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3.46 AVERAGE
3.46 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Plenty of great moments, but I got little out of the mental illness charicatures
This was a really good book, but compared to PKDs other masterpieces I have to give this a three for being a little boring.
The coolest thing about this book was how the "clans" of the moon all represented mental "problems" which are really just reflections of pieces of ourselves. We're all a little neurotic, a little paranoid, and so we bring different strengths and weaknesses to all our social groups.
In this book each clan, defined by having a certain mental problem, works with the other clans to form a sort of government where they actually achieve a functional society. So of course this is a clear analog to any real tribe or nation, or even an individual (a society of urges).
So it's pretty interesting, occasionally heart-warming, and it has the classic cartoonish and dark feeling that all Philip K Dick's books has. But it's not quite as fantastic, not quite as dark, not quite as interesting or mind-bending as his other major works.
So if you haven't read any Dick yet, skip this one for now and read something like Ubik, Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep, or the VALIS trilogy.
The coolest thing about this book was how the "clans" of the moon all represented mental "problems" which are really just reflections of pieces of ourselves. We're all a little neurotic, a little paranoid, and so we bring different strengths and weaknesses to all our social groups.
In this book each clan, defined by having a certain mental problem, works with the other clans to form a sort of government where they actually achieve a functional society. So of course this is a clear analog to any real tribe or nation, or even an individual (a society of urges).
So it's pretty interesting, occasionally heart-warming, and it has the classic cartoonish and dark feeling that all Philip K Dick's books has. But it's not quite as fantastic, not quite as dark, not quite as interesting or mind-bending as his other major works.
So if you haven't read any Dick yet, skip this one for now and read something like Ubik, Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep, or the VALIS trilogy.
This was a sleeper hit. The premise of a society formed by mental patients I also saw as a profound question about our society - "Is anyone truly normal?" As usual PKD raises philosophical questions along the way, but this is lighter than most of his other novels and mainly just a good story.
Less intricate in the plot but still enjoyable, this is a good introduction to PKD.
Less intricate in the plot but still enjoyable, this is a good introduction to PKD.
This might be a messed up alegory (or projection) about marriage and its outlandish tribulations, mutual agressions, alienish paranoia, about how a divorce is still the skeletal ghost by which the (now) oponents try to negotiate what is now a warfare. Or maybe this is "just" a work of science fiction about a CIA agent that persecutes his wife to the Moon of the planet of another start system. And lands in what is a clan society. With the curious detail that every clan is made up of individuals with a particular mental ilness. Philip K. Dick's narrative has a strange and disarming sense of humour. Some scene are hilarious, and the next page, with the same characters and context become strangely familiar and we wonder, after a few dozen pages, what became our standard for sanity. Well written, but never confortable and a bit hard to get coordinates from. Maybe entertaining, maybe strong enough to asking a few good questions, if we dare to take it serious enough. You be the judge of that.
adventurous
dark
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
As a big fan of Sci Fi I loved this book.
The set up is rather interesting, complex yet not confusing, and the characters are all unique. However, some of the characters just drop out of the story.
The set up is rather interesting, complex yet not confusing, and the characters are all unique. However, some of the characters just drop out of the story.
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
informative
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The first thing to say on re-reading it several decades later is that structurally it's very weak: the plot is nuts, almost as crazy as the inhabitants of the moon which doubles as a mental asylum for evolved ethnic mental types. That idea is the kernel of the novel, but the author doesn't really take time to explore the intellectual ramifications of the idea of organising a society by psychological categories. Instead we're treated to a lot of pulp detective/ space opera at both ends of the book which make the whole thing sag. This is understandable as like the main character in the book, Dick was writing fuelled by amphetamines which probably contributed to the byzantine forking paths of this frustrating novel.
In short, it's trash partly redeemed by the coruscating description of the society and the race's place in the hierarchy right in the middle of the book. Indeed, Dick was most prescient as his analysis of the Alphane social-psychic structure is very relevant to our own. The paranoid class are the statesmen hating everything and everybody outside their cherished sphere. With the populist uprising one can see elements of the manic warrior class demanding self-determination and independence from the mechanisms of power which keep the elite in control. Think the alt-right today. The Heebs - hebephrenics- can be identified with the underclasses of both the third world and the western world with their deterioration both socially and mentally through advertising and consumerism. They are the proletariat breeding without discrimination. I'm not sure about the radical "polymorphous schizophrenic strata", the ideas people unless you equate them with the new technological whizz kids, but they seem to have some thing of the hebephrenic about them as they adore the plastic and synthetic, the billionaire who sleeps on a rough mattress in his mansion. At the risk of simplification, the ob-coms might reflect the solid, puritanical narrowly ambitious clerks and administrators, though with the decline of the middle class they're likely to join the Heebs. Today, the bureaucratization of universities, the intellectuals has turned the Dick's idea class into ob-coms. As for the schizos, the poet class or mystics, they're more or less absent as there is nothing approaching a visionary in this society, just celebrities and con men.
It's interesting to compare Dick's analysis with a seminal essay by Richard Hofstadter published a year after JFK's murder in 1963. "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" gives a good historical diagnosis of how this clinical type operates, but unlike Dick, H names the paranoid as a military leader, not a statesman. However I think Dick was right to see the samurai type as manic, less disposed to negotiate or mediate via political processes. Obviously western society has changed drastically since the 1960s, but what hasn't changed is that the "pares" and "manses" are writing the narrative of contemporary history.
"Clans" can be seen as a testing kit for determining your psychological type, though I'm sure this was not Dick's intention; the book is savage satire on the psychiatry profession. For myself I would choose to live in Hamlet Hamlet with the creative radicals, though I definitely have traces of the hebephrenic with my occasional neglect of my appearance and my lack of perturbation at the sometimes unkempt state of my apt. But then I might think myself polymorphous schizophrenic- the starting point for children in the novel- but might discover that I'm normal after all.
There's an "Afterword" by another SF writer (Barry Malzberg) who calls Dick's novels "Potemkin villages" but whilst that might be possibly true of some of his plots, devices, highly interchangeable, transient, his ideas do not have pre-planned obsolescence built into them which is why Hollywood are picking up on them and recycling them as part of their propaganda offensive.
In short, it's trash partly redeemed by the coruscating description of the society and the race's place in the hierarchy right in the middle of the book. Indeed, Dick was most prescient as his analysis of the Alphane social-psychic structure is very relevant to our own. The paranoid class are the statesmen hating everything and everybody outside their cherished sphere. With the populist uprising one can see elements of the manic warrior class demanding self-determination and independence from the mechanisms of power which keep the elite in control. Think the alt-right today. The Heebs - hebephrenics- can be identified with the underclasses of both the third world and the western world with their deterioration both socially and mentally through advertising and consumerism. They are the proletariat breeding without discrimination. I'm not sure about the radical "polymorphous schizophrenic strata", the ideas people unless you equate them with the new technological whizz kids, but they seem to have some thing of the hebephrenic about them as they adore the plastic and synthetic, the billionaire who sleeps on a rough mattress in his mansion. At the risk of simplification, the ob-coms might reflect the solid, puritanical narrowly ambitious clerks and administrators, though with the decline of the middle class they're likely to join the Heebs. Today, the bureaucratization of universities, the intellectuals has turned the Dick's idea class into ob-coms. As for the schizos, the poet class or mystics, they're more or less absent as there is nothing approaching a visionary in this society, just celebrities and con men.
It's interesting to compare Dick's analysis with a seminal essay by Richard Hofstadter published a year after JFK's murder in 1963. "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" gives a good historical diagnosis of how this clinical type operates, but unlike Dick, H names the paranoid as a military leader, not a statesman. However I think Dick was right to see the samurai type as manic, less disposed to negotiate or mediate via political processes. Obviously western society has changed drastically since the 1960s, but what hasn't changed is that the "pares" and "manses" are writing the narrative of contemporary history.
"Clans" can be seen as a testing kit for determining your psychological type, though I'm sure this was not Dick's intention; the book is savage satire on the psychiatry profession. For myself I would choose to live in Hamlet Hamlet with the creative radicals, though I definitely have traces of the hebephrenic with my occasional neglect of my appearance and my lack of perturbation at the sometimes unkempt state of my apt. But then I might think myself polymorphous schizophrenic- the starting point for children in the novel- but might discover that I'm normal after all.
There's an "Afterword" by another SF writer (Barry Malzberg) who calls Dick's novels "Potemkin villages" but whilst that might be possibly true of some of his plots, devices, highly interchangeable, transient, his ideas do not have pre-planned obsolescence built into them which is why Hollywood are picking up on them and recycling them as part of their propaganda offensive.
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Quería que me gustase este libro, de verdad que quería. Pero no. El argumento me llamó tantísimo la atención que empecé a leerlo inmediatamente dejando de lado todo lo que estaba leyendo en ese momento.
El autor crea un universo fascinante, lleno de criaturas, rangos sociales, ciudades y sistemas políticos cuanto menos curiosos. Pero a lo largo del libro no se desarrollan lo suficiente como para interesarme por completo en entender cómo funciona dicho universo.
La trama me ha parecido bastante estúpida, con "giros argumentales" totalmente predecibles.
En definitiva, a pesar de las ganas que le tenía a este libro, no me ha aportado absolutamente nada y, probablemente, acabe olvidándome incluso de que lo he leído.
El autor crea un universo fascinante, lleno de criaturas, rangos sociales, ciudades y sistemas políticos cuanto menos curiosos. Pero a lo largo del libro no se desarrollan lo suficiente como para interesarme por completo en entender cómo funciona dicho universo.
La trama me ha parecido bastante estúpida, con "giros argumentales" totalmente predecibles.
En definitiva, a pesar de las ganas que le tenía a este libro, no me ha aportado absolutamente nada y, probablemente, acabe olvidándome incluso de que lo he leído.