Bizarre, funny, convoluted, and brilliant, Philip K. Dick’s novel is one of the most thoroughly original things I’ve read in some time. Dick has an amazing ability to drop his readers into a world unapologetically unlike anything they have seen before and leaves us to figure it out as we muddle along. I find I go to Philip K. Dick whenever I want to see how an author can build a world without spoon feeding it to us, and for something weird.
Ubik takes place in a world where humanity has developed abilities such as prescience, influencing probability outcomes, or mind reading. Others have abilities that nullify these abilities. Of course, because Dick has a spectacular understanding of humanity, an exploitative industry has been built up around people with these abilities. The main character, Joe Chip, works for one such company.
Ubik has a great deal to say about consumerism, identity, existentialism, power and trust and I recommend it to everyone, but what I really want to talk about is a single feature of the novel.
Half-life.
The idea is that when you die, residual brain activity can be preserved in a form of semi-life in which living people can talk to what is left of a lost loved one’s consciousness. There is a finite amount of time that the energy of half-life can be maintained and talking to the dead must be parsed out carefully, or the energy of Half-life could be used up and a final death will take them forever. Dick uses this to masterful effect. It is where the novel becomes most philosophically and metaphorically interesting. Combined with unexpected facets of a world in the future of the 90’s and some audacious narrative leaps, Dick builds a fascinating and unique world.
Another of my favorite features of Ubik is the utterly fantastic and outlandish clothing choices. Here are a few of my favorite descriptions of what some characters wear:
“a sporty maroon wrapper, twinkle-toes turned-up shoes and a felt cap with a tassel”
Another character is described as “Square and puffy, like an overweight brick, wearing his usual mohair poncho, apricot-colored felt hat, argyle ski socks and carpet slippers.”
“He wore fuchsia pedal pushers, pink yak fur slippers, a snakeskin sleeveless blouse, and a ribbon in his waist-length dyed white hair.”
The owner of a moratorium at one point wears “a Continental outfit: tweed toga, loafers, crimson sash and a purple airplane-propeller beanie.”
What’s not to love?
M. W. IRVING 