The Simulacra, Philip K. Dick

I confess: I've been reading science fiction novels all summer. But it isn't my fault: I was assigned to read Octavia Butler's Mind of My Mind in my penultimate undergraduate class at Pace this summer, and it all went downhill from there. Next thing I knew I was ordering out-of-print Isaac Asimov books for a dollar a piece at abebooks.com and unashamedly riding the subway while engrossed in paperbacks with titles like Foundation and Earth and Patternmaster. Yes, it was quite a descent into genre fiction from my lofty perch amongst David Foster Wallace and Haruki Murakami novels and .... oh let's face it, I've been reading more graphic novels than anything else for the past year. That and geeky nonfiction books by guys like Richard Dawkins and Antonio Damasio. I've been a very naughty English major, I admit.

And I would've gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for The Simulacra. This is the book that finally made me say uncle. The next book I read will be a bona fide Literary Classic, because Philip Dick has finally made me understand the limits of genre fiction. Dick was possibly unique among sci-fi writers of his generation, in that he fully embraced all the conventions of his genre—spaceships, aliens, advanced technology, parallel universes, and all manner of other weird things—but did not accept its limits. While most other sci-fi authors were content with writing neat little stories about how fancy gadgets would help humankind explore and conquer the galaxy, Dick wrote exclusively about dystopian future societies, viewing technology as the rope with which humanity would hang itself. Much more of a realist and more cynical than most of his peers, Dick's characters both conform to and utterly confound the clichés of sci-fi heroism. What makes them so wonderfully sympathetic is that they are almost always deeply flawed—even (sometimes especially) the central protagonist, presuming there is one.

Unfortunately that is where The Simulacra falls down. There is no central character in the novel and so, as the plot unfolds, it becomes increasingly difficult to decide whom to root for. This was seemingly Dick's intent, but he ends up leaving things in such a chaotic, ambiguous mess that by the time one reaches the end, no one seems particularly worth caring about. Perhaps the real problem is that there are so many characters that none of them really takes precedence over the others, either in terms of the amount of narrative devoted to them or the degree of sympathy with which Dick portrays them. To his credit, he avoids painting in black and white: while no one is truly evil, no one is particularly good either, and nearly everyone is simply concerned with the business of reacting to and trying to stay one step ahead of everyone else. In other words, this is a novel populated with selfish, neurotic schemers in a bleak world all but devoid of genuine caring about others.

In itself that does not invalidate the novel, but the story's lack of cohesion and unresolved situations don't build much of a case for its defense. When I say that there are limits to genre fiction and that Dick did not accept them, I am paying him a compliment: at his best, Dick transcended his chosen genre and elevated science fiction to literary, high-art status. Unfortunately, in writing this novel Dick fell prey to the perils of writing science fiction. He cleverly concocted a bunch of bizarre, fantastical situations, technologies and characters, but failed to imbue them with any real meaning or moment. Thus not only do we not know whom to care about, neither do we have any idea what the real point of anything that happened was. Perhaps that again was Dick's intent, but it's hard to understand what anyone else is supposed to get out of it. Ultimately the novel is frustratingly unsatisfying, lacking any real dramatic arc or climax—a dry hump of a narrative.

To try and summarize the plot would probably be an exercise in futility, but to give you the gist of things: the story takes place in a future America called the USEA in which the President is an android (simulacrum) called "der Alte," built by a huge, monolithic cartel called Karp und Sohn. A new der Alte is built every four years and "elected" by the people. The part of der Alte's wife Nicole is played by an actress. Meanwhile a secret, unelected Council actually runs everything and the people are kept distracted by the spectacle of der Alte and Nicole on their television screens. These are the secrets that separate the two segments of the society, the rulers and the general populace, called the Geheimnisträger ("secret bearers") and Befehlträger ("followers"), respectively. In the course of the novel, we follow "Nicole" and a host of other characters ranging from Richard Kongrosian, a paranoid, telekinetically-gifted Russian pianist, to Bertold Goltz, leader of a populist cult called the Sons of Job and ostensibly Nicole's nemesis.

Inexplicably, the novel ends with the implication that humanity is about to destroy itself and a new race of Neanderthaloid people (created accidentally through radiation damage during World War III) are ready and willing to take its place. Mind you, the first 200 pages of this 214-page novel give absolutely no inkling of anything relating to this theme whatsoever. Most of the novel is preoccupied with the internal and external struggles of the various characters and Dick's attempts to connect them, which are extremely artificial and make the author's role seem like that of a bio-engineer splicing genes together at random to see what happens. Perhaps the experiment was a success; I have a feeling only Dick knew for certain.

There is also a strangely persistent thread of paranoia relating to neo-Nazism which is of course never explained fully or resolved in any way. One is left uncertain as to what precisely Dick's point was: is the USEA a fascist government or are the "Sons of Job" led by Bertold Goltz the real neo-Nazis? And what in the world is the point of bringing real-life Nazi Hermann Goering into the story using time travel only to have him do absolutely nothing other than express horror at his own impending demise (revealed using the same time travel technology)? It simply doesn't make any sense.

With all that said, there are some redeeming qualities to The Simulacra. Dick's portrayal of his characters' mental flaws is, as always, one of the most ingratiating qualities of the book. His characters are always so beautifully flawed that we laugh at them and with them simultaneously, and try to pretend that we don't see ourselves in them. The book's tone, a mixture of paranoid dread and urgency with detached ironic observation, is also classic Dick. These elements are what makes the novel's failure such a particular disappointment. I have read several Philip K. Dick books but I've never been so dissatisfied after reading any of them. I can't recommend this book to general readers or new Dick fans, but if you're a hardcore fan and you're quite determined to read this, it will probably satisfy your craving for more Dick.

Personally, I'm off Dick for now. Yes, Dick has left a bad taste in my mouth. Okay okay, I'll stop with the Dick jokes. I'm just saying, don't waste your time with this one. Get a hold of one of his better novels, like The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, The Divine Invasion or Martian Time-Slip; even VALIS, although some people hate that book—I happen to love it, but I can understand and sympathize with those who don't. Just be warned that none of his novels will turn out the way you expect. Of that I can absolutely assure you.