рефераты конспекты курсовые дипломные лекции шпоры

Реферат Курсовая Конспект

Foreword

Foreword - раздел Литература, Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford and Other Stories By Steven Owen Godersky   There Is A Current Coin-Of-P...

By Steven Owen Godersky

 

There is a current coin-of-phrase that touts Philip K. Dick as the greatest science fiction mind on any planet. Well, that and a trajectory to Lagrange-5 are hyperbolic. The returns simply are not all in. The best is a tale that has yet to be written.

There are some things, though, that might make us feel a little more secure about Phil Dick's contribution to this planet, not that his reputation needs any particular help today. The scope, the integrity and the intellectual magnificence of Phil's work are internationally revered. He is regarded by many as the most "serious" of the modern science fiction authors, and the interest in his works has continued to mount since his untimely death in 1982. His reputation has been further enhanced by a growing body of scholarly criticism. If we take a measured look at his accomplishments there are three powerful themes that permeate almost every novel and story.

The first and most prominent theme today, can be seen in Phil's watershed work on the question of what divides humanity from all the intricacies of its creations. This is part of the central preoccupation of all consequential writers. But Phil rephrased the question What does it mean to be human? to What is it like not to be human? He posed the problem intellectually, after his fashion, but then he made us feel his answers. In the best and really highest tradition of Mary Shelley he struck on empathy as the difference; in his own word, caritas. I do not have to be a futurist to predict that both his search and his discovery will become ever more important to us as we rush along the strange road that science calls progress.

Phil's second theme is one of perspective; what I have come to think of as the care and feeding of scale-model gods. Though the arena of his ideas was so very large, what he trusted was, he once wrote, "very small." In a literary era of superstars and superheroes Phil reminds us that our aspirations and abilities are not so different from, and not less important than, those of the great and powerful.

Think of Tung Chien in Faith of Our Fathers, and Ragel Gumm in Time Out of Joint. Their prosaic drudgery proves central to the fate of their worlds. Recall Herb Ellis in Prominent Author, an ordinary guy rewrites the Old Testament for inch-tall goatherds. Reflect on the significance of Herb Sousa's gumballs in Holy Quarrel; on the moral influence of wub-fur, in NotBy Its Cover, and the battle with the sentient pinball machine in Return Match. Small is written large. Large is written small. Shop clerks and storekeepers are just as likely as warlords and messiahs to be at Dick's ontological foci. Old Mrs. Berthelsen, in Captive Market, possesses the ultimate secret of time and space, and uses it to sell vegetables out of a wagon.

When reading Dick you don't much see mile-long spaceships flaming into the sun. What you do see is one broken-down robot in a ditch. Or, more frightening, one butterfly trapped in a time warp. In Phil Dick's stories, we see that everything, human or otherwise, is connected, everyone is impor­tant; what causes pain to one causes pain to all. As John Brunner points out, it certainly caused pain to Phil himself.

Phil Dick's third major theme is his fascination with war and his fear and hatred of it. One hardly sees critical mention of it, yet it is as integral to his body of work as oxygen is to water.

Perhaps Dick, who began his writing career in Berkeley, California, absorbed the sensibilities of a town that had a carefully nurtured liberal com­mitment. Perhaps Joe McCarthy and the Korean War sensitized a beginning writer's imagination. We know little of his juvenile years during the Second World War. But we can identify, early and consistently, a mistrust of the mili­tary mentality, a fear of what he had seen of the total war machine on either side. He had a great disinclination to accept the slogans of the period that supported the ends over the means. Victory at all cost for Democracy, for Freedom, for the Flag are hollow aphorisms when the price of victory is totali­tarian submission to a heartless military bureaucracy: Phil feared this partic­ular future for all of us.

From Phil's earliest stories, The Defenders, The Variable Man, A Surface Raid and To Serve the Master, to his later fiction, such as Faith of Our Fathers, and The Exit Door Leads In, the winners and the losers show their humanity largely in their rejection of warfare and aggression. For Dick, the only acceptable struggle was against the evil he recognized as "the forces of dissolution." Phil Dick was anti-military long before it became fashionable in the Sixties. He continued, through his whole career, to value humanity and its foibles, no matter how small and vulnerable, over the organized terror of the modern state, no matter how expedient.

So here it is; a look into an eclectic and vigorous mind. This indispensable collection of Phil Dick's less than novel-length fiction may disturb you. It may frighten you, because some of Phil's people live very close to home. But these stories will not leave you unchanged. A strange wind may blow through your door late at night, and the shadows of familiar objects may quiver in the light. Is some Palmer Eldritch figure hurrying now to approach our world? Even if you're not a pre-cog, don't say you weren't warned.

 

 

– Конец работы –

Эта тема принадлежит разделу:

Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford and Other Stories

На сайте allrefs.net читайте: "Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford and Other Stories"

Если Вам нужно дополнительный материал на эту тему, или Вы не нашли то, что искали, рекомендуем воспользоваться поиском по нашей базе работ: Foreword

Что будем делать с полученным материалом:

Если этот материал оказался полезным ля Вас, Вы можете сохранить его на свою страничку в социальных сетях:

Все темы данного раздела:

Contents
  Stability Roog The Little Movement Beyond Lies the Wub The Gun The Skull The Defenders Mr. Spaceship Piper in

Preface
By Philip K. Dick   I will define science fiction, first, by saying what sf is not. It cannot be defined as "a story (or novel or play) set in the future," s

Introduction
By Roger Zelazny   When I was approached to write this introduction I declined. It had nothing to do with my attitude toward Phil Dick's work. It was, rather, because I felt

Stability
  Robert Benton slowly spread his wings, flapped them several times and sailed majestically off the roof and into the darkness. He was swallowed up by the night at once. Bene

The Little Movement
  The man was sitting on the sidewalk, holding the box shut with his hands. Impatiently the lid of the box moved, straining up against his fingers. "All right," the

Beyond Lies the Wub
  They had almost finished with the loading. Outside stood the Optus, his arms folded, his face sunk in gloom. Captain Franco walked leisurely down the gangplank, grinning. &

The Gun
  The Captain peered into the eyepiece of the telescope. He adjusted the focus quickly. "It was an atomic fission we saw, all right," he said presently. He sighed a

The Skull
  "What is this opportunity?" Conger asked. "Go on. I'm interested." The room was silent; all faces were fixed on Conger -- still in the drab prison unifo

The Defenders
  Taylor sat back in his chair reading the morning newspaper. The warm kitchen and the smell of coffee blended with the comfort of not having to go to work. This was his Rest Period,

Mr. Spaceship
  Kramer leaned back. "You can see the situation. How can we deal with a factor like this? The perfect variable." "Perfect? Prediction should still be possible

Piper in the Woods
  "Well, Corporal Westerburg," Doctor Henry Harris said gently, "just why do you think you're a plant?" As he spoke, Harris glanced down again at the card

The Infinites
  "I don't like it," Major Crispin Eller said. He stared through the port scope, frowning. "An asteroid like this with plenty of water, moderate temper­ature, an atmosp

The Preserving Machine
  Doc Labyrinth leaned back in his lawn chair, closing his eyes gloomily. He pulled his blanket up around his knees. "Well?" I said. I was standing by the barbecue

Expendable
  The man came out on the front porch and examined the day. Bright and cold -- with dew on the lawns. He buttoned his coat and put his hands in his pockets. As the man starte

The Indefatigable Frog
  "Zeno was the first great scientist," Professor Hardy stated, looking sternly around his classroom. "For example, take his paradox of the frog and the well. As Zeno s

The Crystal Crypt
  "Attention Inner-Flight ship! Attention! You are ordered to land at the Control Station on Deimos for inspection. Attention! You are to land at once!" The metalli

The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford
  "I have something to show you," Doc Labyrinth said. From his coat pocket he gravely drew forth a matchbox. He held the matchbox tightly, his eyes fixed on it. "You're

The Builder
  "E.J. Elwood!" Liz said anxiously. "You aren't listening to anything we're saying. And you're not eating a bit. What in the world is the matter with you? Sometimes I

Meddler
  They entered the great chamber. At the far end, technicians hovered around an immense illuminated board, following a complex pattern of lights that shifted rapidly, flashing through

Paycheck
  All at once he was in motion. Around him smooth jets hummed. He was on a small private rocket cruiser, moving leisurely across the afternoon sky, between cities. "Ugh!

The Great C
  He was not told the questions until just before it was time to leave. Walter Kent drew him aside from the others. Putting his hands on Meredith's shoulders, he looked intently into

Out in the Garden
  "That's where she is," Robert Nye said. "As a matter of fact, she's always out there. Even when the weather's bad. Even in the rain." "I see,"

The King of the Elves
  It was raining and getting dark. Sheets of water blew along the row of pumps at the edge of the filling station; the tree across the highway bent against the wind. Shadrach

Prize Ship
  General Thomas Groves gazed glumly up at the battle maps on the wall. The thin black line, the iron ring around Ganymede, was still there. He waited a moment, vaguely hoping, but th

Хотите получать на электронную почту самые свежие новости?
Education Insider Sample
Подпишитесь на Нашу рассылку
Наша политика приватности обеспечивает 100% безопасность и анонимность Ваших E-Mail
Реклама
Соответствующий теме материал
  • Похожее
  • Популярное
  • Облако тегов
  • Здесь
  • Временно
  • Пусто
Теги