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/lit/ - Literature

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15393302 No.15393302 [Reply] [Original]

So, because of quarantine, decided fuck it and bought that PKD boxset. I read the first volume (High Castle, Palmer Eldritch, Androids, Ubik) this week. Just finished pic related. I don’t get why it’s considered his best. The religious allegories are pretty basic (God as commodity) and any Nabokov plot plays with indeterminacy much more creatively. Am I missing something? For what it’s worth I thought High Castle was the best of those four, I liked the whole notion of History as historical artifact that he’s playing with. Can someone tell me why this book is considered his best?

>> No.15393323

Palmer Eldritch is the best of that group fyi

>> No.15393343

>>15393302
I liked it because of the inventiveness of the world, every 5 pages he seems to add a new original idea to the mix. Plus the fast pace added a vitality to it.

>> No.15393345

>>15393302
>>15393323
wrong VALIS is the best

also Dick has some shit prose

>> No.15393368

>>15393345
>I read the first volume (High Castle, Palmer Eldritch, Androids, Ubik)
re-read the op cockbreath

>> No.15393384

>>15393323
It was my second favorite, I just don’t find his theological perspective very compelling. It’s of course very creative in its speculation, but hollow, rather than aesthetically indeterminate in its ambivalence. Maybe that’s just Dick’s style though.

>> No.15393432

>>15393343
I will agree, that was one of my favorite things. In the other three I read, that phrenetic pace seems to destabilize the narrative, but I found it very effective in Ubik. For instance, Pat has the Caveat Emptor tattoo, and the robot commissary says buyer beware to the woman with The dead plant in Baltimore. The only thing that doesn’t regress in Joe’s world is his door. Usually, I’d read these details as unconnected or sloppy storytelling, but with Ubik I want to say there’s something more to them.

>> No.15393516

>>15393302
Ubik is overrated here for some reason. Not his worst, but definitely not among his best

>> No.15393542

I'm not sure why something is best or not best.

But I remember distinctly one of the characters in Ubik trying to get to the top of the stairs and being unable to because they were aging their entire life. That shit fucked me up bros