner Darkly' are eminently and enjoyably readable but contain so much of interest that they can be read again and again. PKD had used hallucinogenic drugs and the majority of his books question reality using the form of Science Fiction. He specifically asked that 'A Scanner Darkly was classified as fiction rather than the sub-category of Science-Fiction, because he wanted it to reach a wider audience. There are no 'bug-eyed monsters' here, unless in imagination - just an undercover cop who, intriguingly is asked to spy on himself. Enjoy and enter into a different milieu!
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Disturbing but brilliant
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This is by far my favourite Philip K Dick book and I've loved many of his books a lot so this says much about the way I feel. I read "A Scanner Darkly" in high school and it hasn't left me yet. One of those reading experiences that leave a mark on you for a long long time. So strong in many ways.
The book is fascinating, thrilling, sometimes even funny but mostly scarry and disturbing. I had for a long time a desire to read this one again and finally, I did read it and was completely amazed once again. From the page one the story and the charachters took on hold on me. Still after many months the images are there. And theres this strange desire to open the book again. Why? The only explanation I can think of is simply this: that the book is just so good. Dick is brilliant writer. His style is fluent and easy to follow and his imagination is fast and witty. This is not a book by some disturbed mind. Maybe the he was disturbed in many ways but his mind was clear - at least while he was writing this.
This of course is my personal experience and I know that, maybe you'll find the book dissapoiting. In many ways there no reason to like this book. It drags sometimes and there repetition and it's about the most depressing book there is - but it is fascinating. Not really a scifi book. More like an study about man's struggle not to face reality and his desperate search for alternative comforts. No flying cars and laserguns here. Just human existence explored.
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Not a bad book, shame about the film though
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This is a dark, depressing, nostalgic and surreal story by a man who had strange experiences on drugs, lost friends on drugs, and possessed a memory tainted by drugs. Philip K. Dick states at the end of the book, effectively in his epilogue, that he dedicated the work to those lost friends 'who were punished entirely too much for what they did'. The beauty of this book, A Scanner Darkly, is that it is very much based on the author's life and experiences. There is bitterness, there is hate, there is lost love and regret. Amongst it all there is satire and humour, but mostly dark and cruel.
I have to say that reading this book is more than just reading a story. You are getting the feelings and emotions of a man - Mr. Dick - whose life was a tangled mess. An innocent person robbed by the world and its merciless devices. The drugs and situations that lead to him forgetting his very own person cause him to forget who he really is. When this work is read in a more earnest and compassionate light, we cannot, as a reader, help feeling a deep sorrow for the outcomes and consequences we witness. Childish decisions arising from a lack of interest in life, a state of boredom and all the other emotions we know from the years we spend doing irresponsible things, without care to others, are paid for in blood. This book can invoke a feeling that ones gets when you think 'I wonder what ever became of so-and-so', and we fall into a moment of nostalgia. Perhaps idealist and exaggerated, but nevertheless craving for times and people gone by.
However, this kind of appreciation of the book may not come for some time. You need a while for it to sit in your belly, so to speak. There is a lot of sacrifice, sometimes not even made by the person themselves, but by a higher power. There are certain lessons the characters learn that we, as readers, can also learn from. The story, I am tempted to say, is not necessarily the core of this novel. The recent film adaptation, in my opinion, didn't work for this very reason: it was focused on the story and dialogue too much and not enough on the deeper aspects - the pains and trials of the characters, their moral development and understanding as individuals, their private thoughts and memories that are never revealed verbally. As far as I'm concerned, the film version was something else altogether. It just didn't work.
Anyway, one should read this as you might read the memoirs of a dying man looking back over his life. If you are mature enough to deeply appreciate the message that Dick was trying to give, then you will doubtless remember this book for years to come. What is sad about Dick's Author's Note is that is that he lists himself amongst the 'people who wanted to keep having a good time forever, and were punished for that'. It then strikes you that the other ten or so friends he includes made the basis for his characters, and that in fact what you were reading was a disguised chapter of his very own life. Or, at least, this was how he chose to express it.
On the other hand, I may be speaking dribble. After all, doesn't every book incorporate something from the author's own life. I don't know. Maybe. You decide.
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An Extraordinary Book
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Dick's novel presents a dystopic future through the eyes of Bob Arctor, who is either a nark (undercover narcotics agent) posing as a head (drug user), or a head posing as a nark. In fact he is both, but Bob's drug use gradually erodes his capacity to integrate the two into one. It doesn't help that he has a psychotic housemate named Barris (one of the creepier characters in anyone's fiction) who may or may not be on to Bob-the-nark. Dick's portrayal of Bob's disintegration is both terrifying and highly sympathetic. There is a lot of humour in this book, mostly in the dialogue between Bob and his doper buddies, but the humor becomes more and more bittersweet as the reality of their collective dilemma becomes apparent to the reader. This book can serve as a warning of the dangers of drug abuse; it serves equally well as a warning of the dangers of certain types of "rehabilitation." In fact the true demon in the novel is not Substance D (fictional future drug) at all, but something much more sinister. There are enough of Dick's patented plot-twists here to keep you guessing, and his unique descriptive talents and dead-on doper-loopy dialogue accurately recreate the surreality of the characters' world in the mind of the reader. While the term is overused, in this case it fits: this book is a true classic. Dick was a great writer and this is one of his best.
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