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Post by Knygathin on Apr 24, 2020 5:26:13 GMT
Struggling with the first page of Ubik, trying to visualize what I am reading, but find it incomprehensible. Words that don't mean a thing to me. Very different writing style from Bradbury. Not sure I am going to be able to handle this book. Or rather, no writing style at all. The words seem scrambled. And his own invented words are used before giving explanations of their meaning. That is bad writing, without consideration for leading the reader. A consequence of abusing drugs, perhaps. |
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peedeel
Crab On The Rampage
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Post by peedeel on Apr 24, 2020 6:36:47 GMT
Posted by Knygathin7 hours ago: "Struggling with the first page of Ubik, trying to visualize what I am reading, but find it incomprehensible. Words that don't mean a thing to me. Very different writing style from Bradbury. Not sure I am going to be able to handle this book."Central message: Can't be sure of anything in the world that we call 'reality’. Visons, perhaps, of the dead or half-dead. The big question: who is alive; who dead – never made explicitly clear. Stanislaw Lem had this to say about Mr Dick and Ubik: ‘The forces which bring about world debacle in Dick's books are fantastic, but they are not merely invented ad hoc to shock the readers. We shall show this on the example of Ubik, a work which, by the way, can also be regarded as a fantastic grotesque, a "macabresque" with obscure allegorical subtexts, decked out in the guise of ordinary SF
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[Imagine] ‘a technology which makes possible the "half-life" of the dead, nothing prevents the author from remaining faithful to his characters and following them with his narrative – into the depths of their icy dream, which is henceforward the only form of life open to them.’
On the other hand, Joe, "pizzled on papapot", is showing his exhausted, paranoid, drugged-up delusions; it’s all in his head. A difficult book to interpret and fully understand. I would suggest impossible.  |
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peedeel
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 61
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Post by peedeel on Apr 24, 2020 6:37:08 GMT
Posted by Knygathin7 hours ago: "Struggling with the first page of Ubik, trying to visualize what I am reading, but find it incomprehensible. Words that don't mean a thing to me. Very different writing style from Bradbury. Not sure I am going to be able to handle this book."Central message: Can't be sure of anything in the world that we call 'reality’. Visons, perhaps, of the dead or half-dead. The big question: who is alive; who dead – never made explicitly clear. Stanislaw Lem had this to say about Mr Dick and Ubik: ‘The forces which bring about world debacle in Dick's books are fantastic, but they are not merely invented ad hoc to shock the readers. We shall show this on the example of Ubik, a work which, by the way, can also be regarded as a fantastic grotesque, a "macabresque" with obscure allegorical subtexts, decked out in the guise of ordinary SF
[...]
[Imagine] ‘a technology which makes possible the "half-life" of the dead, nothing prevents the author from remaining faithful to his characters and following them with his narrative – into the depths of their icy dream, which is henceforward the only form of life open to them.’
On the other hand, Joe, "pizzled on papapot", is showing his exhausted, paranoid, drugged-up delusions; it’s all in his head. A difficult book to interpret and fully understand. I would suggest impossible. |
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Post by Knygathin on Apr 24, 2020 8:58:57 GMT
Stanislaw Lem had this to say about Mr Dick and Ubik: ‘The forces which bring about world debacle in Dick's books are fantastic, but they are not merely invented ad hoc to shock the readers. We shall show this on the example of Ubik, a work which, by the way, can also be regarded as a fantastic grotesque, a "macabresque" with obscure allegorical subtexts, decked out in the guise of ordinary SF
[...]
[Imagine] ‘a technology which makes possible the "half-life" of the dead, nothing prevents the author from remaining faithful to his characters and following them with his narrative – into the depths of their icy dream, which is henceforward the only form of life open to them.’
... A difficult book to interpret and fully understand. I would suggest impossible.
Sounds very interesting.
Lem's Solaris is an amazing book. Perhaps the most genuine vision of bizarre alien weirdness I have ever read. I read this translated edition:
Ok, I will give Ubik an open-minded try. Some critic said that the first 70 pages are not so good, but the rest of it is his absolute masterpiece.
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Post by andydecker on Apr 24, 2020 20:45:10 GMT
Struggling with the first page of Ubik, trying to visualize what I am reading, but find it incomprehensible. Words that don't mean a thing to me. Very different writing style from Bradbury. Not sure I am going to be able to handle this book. Or rather, no writing style at all. The words seem scrambled. And his own invented words are used before giving explanations of their meaning. That is bad writing, without consideration for leading the reader. A consequence of abusing drugs, perhaps. I thought your words very interesting. So I took the novel from the shelf and read the first chapter. At first I couldn't follow you. Maybe I have read too much SF in my life, but I didn't thought it incomprehensible. Heavy on unexplained exposition, sure, but this one can find in many SF novels of the time. I wouldn't call it bad writing, but as a technique it is problematic and can be extremly irritating.
But on second thought I could understand you. As a start of the novel it is without a doubt a difficult cold opening, which seem to be rather typical of Dick, come to think of it. He just expects the reader to keep going. Which of course can alienate the reader. The SF market was such a (successful) ghetto at the time that it didn't thought it necessesary to be more accessible.
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Post by Knygathin on Apr 24, 2020 21:41:06 GMT
Thank you andydecker for appreciating what I wrote, and for your understanding.
It was a while ago, but I had an easier time getting into The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. The only book by Philip K. Dick I have read so far.
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Post by Knygathin on Apr 26, 2020 1:10:41 GMT
... Maybe I have read too much SF in my life, but I didn't thought it incomprehensible. Heavy on unexplained exposition, sure, but this one can find in many SF novels of the time. I wouldn't call it bad writing, but as a technique it is problematic and can be extremly irritating.
... As a start of the novel it is without a doubt a difficult cold opening, which seem to be rather typical of Dick, come to think of it. He just expects the reader to keep going. Which of course can alienate the reader. The SF market was such a (successful) ghetto at the time that it didn't thought it necessesary to be more accessible.
I like your observation ability. You get to the essence of some evasive things. It is rare today. Most flop around desperately in their analysis like a fish on dry land, and dutifully try to follow the slot of contemporary values in the doing, cheered on by the community. I remember, especially in my teens, when I regularly alternated back and forth between quite different kinds of writers. Between the very clear prose of H. P. Lovecraft, C. A. Smith, and more hardboiled science fiction writers. It always took me a page or two before I mentally adapted, and could get into the non-reflective, non-dreamy, matter-of-fact straight-on skimming attitudes of the hardboiled writers. They can be worlds apart. It is like visiting another country, it takes a while before you get into the peculiar flow of the other culture. I began reading Ubik aloud instead, to force myself to focus and get into his specific perspective. It helped. Now finally I have entered the book, jogging along at an easy trot. |
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Post by andydecker on Apr 26, 2020 13:05:53 GMT
I like your observation ability. You get to the essence of some evasive things. It is rare today. Most flop around desperately in their analysis like a fish on dry land, and dutifully try to follow the slot of contemporary values in the doing, cheered on by the community. Thank you! I used to do a lot of expertise in the past, often also reading the slush pile, doing short summarizes of content and so on, probable marketability. After a while it gets a bit of second nature to be (sometimes without a doubt overly) critical and clinical in the approach to reading. |
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Post by Dr Strange on Apr 26, 2020 14:28:17 GMT
The words seem scrambled. And his own invented words are used before giving explanations of their meaning. That is bad writing, without consideration for leading the reader. I am pretty sure this is a deliberate technique on Dick's part: He wants his readers to be a bit disorientated, and having to work out what is actually going on for themselves. |
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