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/lit/ - Literature

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1015857 No.1015857 [Reply] [Original]

Is it just me or is Philip K Dick an overrated philistine whose writing completely and utterly is without merit?

I have heard so many favourable things about The Man in the High Castle that I tried yet again to read it. But the style is horrible. Horrible.

The settings are pedestrian and dull. The dialogue is flat. The characters are boring.

Why on earth does anyone like this crap?

>> No.1015873

>sweeping statement about an author with dozens of books
>read one, was disappointed

Stop being dumb.

>> No.1015880

No, you're right. Dick sucks. Go on and read your little bourgeois books. How could you ever understand him?

>> No.1015887

>>1015873
This is the only Dick book with Nazis in an alternate history, so it's really his only chance to impress me.

>>1015880
Maybe if he wrote like he had a grasp of the English language, then I could understand him.

>> No.1015893

I never read The Man in the High Castle, but PK Dick is generally an awesome writer. Dialogue and setting descriptions really don't seem to be his priorities. I read it mostly for the imaginative plots and original take on interesting themes.

inb4 hipsters

>> No.1015901
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1015901

Here's just a taste of Dick's prose for the uninitiated:
>And then he thought about Africa, and the Nazi experiment there. And his blood stopped in his
veins, hesitated, at last went on.
>That huge empty ruin
Clunky prose. Absolutely no flow.

>> No.1015903

>>1015887

Example? I think his prose is fine. It's not fancy or anything, it gets the job done.

>> No.1015908

>>1015880
is "bourgeois" the new "hipster"?

>> No.1015913

>>1015908
No, hipster is the new hipster.
Bourgeois is an insult thrown at the upper-middle class for their daring to suggest that some things are better than others.

>> No.1015914

>>1015901
He really stated sentences with "And"? How come I never noticed that? :S

>> No.1015916

ah i love it when someone comes upon something they don't like, and immediately decides everyone else is wrong for liking it.

>> No.1015917

>>1015908
Hipster is a subset of Bourgeois. You need to be kinda rich to be that kind of a faggot..

>> No.1015919

>>1015901
Look, no one's going to take you seriously. For God's sake, you used the word "philistine" in a serious context. Not to mention your use of anime images.

>> No.1015930
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1015930

>>1015919
And somehow anime images is wrong? Not everyone here has a book jacket fetish. And it suggests that I can enjoy books and anime.

>>1015919
'Cultural barbarian' lacks the punch of philistine so of course I chose it.

>> No.1015934
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1015934

It's true, Dick could never write, not even in Scanner Darkly. He'd probably admit he couldn't. It's quite a mechanical prose, you'll find yourself reading a few paragraphs over to try and come to terms with it. I'd read a lot of Kazuo Ishiguro who is a very 'flowery' writer; whose command over the language is totally poetic. Reading Dick was very different, and you've got to see past the writing and appreciate the ideas. If you can't do that, don't read science fiction.

A lot of this is because he wasn't a writer. He was a guy who had these crazy ideas, and that's what he was conveying. A lot of his books he wrote on speed, which wouldn't of helped either. You get a lot of that in SF or 'speculative fiction' as they prefer to call it.

When it comes to his later stuff like VALIS and other books, he went absolutely crazy. Started having visions and stuff. Like in "Flow My Tears The Policeman Said".. those events happened to him later in the book after he had written it. I'm straying from your claim.. But yes, I'll say it again for emphases: Dick can't write, people never claim that he can.

>> No.1015941

>>1015934
Did you forget to clear your name field?

>> No.1015966

>>1015941
yeah. I'm not OP. thanks

>> No.1016025

>>1015966
Yeah, you didn't sound like a tool.

>> No.1016047

>>1016025
Are you kidding? He sounded like one of the biggest tools I've ever seen on/lit/

>> No.1016048
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1016048

>>1016025
I read The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.. Dick fans really rate that book. The whole idea about simulated reality was fantastic.. But it's very hard to appreciate with the writing. You have to read PKD in big chunks, not the sort of books you can come back to and expect to understand.

Collected my thoughts about that book and PKD in general here:

http://scannerdarkly7.blogspot.com/2010/05/philip-k-dick-three-stigmata-of-palmer.html

Hope that's a little more insightful

>> No.1016194

Dick also puts a lot of American 1950s interjections into his books, making them sound weirdly dated, like re-runs of Leave It To Beaver.
"Jolly, gee, shucks, wow, sure" and the like. It's horrible.

>>1015934
It's hard to believe that someone with such flat, lifeless prose could be the inspiration to so many other authors and to creators of multiple films.

> If you can't do that, don't read science fiction.
I'm not so sure about that. What about William Gibson, for instance? His books sizzle with seductive prose. Every paragraph pulls the reader a little further into the dream.

>> No.1016204

>>1016194

>What about William Gibson, for instance?

Gibson is a total hack. His prose is awful and his ideas are stupid.

>> No.1016211

>>1016204
Well, then thankfully for you, this thread is about PKD.

>> No.1016217

I haven't read any of Dick's novels - only his short stories. And yeah, they're not very well written - usually formulaic with a flat protagonist, boring dialogue and stilted prose. But when I'm only there for the cool ideas and the SHOCKING TWISTS, I can let that slide. And occasionally he does turn out something actually brilliant, like 'Faith of Our Fathers'.

>> No.1016245
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1016245

maybe it's me
>inb4 its u
but most threads that go on for very long end up with someone saying in a conciliatory way that "yes, this writer is not the best, but ____ story has it's merits"...

According to /lit/ ~90% writers are really all that great at what has made them very famous.

>> No.1016254

>>1016245
"really *not* all that great"... (i'm not a great writer either apparently)

>> No.1016260
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1016260

>about The Man in the High Castle
>Style is horrible

Go ahead and make your own opinions, but as a history buff I absolutely LOVED that book.

>> No.1016283

>Go ahead and make your own opinions, but as a history buff I absolutely LOVED that book
>as a history buff I absolutely LOVED that book
>as a history buff
You are echoing the consensus of the thread. Is The Man in the High Tower great literature? Probably not. Is it a great idea? Probably.
When you find something you're interested in, you're willing to forgive its failings.