A final remark to this egomaniac's discourse. Since the tubes of paint used by the artist are manufactured and readymade products we must conclude that all the paintings in the world are "readymades aided" and also works of assemblage.*
* Marcel Duchamp, Salt Seller: The Writings of Marcel Duchamp (Marchand du Set) (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 142.
The "fake fake" of Dick and the "readymade" (and its permutations) of Duchamp are, at root, cognate ideas expressing the shimmering indeterminacy between originals and simulacra that is the hallmark of the virtual reality -- both as metaphor and as technology -- of postindustrial society. It was Walter Benjamin, in his seminal 1936 essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," who first clearly delineated this tension. But it was Philip K. Dick, in numerous works including the pointedly titled The Simulacra (1964), who first created a body of fiction that brought the tension to life. The concept of the "simulacrum" has since become a staple of postmodernist criticism -- thus the praise offered by Baudrillard of Dick's works as "a total simulation without origin, past or future."
A brief note on the principles of selection of writings included in the present volume: The primary goal was to set forth the best of Dick's nonfictional efforts. But there was also the secondary aim of offering a representative sampling of his different nonfictional modes -- autobiographical; informal free flights of ideas (in the cozy obscurity of SF fanzines); critical examinations of the SF genre and of his own works in particular; and extended philosophical and theological analyses. In writing of his own life, Dick could range from brutal honesty to blatant fabulistic enhancements. No effort has been made in this volume to sort out "truth" from "fiction" in his autobiographical accounts. (Readers interested in one effort to do so may consult my Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick.)
There are, in addition, selections herein from Dick's fiction: (1) two brief excerpts from an early unpublished Dick mainstream novel -- Gather Yourselves Together (written in 1949) -- featuring autobiographical elements bearing on Dick's experience of reality; and (2) the two completed chapters of the proposed sequel to The Man in the High Castle -- tentatively titled, at one point, as To Scare the Dead -- which have long deserved publication, and, in addition, benefit from being read in conjunction with "Naziism and the High Castle" and "Biographical Material on Hawthorne Abendsen."
For all selections, the year cited with the title is the year of first publication; or, if the piece is unpublished, the year in which it was written (in the case of the Exegesis, the year provided represents, in some cases, my best estimate based on internal textual clues); or if the piece was published significantly later than the writing thereof, the year it was written followed by the year of publication.
At his best, as evidenced both by his fiction and by his finest metaphysical speculations, Dick joins the great creators of parable and paradox of this century -- a lineage that includes G. K. Chesterton, Franz Kafka, Rene Daumal, Jorge Luis Borges, Samuel Beckett, Flann O'Brien, and Italo Calvino.
Note to the Vintage edition: Two inadvertent errors in the dating of "The Two Completed Chapters of a Proposed Sequel to The Man in the High Castle" and the Exegesis entry on page 328 have been corrected in this paperback edition.
Part One. Autobiographical Writings
The writings in this section have been grouped together by the fact that their content focuses exclusively or primarily on Dick's life. It will be obvious to the reader, however, that many of the writings included in other sections of this volume contain autobiographical elements as well. In his writings, Dick frequently drew upon events in his life to elucidate his ideas, and, in like manner, drew upon the ideas that most fascinated him at any given time to elucidate past events.
The two selections from the mainstream novel Gather Yourselves Together (1949) vividly portray the psyche of the young and innocent protagonist Carl, who bears a close resemblance to the young Philip K. Dick. These are certainly not autobiographical passages, but they nonetheless offer insight into the modes of thought and feeling of the apprentice writer coming of age. This novel was published in a limited edition by WCS Books in 1994.
"Introducing the Author" was first published (with an accompanying photograph of Dick) on the inside front cover of Imagination: Stories of Science and Fantasy (February 1953).
"Biographical Material on Philip K. Dick" (1968) was apparently prepared for the use of one of Dick's publishers. It is published here for the first time.
"Self Portrait" was first published, according to Paul Williams, "in mid- or late 1968 for a Danish magazine or fanzine edited by Jannick Storm." It first appeared in English in the Philip K. Dick Society (PKDS) Newsletter (edited by Williams), No. 2, December 1983.
"Notes Made Late at Night by a Weary SF Writer," written in 1968, was first published in Eternity Science Fiction, Old Series, No. 1, July 1972. It was reprinted in the PKDS Newsletter, Nos. 22-23, December 1989.
The two autobiographical sketches -- each titled "Biographical Material on Philip K. Dick" and written in 1972 and 1973, respectively -- are published here for the first time.
"Memories Found in a Bill from a Small Animal Vet" first appeared in The Real World, No. 5, February-March 1976.
"The Short, Happy Life of a Science Fiction Writer" first appeared in Scintillation, Vol. 3, No. 3, June 1976.
"Strange Memories of Death," written in 1979, first appeared in Interzone, Summer 1984, and was republished in the Dick essay-story collection I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon, edited by Mark Hurst and Paul Williams.
The 1980 epistolatory exchange with critic Frank Bertrand -- titled (in Dick's typed transcript) "Philip K. Dick on Philosophy: A Brief Interview" -- was first published in Niekas, No. 36, in 1988. The version published here comes from the typed transcript in the possession of the Dick Estate.
Two Fragments from the Mainstream Novel Gather Yourselves Together (1949)
This was what happened to all the things that came out of the wet earth, out of the filthy slime and mold. All things that lived, big and little. They appeared, struggling out of the sticky wetness. And then, after a time, they died.
Carl looked up at the day again, at the sunlight and the hills. It did not look the same, now, as it had looked a few moments before. Perhaps he saw it more clearly than he had a moment ago. The sky, blue and pure, stretched out as far as the eye could see. But blood and feathers came from the sky. The sky was beautiful when he stood a long way off from it. But when he saw too closely, it was not pretty. It was ugly and bitter.
The sky was held together with tacks and gum and sticky tape. It cracked and was mended, cracked and was mended again. It crumbled and sagged, rotted and swayed in the wind, and like the sky in the children's story, part of it fell to earth.
Carl walked on slowly. He stepped off the road and climbed a narrow dirt ridge. Soon he was going up the side of a grassy slope, breathing deeply and taking big steps. He stopped for a moment, turning to look back.
Already the Company and its property had become small, down below him. Shrunk, dwindling away. Carl sat down on a rock. The world was quiet and still around him. Nothing stirred. His world. His silent, personal world.