/lit/ - Literature

>>10798394
>it seems unlikely that Reds wish would come true, granting everyone happiness and freedom to everyone.

Oh I agree, in fact Red realises himself that the wish can't be granted since a person's happiness often requires another to be unhappy. He wishes for that explicitly because he can't think of anything better to say, which is what's so tragic. But shortly before the last line he essentially asks the Sphere/aliens to look inside his soul and grant what he wants deep down, which he can't articulate, but assumes is something worth wishing for. Red and the Vulture both already know that the Sphere doesn't grant what you ask for, it grants what your innermost wishes (supposedly, if it grants anything at all).

>>10798671
>Can someone explain to me?
>I've seen 3 palms being shilled for months. Your answers depends on whether I read it or not.

I'm the anon who made a fuss out of the spoiler quotes. I don't really want to explain to you since you haven't read it, it would spoil parts of the novel for you. Suffice to say Three Stigmata is a uniquely horrifying book that generates the horror in various ways. I'll try and explain without spoilers:

1) PKD creates a suffocating and oppressive atmosphere the pervades the entire novel. Day to day life is oppressively dull for the colonists on other planets and Earth has become so hot that you can't even go outside. It's almost claustrophic.

2) The protagonist and other characters are constantly unsure about they're in reality or a joint drug-induced dream. This gets really sinister when Palmer Eldritch makes an appearance.

3) Palmer Eldritch himself, as an antagonist, is just... ugh. I'm sure anyone who has read the book remembers when Palmer Eldritch first appears in the flesh and meets the protagonist. Gave me chills.

I don't think I'm doing a good job here... the novel just completely engrossed me and made me feel *really* uneasy while reading it and for a long time afterwards.

I just spent a few minutes thinking about why it had this effect on me:

When you get to the core of it, what makes the story so terrifying is that it drives home how tenuous our experience of "reality" is. Our minds aren't really that robust. If you lost your mind... PKD knows better than most authors what that might possibly entail and it's horrible.

>>10588120
For the convenience of anons who haven't read those books, anon here is referring to The Meme Itself.

I'll just underline my own opinion that the above is fairly conventional horror, which Three Stigmata is genuinely one of the most horrific and disturbing things I've ever read. PKD wrote a lot of books, Three Stigmata is the only book that he was unable to proofread once he finished the first draft, because it scared him too much. Apparently he never re-read it.