Week 8 (Rachel)

Based on a reading of Dick (1999;1964) and McKee (2004), what value did Dick place on the ordinary, low, and even trashy? How does this relate to the majority of his fiction having been written in the SF genre?

Upon reading The Man in the High Castle, I saw the reception of jewellery made by McCarthy and Frank Fink, as symbolic to the treatment of new art or literature. In the book, Childan does not know what to do with this jewellery as it is new to him and does not fit the usual conventions of what he is used to, but he is offended when Paul suggests that it has kitsch like value. Towards the end Tamogi gets very excited about new piece of jewellery, it provides him with a sense of hope, that there are new ideas circulating amongst society.

I feel that this relates to science fiction, as it is judged by many people to be somewhat of a ‘trashy’ genre, but in fact genres the break away from the norm should arguably held in as high of a value as other genres, as it is simply a different way of expressing ideas. I think the fact that as Dick describes himself as theologically inclined (Mckee, 2004). Science Fiction is genres in which he can show how society operates under certain ideologies, for example in A Man in the High Castle, a world were people rely so heavily on the I ching.

According to McKee, Dick placed value of the low, ordinary, and even trashy, as part of his overall philosophy. Mckee suggests that Dick found messages in these things believing that god ‘reveals himself where he is least expected.’ (Mckee, 2004, 39) This idea is also suggested from McKee’s title, ‘Pink Beams of Light from the God in the Gutter.’ (2004) This is key to his Science Fiction as he often portrays a rather dystopian future, for example the use of slaves in The Man in the High Castle. However through this dystopia he shows that there is still chance for enlightment for the characters, for instance in the final scene between Juliana and Abendsen seem to form a connection in the chaotic world around them.

In regards to the ordinary, Dick describes himself as a ‘normalist’ (Dick, P,K. 2004. p117) and suggests that we are all individuals who do not belong so much to the divides or race and religion that are placed on us. In his works he shows characters that very much fall into this idea. They are individuals with individual quirks and private thoughts, but having to live in a system.  I think that through creating this in a science fiction novel he is in his own way projecting certain truths.

References:

Dick, P.K. (2001; 1962). The Man in the High Castle. London: Penguin

Dick, P.K. (1995). Nazism and the High Castle. In Sutin, L.(Ed.), The Shifting Realities of

Philip K. Dick (pp.112-117).New York: Vintage

McKee, Gabriel (2004). A Scanner Darkly: Dick as a Christian theologian. In Pink Beams of Light from the God in the Gutter: the sciencefictional religion of Philip K. Dick. NY: U Press of America.