Ubik

[ivyfic]

I just finished Ubik by Philip K. Dick through a sheer force of will. Just to get the stupid thing out of my purse (metaphorically speaking--I read the ebook).

I hated it. HATED IT.

I can see why Philip K. Dick is so popular, and particularly why he's inspired so many films. He's a very visual writer. And I don't mean that in the way that Bradbury is--Bradbury's writing evoked such vivid images in my mind that rereading his work almost twenty years later, I still remembered the tiniest details of some of the scenes.

Dick's writing is visual in the sense that he describes how things look. Exhaustively. In ways that I'm sure, when interpreted through a production designer and a costume department, would be pretty cool. In fact, I know they are. I've seen the movies. But on the page, oh my god, I couldn't take it. Especially since some of the characters were only described by what they were wearing.

Which brings me to the characters. I didn't give a crap about any of them, which to me, is a fatal failing. I had no empathy, so I don't actually care about anything that's happening. All I know about the main protagonist is that he's broke and likes tits. Woo.

The descriptions of this book hail the many plot twists. Bullshit. From fairly early in the book, it's clear that what's happening could be one of two things. And which one it is is not some clever trick that's hidden in the narrative, like in a well-written mystery, it's an entirely arbitrary decision of the author's. If your whole game is breaking your own world-building, then you can't actually maintain a mystery. All you can do is stick a title card on the end "explaining" things. Which to me makes the entire book feel like the author's just jerking me around.

The plot also doesn't show up until a third of the way through. The first third is just world-building. And to ensure there's enough ambiguity, the majority of that world-building is meaningless. He spends a lot of times establishing all sorts of things that are never relevant again. The first sentence, for example--completely irrelevant.

Dick also introduces a dozen characters at this middle point. All we get about them is what they're wearing. For the rest of the book, I never remembered who anyone was when they were referred back to. This is the sort of thing that can work in film--here is a bunch of mooks! They each get a line! Then they die horribly! But in a book? That many names floating around on the page with no reminders as to who is what or even what gender anybody is just makes me feel like there are crowds of random people wandering around all the time. And see above about not caring about any of the characters.

Then, once the plot gets going, it was fairly clear to me what was happening. And I was correct. Though it took pages and pages and pages for the--I'm sorry, but quite incredibly stupid--characters to figure it out. And even then, when you get to the end of things, a lot of it is woowoo, handwavy, that's just the way it is! The final explanation of a novel should not be a page of meaningless technobabble. But here, it is. And then he decides to be edgy and invalidate everything with a tag. It is not edgy for the author to have not figured out what his own reality is. I point you to George Lucas and his fucking midi-chlorians conceiving Anakin...OR DID THEY?

It is possible to tell a compelling mystery/thriller with ambiguous reality. Inception does it very well. And sure, when you step back from Inception, not all of it quite holds together. But while you are experiencing it, it plays within the rules of its own world-building enough for there to be real stakes.

Ubik is just lots of random shit happening for random shit to happen. And I CANNOT STAND THAT. I know some other people (chuckro, I'm looking at you) like that kind of thing, but to me, this just felt like author wanking.

Well, I feel I've done my duty to sci fi comprehensiveness by reading this. And now I feel free to never read anything by him ever again.

Comments

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I had similar feelings about The Man in the High Castle, though not as strongly negative as yours. Dick's work is very basic, and it takes real artists to expound upon his bare-bones plots and writing to work something great out of what are fine but unadorned stories.

[xannoside.livejournal.com]

"Then, once the plot gets going, it was fairly clear to me what was happening. And I was correct."

It's been a while since I read it, but I recall this as well, and I also recall thinking this was intended. It's pretty obvious, and don't they say it almost explicitly very early on?

I always thought that the point of the back half of the book was for the audience to basically watch horror-movie style as the hapless characters stumble around ever closer to the truth but keep missing it. Except that in this case, it's not a secret serial killer. It's what I really liked about this book.

And then there's the religious aspect, which I found interesting. A bit heavy-handed, but still interesting, if more for PKD's approach to the idiosyncratic form of Christianity/Deism popular among SF authors of that era.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I get that he was trying to do a horror movie thing, but as I noted, he didn't actually establish any characters. When Wendy Wright died, I had no idea who she was. I think the only characterization she ever got was that Joe Chip wanted to bang her. And Pat Conroy, the super powerful woman, not only takes off her shirt randomly in her first scene and is only motivated by jealousy, but she is also offed off screen and we're told that she was irrelevant.

The rest of the characters that were dying were introduced in one solid chunk, where he just went through listing what they were wearing. And most of them died off screen anyway. Al was the only one who's death had any emotional weight at all.

And Joe Chip? I don't get why he was the main focus of this novel. All he does is ask people for money and want to sleep with women. There's never any justification for him being Runciter's heir apparent, and certainly no reason why I shouldn't want him to die horribly.

Plus, there are all the things that happen cause. Why does time flow backwards in half-life? Cause. Why does it stop in 1939? Cause. Why did Jory develop the power to consume other half-lifers? Cause. Why was Ella the only one strong enough to fight him? Cause. What the hell is ubik? Handwave handwave Ella invented it. How? How the fuck did she "invent" anything? How is this supposed to be an actual physical anti-protophason spray? The entire world they're in is a mental construct. How does Ella know this goes on in other half-life facilities? What is she, god? She's a fucking fairy godmother who sprinkles this misogynistic asshole with fairy dust. Am I supposed to be happy about that?

Basically, there are some core sort of interesting concepts he's come up with, but he doesn't have story or characters or plot or prose to go any farther than that. I'm sorry, I despised it. I truly did.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Also, it is a secret serial killer.

[xannoside.livejournal.com]

Well, no. Spree killer, sort of, serial killer no.

And actually, more an allegorical representation of predestination/fate juxtaposed against Ubik/Ella/God.

Like I said, the religious aspect is really not subtle, just kind of fascinating.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Jory had been killing people in the half-life for as long as he'd been there. Serial killer.

I thought his attempts at social commentary were ham-handed and ridiculous.

[xannoside.livejournal.com]

Yes, but wasn't he killing them not out of a psychological impulse based on particular factors they possessed, but because he simply had managed to have access?

Since there isn't really a "location" involved, mass murderer is probably the most apt.

[xannoside.livejournal.com]

And yes, his attempts at social commentary are even more heavy-handed than his religious self-examinations.

[alizarin-nyc.livejournal.com]

Author wanking is my least favorite literary trope.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

OMG I HATE IT SO MUCH.

[bigscary.livejournal.com]

I love Ubik. But I get your issues. It's certainly not the first Dick I'd read. Though, come to think of it, I'm hard pressed to think of a good choice for a first PKD book. None of them are exactly welcoming.

But if you don't like THINGS HAPPEN WHAT HAPPEN style plots, Dick is never going to be for you. His characters are not the most richly drawn, and they certainly are driven by, rather than driving, his plots.

(tangential, but when I think richly drawn characters who drive the plot, I think, of all classic SF, of Bester.)

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I do get why his writing is appealing to some people. I mean the book is stuffed with interesting little ideas. But he has so little characterization, and what characterization he has is so misogynistic, I really can't stand it.

[gryphonrose.livejournal.com]

I actually really like some of his work--particularly The Man in the High Castle. I couldn't get through Ubik, though, and I'm impressed you did. I read a bit of it, years back, and couldn't stand to finish it.