The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
by Philip K Dick
science fiction
copyright 1964
read in May 2013
rated 7 out of 10: well worth reading
Warning: possible spoiler ahead ! Only a "possible" spoiler ? Yes... I don't know if I really know what happened...
First, I checked my understanding of "stigmata". Check. Then related that to the book. Check. So here is what happens:
The man who has god-like powers in the hallucinatory worlds is not God. He has been taken over -- or possibly replaced by -- the god-like being who lives in deep space, the being that may, in the past, have been mistaken for God. The existence or otherwise of a real God is not a part of this story.
The hallucinatory worlds exist only for the hallucinator. Each person dreams of their own world. Every other person in their world is imaginary. Except for the man who has been taken over by the God-like being from outer space.
Except -- another exception -- when the hallucinator imagines that they have moved into the future. The hallucination of the future is real. (It is a real... possible... future.) The people in the hallucination of the future are real. Although they -- the real people in the imagined futures -- may be taken over by the man who has been taken over by the God-like being from outer space.
Are you with me so far ?!
Enough !
This is an enjoyable book... if a bit challenging to understand ! Easy to read, difficult to follow. Satisfying, though my own satisfaction may be based entirely on misconceptions of what it all means...
Better yet, the style of the book has not dated... The predictions may be way off but that does not affect my reading enjoyment... Which I particularly notice because I have recently read some Heinlein.
Heinlein is horribly dated. His scientific predictions may be better but his characters -- and their attitudes -- are, well, possibly believable and maybe acceptable to narrow-minded readers of fifty years ago.
I find Dick's characters to be much more believable. Okay, not realistic ! But believable. And very hard to dislike...
Sure, the Stigmata characters are self-centered. Some are willing to abandon others to protect themselves. They are open to bribery and corruption. But they are all children, and how could you dislike children !?
No, not really children. They are all child-like in their approach to life. There is no underlying cruelty, no innate evil. They just look after themselves. And are sorry when that causes problems for other people.
The characters mean well. They are just realistic when it comes to matters of self-interest. Realistic and self-centered ! Oh, and very analytical.
When it comes to character motivations, Dick fails the test of show versus tell. The characters are constantly "telling" us their motivations -- through self-analysis -- rather than "showing" through their actions.
Which just goes to show that an author can break the rules and still write a good story.
Stigmata is a good story. Still readable, still enjoyable -- still confusing -- many years after it was written.
I have a book containing four more Dick novels. I hope the rest are just as enjoyable.
I just hope that I am better able to understand what happens... :-)
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Problems ? Solved
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