Last night, I finished reading Philip K. Dick’s 1964 novel, The Penultimate Truth. The plot follows a constellation of characters living in a near futuristic world where atomic war has ravaged the face of earth, forcing the majority of its citizens into underground “ant tanks”, while robots and a few military men battle it out on the surface.
But as Nicholas St. James, the president of one ant tank, discovers when he ventures to the surface to find an artificial pancreas for a dying repairman, the actual truth is something different altogether. The war ended long ago, but the powers that be kept going the lie so that those dwelling under the earth would be motivated to keep the system going while living in virtual slavery.
The plot twists and multiple layers of reality inverting again and again are all pure Philip K. Dick. The overall thrust of this book deals with the necessity of lies and violence to sustain a social order - and whether they really are necessary at all. You could easily draw parallels between the imaginary war in this book to a lot of what’s going on in the world today in the “War Against Terrorism.” But this book is nowhere near as polished as a lot of his other work, especially the later stuff.
One of the things that really got to me was his excessive use of made up jargon and abbreviations. The book is chock full of it and it really impedes the reading process. Also very aggravating is the constant internal italicized monologues that take place right in the middle of conversations. It’s almost like Dick started out with a basic fifty page story and then fleshed it out with all these damned italicized passages later on so that he could push it towards 200 pages. Whatever the case, they really slow down the reading process.
About halfway through though, the damn finally breaks and the novel starts to pick up. I don’t want to spoil the fun of what happens, but I think the second half makes the first half worth reading. Overall though, if you’re anything but a hardcore PKD fan, I would recommend you start elsewhere, like maybe with Ubik, Flow My Tears, or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Comment by whatacharacter — June 19, 2006 @ 8:44 am
PKD was an incredibly prolific writer with a stunning imagination. I have not read this one, but really enjoy his short stories. I am also fond of the word “penultimate” - the verbal equivalent to cranking the amp up to 11!
Comment by Johnny Drongo — June 19, 2006 @ 9:05 am
Is that the one with the greatest fictional character name in recorded history, Lars Powderdry? On second thought I think that award should go to Joe Chip.
Comment by SubstanceM — June 19, 2006 @ 10:25 am
re your comment that it reads like a fleshed out shorter story for the first half - Dick did publish at least one short story (I believe from the 50’s) I have read that has the same basic premise - the war is over but humans are still enslaved in underground shelters by the machines they have built, etc.