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akashic_dreckard's review
adventurous
challenging
informative
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
tittypete's review against another edition
2.0
Too smart for me. I read Cosmic Trigger and Valis and couldn't really make heads or tails of them. Too esoteric and mumbo-jumbo-y. Thought this book would help make sense of the weirder pieces from RAW and PKD (never read Mckenna but the third part of the book is about his trips in South America) but it's an MIT phd thesis. So super dense. Lots of 10-dollar words. Fairly dry. The first couple dozen pages are just about landing on working definition of 'weird'. Basically, these 3 dudes had some wild consciousness breakthroughs in the 70s and rambled about it, came up with theories and tried to name the entities they supposedly were in communication with. The author sorta ties things together. Most of it went over my head. Overly frequent use of 'hermeneutics'.
pickle_burner's review against another edition
2.0
I had high hopes for this book. In theory, it's right up my ally -- an exploration of the weird world of California in the 60s and 70s, as engendered by the proliferation of psychedelics and other consciousness-changing or eradicating substances, practices, beliefs, and/or rituals. The book seeks to describe this context, as well as a new concept of "high weirdness" (a sort of aesthetic and quasi-"religious" state), through the experiences of three figures prominent in the 60s and 70s -- Terrence McKenna, Robert Anton Wilson, and Philip K. Dick. Before beginning Davis' book, I was passingly familiar with all three, but had only read one Wilson book and one book by Dick.
Unfortunately, Davis too frequently gets in his own way and creates a somewhat jumbled mishmash of philosophical concepts, "low brow" pop culture, occult(ish) practices and beliefs, and earnest psychedelic explorations. Somewhere in this book is a truly mind-blowing and revolutionary story about human potential and the edges of human knowledge and consciousness. What this book desperately needed was an editor, someone who could effectively push back on Davis and work with him to clarify concepts and simplify what is often the worst kind of academic speech. It won't come as a surprise to any reader of this book that it began its life as a doctoral dissertation. An example of the kind of needlessly complex writing: "This question also compels the longings of esotericism and a myriad of religious cosmologies, and is as good a diagnosis of the weird as anything. But in Rickles' emphatically embodied view, which insists on absolute finitude, the absent presence of such specters negates the existential possibilities of the supernatural views they inevitably engender" (emphasis mine). If something is finite, it is absolute, fully contained, so "absolute finitude" is a redundancy that adds nothing and only serves to confuse the reader. Likewise, "absent presence" is meaningless, self-satisfied drivel that should have been caught and cut by an editor. The book is laden with this type of writing, which only obfuscates an already challenging concept (an aesthetic of "the weird"). So often, it took my an hour or more to read 10-15 pages, and I would have to reread certain sentences over and over to try and understand them. As a reader, it is frustrating, particularly as you might consider this to be an interpretative text, one that is trying to explain and contextualize a new idea for a more general audience.
It is clear that Davis owes a great debt to cultural critics like Greill Marcus, people who are able to connect wildly different historical figures and movements to precise moments of culture eruptions in ways that are new and surprising, and which are therefore enlightening or challenging, depending on how you view their assertions. Unfortunately, where Marcus takes great pains to illuminate the core concepts of his books (thinking specifically of his books Lipstick Traces and The Old, Weird America) in language most of his readers will be able to comprehend, Davis instead leans too heavily on academic or specialized language to move the reader through key concepts in the book. I can't tell you how many times he used such words as, "ontological," "hermeneutics," "exegetical," "oneiric," and so on. I'm not trying to be petty or insolent in this critique -- one of my favorite writers is Cormac McCarthy, who is often accused of using obscure or difficult language for no real reason. But Davis' is not a work of fiction, and unfortunately the bridge through the difficult material that he builds for the reader is beset with mines and snares of his own making.
The other note I would add about this book is that, while it is not necessary for the reader to be familiar with McKenna, Wilson, or Dick, it would be helpful, and I suspect that they would get a lot more out of this if they were more familiar. Often, the tone of the book assumes familiarity, and while you might hope that Davis will go deep into the context and happenstance of particular incident, he doesn't. This is not a retelling of Dick's 2-3-74, McKenna's Experiment at La Chorrera, or Wilson's climb out of the "Chapel Perilous." Some explanation is provided, of course, but if you, like me, aren't familiar with those incidents just listed, you may find yourself somewhat frustrated by how they are handled in this text.
I don't mean to be too harsh. I really wanted to love this book. And yet, after finishing it, I'm only relieved at having made it through. Now, onto reading some Philip K. Dick!
Unfortunately, Davis too frequently gets in his own way and creates a somewhat jumbled mishmash of philosophical concepts, "low brow" pop culture, occult(ish) practices and beliefs, and earnest psychedelic explorations. Somewhere in this book is a truly mind-blowing and revolutionary story about human potential and the edges of human knowledge and consciousness. What this book desperately needed was an editor, someone who could effectively push back on Davis and work with him to clarify concepts and simplify what is often the worst kind of academic speech. It won't come as a surprise to any reader of this book that it began its life as a doctoral dissertation. An example of the kind of needlessly complex writing: "This question also compels the longings of esotericism and a myriad of religious cosmologies, and is as good a diagnosis of the weird as anything. But in Rickles' emphatically embodied view, which insists on absolute finitude, the absent presence of such specters negates the existential possibilities of the supernatural views they inevitably engender" (emphasis mine). If something is finite, it is absolute, fully contained, so "absolute finitude" is a redundancy that adds nothing and only serves to confuse the reader. Likewise, "absent presence" is meaningless, self-satisfied drivel that should have been caught and cut by an editor. The book is laden with this type of writing, which only obfuscates an already challenging concept (an aesthetic of "the weird"). So often, it took my an hour or more to read 10-15 pages, and I would have to reread certain sentences over and over to try and understand them. As a reader, it is frustrating, particularly as you might consider this to be an interpretative text, one that is trying to explain and contextualize a new idea for a more general audience.
It is clear that Davis owes a great debt to cultural critics like Greill Marcus, people who are able to connect wildly different historical figures and movements to precise moments of culture eruptions in ways that are new and surprising, and which are therefore enlightening or challenging, depending on how you view their assertions. Unfortunately, where Marcus takes great pains to illuminate the core concepts of his books (thinking specifically of his books Lipstick Traces and The Old, Weird America) in language most of his readers will be able to comprehend, Davis instead leans too heavily on academic or specialized language to move the reader through key concepts in the book. I can't tell you how many times he used such words as, "ontological," "hermeneutics," "exegetical," "oneiric," and so on. I'm not trying to be petty or insolent in this critique -- one of my favorite writers is Cormac McCarthy, who is often accused of using obscure or difficult language for no real reason. But Davis' is not a work of fiction, and unfortunately the bridge through the difficult material that he builds for the reader is beset with mines and snares of his own making.
The other note I would add about this book is that, while it is not necessary for the reader to be familiar with McKenna, Wilson, or Dick, it would be helpful, and I suspect that they would get a lot more out of this if they were more familiar. Often, the tone of the book assumes familiarity, and while you might hope that Davis will go deep into the context and happenstance of particular incident, he doesn't. This is not a retelling of Dick's 2-3-74, McKenna's Experiment at La Chorrera, or Wilson's climb out of the "Chapel Perilous." Some explanation is provided, of course, but if you, like me, aren't familiar with those incidents just listed, you may find yourself somewhat frustrated by how they are handled in this text.
I don't mean to be too harsh. I really wanted to love this book. And yet, after finishing it, I'm only relieved at having made it through. Now, onto reading some Philip K. Dick!
a_monkey's review
4.0
The best, purest weirdness is a self-renewing resource that provides novel glimpses of the real even as it expands the boundaries of the explicable way beyond the horizons of the comprehensible. And this is that real shit. Davis is a very clever dude with a lot of love for his subjects that drives him to ask big questions about their work and bring back bigger answers. I’ve never read anything quite like it. Highly recommended.
tumblehawk's review
5.0
This book is mega, a deep dive into the weirdness of a very specific time (the early 70's) in a very specific locale (California) that, like tunneling into a fractal, flowers out to be about the deeper past and the future - i.e. the present we are currently living in. (In this, it reminded me, strangely, of Paris 1919, by Margaret MacMillan - though, obviously, way fucking stranger.) Just a flipped out, excellent book that makes me feel a squirmy thrill at being part of what I now see is a long strange tradition of American seeking.
thomasgoddard's review against another edition
4.0
If you can get over the repetition, this is a dense and heavily impregnated text of the most splendid sort.
You'll be wanting to take notes.
Why would you embark on this challenging read? If you're a writer of any variety (except perhaps commercial fiction) it will offer some really fascinating insights into the creative process. The effect of narrative. The powerful effect of reading/absorbing information about the world. And how our minds are crystalline and refract and bend that incoming enlightenment into new and many-splendid forms.
The examination of Terence and Dennis McKenna's explorations was quite interesting, but I think rather too... Glorifying? I'm still not 100% teased out on my thinking of this.
My favourite parts were those tackling Philip K. Dick's life and creative process. It examines his work from multiple perspectives and doesn't fall into assumptive reasoning.
Once weirdness is defined. And after it has been documented as a tool. The book zooms off into these Philip Dickian rhapsodic sequences. I do feel like there were more authors (beyond others touched on earlier in the text) that could have shared a little of the space so clearly carved out solely for Philip K. Dick's work.
It felt, by the end, as if it was a book that merely went through the motions of exploring weirdness until he could catch the reader up and then get on with chatting about PKD.
That's not a direct criticism because you still gain from the experience. But I felt it would be a stronger piece simply by throwing out the sections on other people and making it a book about PKD.
Throughout there is a foolishness (a joyful indulgence in their role as the mystical fools) - interpolated into a sort of ignorant wisdom or accidental brilliance manifested via a form of intellectual playfulness.
Overall the book is a detailed, well-crafted textbook of the weird and taught me a fair bit. It shifted my thinking about the implementation of the aspect of weirdness to my own life. And into the value of consciousness and the suspension of disbelief necessary in order to correctly curate selfhood.
You'll be wanting to take notes.
Why would you embark on this challenging read? If you're a writer of any variety (except perhaps commercial fiction) it will offer some really fascinating insights into the creative process. The effect of narrative. The powerful effect of reading/absorbing information about the world. And how our minds are crystalline and refract and bend that incoming enlightenment into new and many-splendid forms.
The examination of Terence and Dennis McKenna's explorations was quite interesting, but I think rather too... Glorifying? I'm still not 100% teased out on my thinking of this.
My favourite parts were those tackling Philip K. Dick's life and creative process. It examines his work from multiple perspectives and doesn't fall into assumptive reasoning.
Once weirdness is defined. And after it has been documented as a tool. The book zooms off into these Philip Dickian rhapsodic sequences. I do feel like there were more authors (beyond others touched on earlier in the text) that could have shared a little of the space so clearly carved out solely for Philip K. Dick's work.
It felt, by the end, as if it was a book that merely went through the motions of exploring weirdness until he could catch the reader up and then get on with chatting about PKD.
That's not a direct criticism because you still gain from the experience. But I felt it would be a stronger piece simply by throwing out the sections on other people and making it a book about PKD.
Throughout there is a foolishness (a joyful indulgence in their role as the mystical fools) - interpolated into a sort of ignorant wisdom or accidental brilliance manifested via a form of intellectual playfulness.
Overall the book is a detailed, well-crafted textbook of the weird and taught me a fair bit. It shifted my thinking about the implementation of the aspect of weirdness to my own life. And into the value of consciousness and the suspension of disbelief necessary in order to correctly curate selfhood.
kelshef's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
booksthatburn's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness
Moderate: Child death, Violence, Grief, Drug use, Murder, Death, Domestic abuse, and Drug abuse