'fHE UNIVERSITY OF HULL 3litology and Ethics in the Writings of Philip K Dick being a Thesis submitted for the Degree of Phd. in the University of Hull by Andrew Mark Butler, B.A. (Wons) October 1995 Contents Acknowledgements A Note on References, Abbreviations and Editions vii Introduction 1 Chapter One: "Possible maybes" Realism and the Fantastic 6 Realism 7 Literary Realism 9 Author and Reader 15 Realism vs The Fantastic 19 Sf ,20) The "New Wave" (26) Realism or the Fantastic: In Milton Lumky Territory 29 Familiarization 31 Character Types 32 Conclusion Chapter Two: "Life is turning into a Philip K. Dick Novel": Ontology and its Discontents The Real 38 Access to the Real: Philosophical Realism 45 Access to the "Real": Dick's use of viewpoint 48 Postmodernism Fredric Jameson on Dick Jean Baudrillard on Dick 57 Other Postmodern Readings of Dick 60 Cyberpunk 63 Dick as postmodern icon 65 Conclusion 68 Chapter Three: "Can a person hallucinate without being psychotic?": Hallucinatory Environments 69 Basic Plots 69 Eye in the Sky 70 The Left and McCarthyism 72 Black Politics 76 Return to Reality? 77 Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said 79 The Left by 1970 81 The Position of Blacks 82 The Nature of the Conditional Environment 86 Conclusion 94 ii Chapter Four: "Skim milk masquerades as cream": Attempts to penetrate the veil 96 Time Out of Joint 96 Representing the 1950s 98 Misrepresenting the 1950s 101 From Time Out of Joint to The Man in the High Castle 105 The Man in the High Castle 106 Alternate Worlds 106 The "reality" of the conditional environment 108 False Identities 111 The 1-Ching - 113 "Inner Truth" 118 Fiction and Reality 121 Conclusion 125 Chapter Five: "Where are we really?": The Failure of Authenticity 126 Lies, Inc. 127 Textual Problems 127 Paraworlds 129 The Unteleported Man? 130 Dr Bloode's Book 134 The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch 137 Plot 138 Characters 139 Transubstantiation 141 The Status of the Conditional Environment 143 Ubik 146 Plot 146 Simple Answers 148 The Nature of Ubik 149 Religious Explanations of Ubik 150 Conclusion 153 Chapter Six: 'The Android and the Human": Entropy, Empathy and Ethics T__.) What is Human? The Turing Test and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 1_57) Martin Buber and Responsibility 160 Buberian Human vs Android 162 iii Emmanuel Levinas and Responsibility {66 Levinasian Responsibility in Dick's Novels 170 Levinasian Responsibility in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 172 Ethics and Ontology Conclusion Chapter Seven: "My life is a fantasy" VALIS 181 Criticising VALIS .. 181 The Paratext 184 VALIS and the Titular Epitext 185 VALIS and the Authorial Epitext 187 VALIS's Peritext 189 The Writing of VALIS 196 VALIS and Dick's Novels of the 1970s 197 A Levinasian Reading of VALIS 201 Ethics and the Other 201 God and the Infinitely Other 206 Conclusion 217 Chapter Eight: "Knowledge rather than faith": The "Divine Trilogy" 222 The Nature of the Trilogy 222 The Divine Invasion 227 Gnosticism 227 Kabbalism 233 Levinas and Jewish Revelation 236 The Transmigration of Timothy Archer 238 Completing the "Divine Trilogy" 238 Bishop Pike 239 Knowledge 242 Irrationality v. Reason 245 The Gift 247 Conclusion 250 Conclusion 251 Appendix 256 Acknowledgements In the process of producing this thesis I have had the help of many people and have made many friends. I wish to thank all of those whose names I recall, and beg forgiveness from those I have inadvertently left out. My first debt is to my supervisor, Rowland Wymer, who so often was able to see clearly what I was saying unclearly, and who helped to unfog my prose. Thanks must go to Paul Williams for his initial words of advice and encouragement, and to John Joyce, Jeff Merrifield and Ken Campbell for putting on Dick-related events at exactly the right times. My own collection of material was supplemented by those whose libraries are greater than mine; in particular Michael J. Cross, Benedict S. Cullum, Gwyneth Jones, Paul Kincaid and Mark Plummer were able to provide arcane texts. JDR (John D. Rickett) provided an excellent translation of Borges over the phone, and backed it up with a written version. The former secretaries (Joyce and Pat) of the Science Fiction Foundation Collection at the University of East London and its current administrator / librarian, Andy Sawyer, at the Sydney Jones Library, University of Liverpool, all gave me the run of their shelves. A debt is owed to Friends of Foundation, who rescued the resource when the vagaries of funding left the SFFC without a home. Within the postgraduate community at Hull, past and present, I wish to thank Sue Allmark, Jo Chipperfield, Julie Crofts, Nick Holland, Richard King, Carole Jones, Ian Smith and Paul Wright, for beers, coffees, conversations and encouraging me to ask the question 'Where are you at?" rather than "How's it going?". Roger Luckhurst did more than nod in the right places, and my use of the paratext and of the gift arose vi from one of our more successful lunch meetings "upstairs". (He should not be blamed for the uses I have put them to). Sam Barber and Robert Edgar became firm friends in the last year of writing this thesis and both offered to read it and comment. Cathy Cundy, John Hoyles, Neil Sinyard and Bruce Woodcock provided moral support. Mike found the right track at a moment I had feared it lost. British sf fandom has provided many sounding boards for my ideas. The Hull SF Group has often been my earliest audience for material, and thanks must go to Howard Baker, Ian Bell, Mike Cross, Carol Ann Green, Dilys Jones, Dave Roberts, Estelle Roberts, Chris Tutin and Julie Venner for putting up with me. The members of Acnestis , an APA run by Maureen Kincaid Speller, have similarly asked pertinent (and impertinent) questions. I have benefited from conversations and e-mail correspondence with Mark Bould, Scott Bukatman, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jo, Ben Friedlander, James Kneale, Eric Rabkin and Derek White. The electronic conference devoted to Dick ([email protected] ) has been a frequent source of inspiration and checking references over the last two years. I owe a debt to the many people over the years who, despite not being involved in sf or academia, have offered friendship, support, shoulders, food and drink and, above all, floors to sleep on: Alex, Allan, Craig, John, Lawrence, Melissa, Nige, Pete, Robert and Sue. Particular thanks should go to my evil landlords, Tina Minett Stevens and Darren Stevens (and his printer), and the beasts Edward the Second and Isaac. Fine companions all: there are no better. My greatest debt is to my family, to my parents and my brother, whose radical generosity has no doubt been met with ingratitude, for it is a debt I can only hope to repay. A Note on References, Abbreviations and Editions Most quotations are referenced in parentheses by author, year and page number. The full reference may be located in the Bibliographies. This system is also applied to uncollected items - poems, essays outlines and letters - by Dick; these may be found in the Primary Bibliography: Short Works. Individual volumes by Dick are listed by initial as set out below. The novels are referenced by chapter and page number, other volumes only by page. An alphabetical listing with complete references is in the Primary Bibliography: Individual Volumes; a chronological listing of first editions may be found in the Appendix. BB. The Broken Bubble. CAM. Clans of the Alphane Moon. C&C. Cosmogony and Cosmology. CCA. Confessions of a Crap Artist. C-CW. Counter-Clock World. CIS. The Crack in Space. CP. The Cosmic Puppets. CS (1). Beyond Lies the Wub: The Collected Stories of Philip K Dick Volume 1. CS (2). Second Variety: The Collected Stories of Philip K Dick Volume 2 CS (3). The Father Thing: The Collected Stories of Philip K Dick Volume 3. CS (4). The Days of Perky Pat: The Collected Stories of Philip K Dick Volume 4. CS (5). The Little Black Box: The Collected Stories of Philip K Dick Volume 5. DADOES. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Del Deus Irae DHG. The Dark-Haired Girl. DI. The Divine Invasion. Dr. B. Dr. Bloodmoney, Or How We Got Along After the Bomb. Dr. F. Dr. Futurity. E. In Pusuit of VALIS: Selections from the Exegesis. ES. Eye in the Sky FMTPS. Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. GP-H. Galactic Pot-Healer. G-PT. The Game-Players of Titan. GYT. Gather Yourselves Together. HDO. Humpty Dumpty in Oakland. IHISAS. I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon. IMLT. In Milton Lumky Territory. LI. Lies, Inc. MD. A Maze of Death. MG. Mary and the Giant. MHC. The Man in the High Castle. MT-S. Martian Time-Slip. - MWJ. The Man Who Japed. MWTWAEA. The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike. NG. Nick and the Glimmung. NWFLY. Now Wait For Last Year. OFFF8. Our Friends From Frolix 8. PASL. Puttering About in a Small Land. PT. The Penultimate Truth. RFA. Radio Free Albemuth. S. The Simulacra. SD. A Scanner Darkly. SL [1972-3]. The Selected Letters of Philip K Dick 1972-1973. SL [1974]. The Selected Letters of Philip K Dick 1974. SL [1975-6]. The Selected Letters of Philip K Dick 1975-1976. SL [1977-9]. The Selected Letters of Philip K Dick 1977-1979. SoL. Solar Lottery. TOJ. Time Out of Joint. TTA. The Transmigration of Timothy Archer. U. Ubik. UM. The Unteleported Man. V. VALIS. VET. Vulcan's Hammer. WC. World of Chance. WCBY. We Can Build You.