Ubik by Phillip K Dick

1. Where the story convolutes the reader’s knowledge of what’s happening—the basic reality of the world—the structure stays pretty straightforward. It is interspersed with flashbacks and visions that tend to offer the reader more information, none of which really make sense. But making sense is not Dick’s point, here. He’s trying to remain mysterious and force the reader to have to make up their own mind about some of the basics of the reality of the world. For instance, who is dead, who is in half-life, and who is alive? This basic question is never answered. It’s safe to guess that some of the characters are half-life or dead, but who is actually alive is a much stickier subject. Anyways, the consistently straightforward structure of the story helps the reader make some sense out of the novel and serves as a solid base upon which the mystery can exist. Without this structural touchstone, the novel would be overly obtuse; but with this concession to sense-making in place, the novel’s central mystery is allowed to work.

2. Dick starts out with two major tensions: the disappearing psychics and the mission to the moon. The actual central tension in the novel—the questions concerning reality—wait a few chapters before being really written into the tale. They are foreshadowed when Runciter states, “I’m going to talk to my dead wife,” but they only take over the novel in the chapter after the bomb goes off on the moon—a few chapters into the book. This feint by Dick is a common speculative fiction tactic to allow a portion of the novel to focus on worldbuilding. I am typically annoyed by this because I feel like the author could have had the novel itself explain the world, without putting a short story at the start necessary to allowing the rest of the book to make what sense it does. Here it doesn’t annoy me as much, and I don’t really know why. On the one hand, it’s a tactic I dislike because it feels like the author is giving up on searching for ways to tell the story and build the world simultaneously. On the other hand, it sort of works here because the theme is questioning the reality of the built world, but at some level he has to build that world before it can be effectively questioned. So I think I found a place where this tactic that I typically don’t like is effective.

3. The writing is fine. Nothing spectacular, nothing terrible. It’s a uniform quality, which is impressive, but doesn’t really sound beautiful or disappoint. It’s good, and that’s about as far as I can go.

4. The theme here, as already hinted at, is the existential questioning of reality. This theme has filled so many books already that I don’t really want to go into it any further. The real interesting twist that Dick adds is Ubik, the eponymous product. It’s this magic cure-all that is called up by faith, at the end. But like the rest of reality, it changes over time, and it’s only the latest and greatest version that works effectively. Dick’s wife certainly believes Ubik is a metaphor for God, but to me it seems more of a personification of faith based on faith in technology and newness, not faith in God. This comes through the chapter openings more than the final willing of Joe. Joe’s final will for Ubik leaves no real question that at least on some level, Mrs. Dick is correct.

5. I think at some level, these existential-questioning-of-reality novels are all interesting, but none really stand out too far from the rest for me. Some of Dostoevsky’s works are notable, for sure. And I would place this up there near them. I think whichever of these novels a reader first reads that clicks with them will probably be their favorite. This one is worthy, for sure, and a fun read. Dick is able to confuse the reader far a number of chapters in the middle and yet still pull off his project, and that’s impressive.