It's a psychedickian day at David Gill's Total Dick-Head blog, the source for Philip K. Dick esoterica and ephemera. Today, David announced that he'll spend the summer reading and blogging his favorite PKD novel, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. David writes:
I'll be analyzing the action, looking for common PKD themes and connections to other works, enjoying the new notes on the novel prepared by Jonathan Lethem for the Library of America release, and exploring scholarly work done on the novel…
Dick said this about the novel in an interview:
"I have read [3 Stigmata] and have the distinct impression that it was an extraordinary book — so extraordinary that it may have no peer. It may be a unique book in the history of writing –nothing was ever done like this. And then I've read it over and thought it was completely crazy, just insane; not about insanity, it is insanity. God, it's a weird book."
Also today, Erik Davis, author of the fantastic books Techngnosis and Visionary State, analyzes this magnificent freak culture cover of the 1984 DAW edition of A Scanner Darkly. From Erik's essay:
I use the term freak quite consciously. First injected into circulation by Frank Zappa in 1966, freak captures the experimental, surrealist, anti-authoritarian, and all around less wholesome dimension of the counterculture. Hippies read The Hobbit; freaks read H.P. Lovecraft and Philip K. Dick. Barris, the Scanner character possessed of weird and funny raps, is a freak. Emerging at the crossroads of drugs, the pulp imagination, culture hacking, and media tech, the freak was perfectly poised to both write and consume SF. Link
Previously on BB:
• David Gill reviews Philip K. Dick's new old novel Link
• David Gill's new Philip K. Dick blog Link
• Jonathan Lethem on Philip K. Dick Link
• Erik Davis consults on A Scanner Darkly Link
• Erik Davis channeling Philip K. Dick Link
• Visionary State: A Journey Through California's Spiritual Landscape Link
