A Scanner Darkly by PK Dick
I was somewhat annoyed by this book. It was so teenage boy rambleness. I was waiting for something to happen and it did. It happened so slowly that I didn't quite notice it. The slow graduation from known reality to burnout to twist in the last chapter. My final feeling is mixed with continued interest in Dick as a writer and less interest in this story in particular. I suppose if you want to know what it's like to get addicted to something and the aimless chatter and paranoia along with it, the story is for you. But that's just not where I'm at in my life, so less interest for me personally. I really liked a couple things that Dick wrote.
(from p. 231 Vintage Ed)
"After he saw God he felt really good, for around a year. And then he felt really bad. Worse than he had ever before in his life. Because one day it came over him, he began to realize, that he was never going to see God again; he was going to live out his whole remaining life, decades, maybe fifty years, and see nothing but what he had always seen. What we see. He was worse off than if he hadn't seen God. ... He realized he was going to have to live on and on like he was, seeing nothing. Without any purpose. Just a lump of flesh grinding along, eating, drinking, sleeping, working, crapping."
"Like the rest of us." It was the first thing Bob Arctor had managed to say[.] ... " Did ... he say what it was like?"
"Sparks. Showers of colored sparks, like when something goes wrong with your TV set. Sparks going up the wall, sparks in the air. And the whole world was a living creature, wherever he looked. And there were no accidents: everything fitted together and happened on purpose, to achieve something -- some goal in the future. ...
And so on. I found this interesting because this is a very good description of a technique I try to practice called seeing. I call it the fizz. You can see the fizz. It doesn't take any special skills. I used to do it as a kid, looking up into the ceiling. Best time to try this is at dusk. Be in a room where the light comes, defocus your eyes but stare at the ceiling or wall. Just relax and try to keep very quiet. You may notice there is a film over the wall or ceiling and it looks like snow on your TV. I also generally notice a yellow gold glow. Cool!
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