/lit/ - Literature

>>21624302
This is very nice.

>>21624302
I'm reading your post right now and not really enjoying it.

Dick and Lovecraft are the only sci-fi/pulp authors I really like enough to put on a pedestal, Dick being the better writer of the two. His style is relatively pleasant and I really like the themes he chose to work with.

>>21624329
Is Dick considered pulp? I thought it was just his early stuff.

>>21624302
Go get him dog

>>21624329
Dick's work encapsulates the spirit of post-war America better than any other single writer's. He's grappling with the American's problem of mystification. Beneath the smooth, slick surface that is increasingly obviously a complete lie even to normal folks, there is something else that must be. It can only be evil and malicious, but what it is is the subject of so much debate and speculation. It's communists, marxists, liberals, jews, secret nazis, aliens, the NWO, the Illuminati, reptilians, capitalism, white privilege, the patriarchy, the cathedral. There's a legitimate percentage of literate people that believe the earth is flat. Nobody can really agree on what reality is anymore. The outer facade of American culture could be argued to be in many ways little more than a collection of snowballed psychological operations. Dick articulates for the reader the feeling of unease and anxiety that comes with living within such an artificial construction. It's easy to see why he was attracted to gnosticism because gnosticism grapples with the same problem: who's really in charge here?

>>21624354
Only the early short stuff, he moved on quickly from them though he did write like over 100.

>>21624405
Recommend me 5 books by him, that are not in LOA. Please.

>>21624537
Do androids dream of electric sheep
Man in the high castle
Ubik
The three stigmata of palmer eldritch
Valis

>>21624302
I'm a big Dick fan myself

>>21624354
He's often dismissively (and I think unfairly) referred to as a pulp author despite this not being literally correct in regards to his later career.

>>21624405
by the way, a famous work that relates to this same theme is The Wizard of Oz, another staple that has lingered in the American popular consciousness whose riddle we've never managed to unravel. These stories have an almost mythological, archetypal resonance to the modern American mind. There's just something there. Kind of like how aliens are this weird modern folktale equivalent of pre-modern gnomes and elves, visitors from the Unknown Spaces that kidnap children etc.

>>21624796
Niggers

>>21624329
filtered by tentacle man

>>21624792
Damn...that's the list I would have written.
I bow to your basedness.

>>21624792
>Do androids dream of electric sheep
>Man in the high castle
you are a fucking charlatan
you know nothing of his work
absolute cattlepost

>>21626135
plebs

his greatest work is not even sci fi

>>21626148
Go back to /tv/ you retard contrarian.

>>21625948
>TENTACLE!!!
This is what retards like Mieville and Van der Meer think Lovecraft symbolises.

>>21626148
He doesn't need to have absolute knowledge of his work to enjoy some of his most popular ones. And Dick, with time, loses novelty and gets repetitive. So your entry points are probably going to be high points as well.

>>21624792
all of those are in LOA...

>>21624302
That's nice. I've been attempting to read him, but every time his prose just kills the experience for me. I'm planning on giving it another go once I hit a dry spell at work. His ideas are pretty interesting, so I keep hoping something clicks...

>>21624329
>Dick being the better writer of the two
Let's not get ahead of ourselves here

Where should I go after Electric Sheep? I want something really crazy

>>21624792
DADoES is mid and Man In High Castle is outright terrible.

>>21626908
> I want something really crazy
Three Stigmata

>>21626908
>>21626913
this, also galactic-pot healer. consider those two books, he really was one of a kind.

>>21624302
I'm in the mood for some short stories, which are the best of his?

>>21627044
Cadbury, The Beaver Who Lacked

>>21624405
>>21624920
>>21624796
good posts

>>21626148
you suck

>>21624537
A scanner darkly
Valis
The transmigration of Timothy archer
Radio free
Optional: flow my tears, the policeman said

The rest is campy trash with good ideas but cringe to read.

>>21624302
You heard it here, folks.
OP is consuming Dick.

>>21624316
kek

>>21626913
What's kind of wild is that Dick wrote what is basically the quintessential acid novel without having tried the drug himself.

>>21626908
Valis is probably the most metaphysical, unhinged thing in Dick's cannon if you wanna get real wild, but it's denser and less engaging than some of his other stuff.

>>21628264
>without having tried the drug himself.
>Writes a scanner darkly
>writes a drug fiend perspective perfectly
>post-credits lists a bunch of junkie friends
>heh heh, never tried it muhself
Dubious.

>>21628271
It's a metaphysical screed that is a re-skin of radio free albermuth. It was him catching a paycheck for some of his personal research on his way out.

>>21628279
Dick was no stranger to recreational drug use. In the beginning of his career, he wrote almost exclusively on amphetamines, but he hadn't tried acid until after he wrote the Three Stigmata. It wouldn't be interesting if it wasn't strange.

Picrelated is my favorite book of his because it speaks to my own interest in Gnosticism, is a pretty good introduction to Western Esotericism, does a good job muddying the boundary between truth and fiction. It does however also expose how credulous he was, seeing for example how he was still falling for Allied WW2 propaganda about the Nazis trying to invade the US, more than 30 years after the war.

>>21624405
>It can only be evil and malicious, but what it is is the subject of so much debate and speculation. It's communists, marxists, liberals, jews, secret nazis, aliens, the NWO, the Illuminati, reptilians, capitalism, white privilege, the patriarchy, the cathedral.
Yeah but then Wikipedia was invented and now everyone who isn't mentally retarded knows that it's Jews, so the question is narrowed down to figuring out which of the people involved are following an actual plan (e.g. Shabbataians/Frankists), which are just engaging in nepotism and have common shelling points, and whether there is a real metaphysical significance to them (e.g. them being servants of the Demiurge/YHWH and deceiving the rest of humanity as part of their mission) or if they were just random niggas who happened to have some smart guys among them who came up with basic rules of behavior that would cause them to collectively accumulate economic and ultimately political power (like lending without interest among each other but charging interest when lending to non-Jews).

Why does Hollywood love this guy so much? It makes me suspicious of his work.

>>21628560
>Why does an intellectually devoid industry keep coming back to one of the most avant garde writers in US history?
The jews obviously.

>>21624302
Same.

>>21624302
What book have you read from him?

don't forget to read the Exegesis when you're done with his novels

>>21624302
The best

>>21624920
I am writing a book about this American mythology

>>21626908
UBIK is a ubiquitous /lit/ favorite

>>21624792
>Ubik
Great list, this one in particular messed with me a lot when I read it.
I also remember being really weirded out by the Game Players of Titan. I really need to reread his stuff

Just got these. Hope it has all the Dick I need

>>21630661
never enough dick

>>21624371
Go get him dog

Anybody else read much outside of his most popular books? I've read Dr. Bloodmoney and We Can Build You, and both were way better than Do Androids... and especially High Castle (which I thought was a real stinker). My favourite by him that I've read thus far has to be Flow My Tears though. Also he can totally write some really profound and pithy stuff, those saying his prose is crap are wrong.

>>21631353
His scifi prose is pulpy camp because it had to be for the genre. He is an excellent writer in his more postmodern novels like Scanner and Timothy Archer.

>>21628279
>acid
>junkie
Do you know what "acid" is? Dick was an amphetamine addict.

>>21628560
Because he was a drug addict who signed off the rights to option his writing for a pittance, and his estate takes whatever a producer gives them. He's just a source of cheap options, that's it.

>>21631405
Go get him dog

>>21631398
Ah, I see. A recreational drug user living in California during the 1960s - who hobnobbed with drug addicts who irreparably damaged their minds, and who wrote extensively on consciousness expansion and reality warping -never used lsd.
Unbelievable.

>>21628560
drug culture and Gnosticism and ideas

A Scanner Darkly is kino

>>21624792
>Man in the high castle
probably one of Dick's worst works

>>21624405
The cathedral is not a secret conspiracy but a just a cool name for the system itself including everything official from government, academia, and press and how they influence each other. Likewise, capitalism is just an economic system which some don't like. You seem to jump from secret conspiratorial groups to social structures half-way through. And patriarchy could be either way depending in how it's defined at the moment.
And while I get what you are saying, at what point can you start talking about society and its structures like democracy, oligarchy, and monarchy?
Literacy doesn't mean much today.
>Nobody can really agree on what reality is anymore.
People don't really trust each other generally anymore.

>>21632655
I remember the movie being funny

>>21633689
Because Robert Downy Jr was on coke

>>21633617
You’re stupid

>>21624302
>>21624329
>>21624354
>>21624371
>>21624796
You like Dick?

>>21624302
i've only read do androids dream of electric sheep? by him. what's the most similar to that in his corpus, bros?

>>21624302
What book are you currently reading?

>>21624302
id phil my kdick with kcum

>>21633683
>You seem to jump from secret conspiratorial groups to social structures half-way through

not the other guy, but those groups tend to influence those social structures and have been doing so for a very long time to herd us, the cattle.

>>21635835
sauce???

>>21633617
nazi faggot

Read "Do sheep androids dream of electricity?" a week ago, liked it very much. Very engaging, I was immersed, like with most of his short stories.
Started "The Man in high castle" a few days ago, can't focus to read 15 consecutive pages, it's just not the same. Everyone is shitting on this book, I'll probably read 2 more chapters and then decide whether to drop it.

>>21631408
Go get him dog

Just started Ubik, absolutely loving it so far. This is my first full length novel of his, although I've always enjoyed his short stories.
Recs for what PKD book I should read next?

>>21636615
no but you can tell me which of his short stories were your favorite

>>21636622
Not that anon, but here's a random 3 out of my favorites:
>Defenders
>Mold of Yancy
>Novelty Act
Novellas:
>Second Variety
>Paycheck
I have more

>>21636622
look here for a list of stories:
>archive...ph/qpwhb

Personal Worlds, motherfuckers

>>21636303
sure let me get it for you real quick hold on dont go anywhere, I'll know

>>21624302
if I was dictator I would have everyone take LSD and read Valis

>>21634048
>>21636370
Nothing fucking happens and there are almost no schizo ramblings. Only normalfags who think Tenet and Inception are deep like it.

>>21624302
I'm in the middle of Maze of Death and I am enjoying it.

>>21633683
The only thing they're all really meant to have in common is that they represent this multiplicity of narratives. There's no sense of common narrative or even reality for people now, that's all I'm trying to illustrate. I didn't even mean to imply anything about their veracity.
>The cathedral is not a secret conspiracy but a just a cool name for the system itself
Then what's the point of the term 'cathedral'? to annoy catholics? It's not even good as a marketing tool since you're isolating literally the only other people spergy and right wing enough to get into NRX shit with this idiotic term. sorry I just hate it, moldbug is a goober.
>at what point can you start talking about society and its structures like democracy, oligarchy, and monarchy?
Of course all of that is up for discussion, I'm not saying analysis is impossible. The real problem is that any serious analysis yields such utterly different results from popular belief and allowed within elite circles that it's turning me into a goddamned solipsist. This is just a schizophrenic society. It's not even just 'propaganda' that's the problem, like it's just the advertisements on the TV. It's the advertisements that were already on the radio 100 years ago. All of the psychological manipulations and cultural modifications theyve made with media are snowballing and taking on a life of their own. Normalcy is long dead. We're like fish in an aquarium. That's why gnosticism and the wizard of Oz are so key - the american problem is the gnostic problem. With the advent of a new age and a new means of production, a new religion is needed, this is part of the reason for the decline of religions. The symbology no longer applies.

>>21629996
DO NOT STEAL MY IDEA I AM ALREADY WRITING IT YOU SON OF A BITCH

>>21624302
Lmao, you are enjoying Dick. You are such a raging homosexual faggot.

>>21638427
It is probably much different but share your story here hahaha...

>>21638542
Oh nvm I'm planning on writing a non-fiction book. Have you read Solaris by Lem?

>>21638589
Yes. Bet mine is gayer than yours. It's about a pedophile alien

>>21638320
You’re stupid, dude

>>21638632
What is pedophilia called across specie? And is the standard by the rapist's species or the victim's?

>>21638413
>Then what's the point of the term 'cathedral'?
to separate the consensus-making apparatus (academia, the media, "the experts") from entities such as congress, the presidency, the military, etc. which are merely conduits of power as opposed to its source.
moldbug didn't invent it, it comes from eric s raymond's essay "the cathedral and the bazaar"

>>21638682
victim is human

>>21638791
I still really don't like it and I think this dichotomy is illusory. They answer to the same masters and therefore are all conduits. The New York Times isn't a 'source' of power, it's not using congress to advance an agenda. It's just a mouthpiece for the billionaire class.

>>21638413
It's called the Cathedral because it is an informal umbrella of power which rules through a narrative. Moldbug's basic conception of Western power is that elites have devolved into an oligarchy that lack clear hierarchy but are united by a philosophical perspective. I.e., it's an analogy to how the Catholic church had massive influence over the political leaders of Medieval Europe while having direct control over almost none of its resources. Liberal understandings of history hang over parliaments and congressmen in the same way the Divine Right of Kings hung over nobles. Some have said he should have went with "The Synagogue", but there is a reason for the term.

>>21634059
lole

>>21624329
You might like David Bunch - Moderan

>>21642005
I suppose there's some validity to that, but there are important elements missing that come from other perspectives. I think the particular narrative that dominates has been to a certain extent cynically crafted as a harness to prevent the managerial class from seizing power. He's pretty deadset that there are no individuals 'to blame' and 'there is nobody at the wheel' but that's not the case.

>>21642005
thanks for explaining btw I actually understand what he's trying to get at now though