Either-Or: Kurt Vonnegut vs. Philip K. Dick
2Dick had great ideas but he wasn't very good at actually writing them down.
Vonnegut on the other hand had great ideas and was good at writing them down.
Vonnegut on the other hand had great ideas and was good at writing them down.
Bradley R. Weissenberger wrote:Shin guards for all!
Either-Or: Kurt Vonnegut vs. Philip K. Dick
3I dont think I can make such vote. That's a question of the motherfucker persuasion!
Angry_Chris is right I think.
PKD could write circles around anyone else when it is to comes of the paranoid, futuristic freak out nightmares. But he had no clue when it came to these womens and with relationship between mens and womens.
In almost every book of this Phil Dick, at some point, a man is to turn to a woman he barely knows/likes and say "I think I am to love you! Let us get married!" or some things along those types. It's like reading the romance story written by an 8 yr old! But the paranoia! and the simulacra! and the running from the police in these stolen squibs! so good!
And the ideas. It is to take me so long to read these PKD book because every 2 pages I am to put the book down into my lap and think about the idea she just presented to me. Not even as the story but as an aside!
Vonnegut on my other hands. He is to write with great wordplay and this philosophies of humour and sadness and every things inbetween! So it is to go! So it is to go! My wife is dead! So it is to go! But not always with such the fun and excitement stories. Sometimes is to ramble about nothing or tell the story that is of the going nowhere! But so good with the words and ideas and these crude drawings of the hole of an ass. So good!
I am of the abstain to poll this fine two gentlemans.
Angry_Chris is right I think.
PKD could write circles around anyone else when it is to comes of the paranoid, futuristic freak out nightmares. But he had no clue when it came to these womens and with relationship between mens and womens.
In almost every book of this Phil Dick, at some point, a man is to turn to a woman he barely knows/likes and say "I think I am to love you! Let us get married!" or some things along those types. It's like reading the romance story written by an 8 yr old! But the paranoia! and the simulacra! and the running from the police in these stolen squibs! so good!
And the ideas. It is to take me so long to read these PKD book because every 2 pages I am to put the book down into my lap and think about the idea she just presented to me. Not even as the story but as an aside!
Vonnegut on my other hands. He is to write with great wordplay and this philosophies of humour and sadness and every things inbetween! So it is to go! So it is to go! My wife is dead! So it is to go! But not always with such the fun and excitement stories. Sometimes is to ramble about nothing or tell the story that is of the going nowhere! But so good with the words and ideas and these crude drawings of the hole of an ass. So good!
I am of the abstain to poll this fine two gentlemans.
simmo wrote:Someone make my carrot and grapefruits smoke. Please.
Either-Or: Kurt Vonnegut vs. Philip K. Dick
6Dick has the thoughts, Vonnegut has the characters.
http://www.myspace.com/leopoldandloebchicago
Linus Van Pelt wrote:I subscribe to neither prong of your false dichotomy.
Either-Or: Kurt Vonnegut vs. Philip K. Dick
7Nothing wrong with PKD, but Vonnegut is Vonnegut man.
Kurt gets my love.
-A
Kurt gets my love.
-A
Either-Or: Kurt Vonnegut vs. Philip K. Dick
8Vonnegut, at times repetitive but even at his most rambling (timequake for example) he comes across as interesting and humane and totally likeable
not at all crap
not at all crap
Either-Or: Kurt Vonnegut vs. Philip K. Dick
9Can't remember any PKD making me laugh (though there's plenty I haven't read). Gotta go with KV.
Either-Or: Kurt Vonnegut vs. Philip K. Dick
10oyrgawd wrote:Can't remember any PKD making me laugh (though there's plenty I haven't read). Gotta go with KV.
PKD from "A Scanner Darkly"
Charles Freck, becoming progressively more and more depressed by what was happening to everyone he knew decided finally to off himself. There was no problem in circles where he hung out with putting an end to yourself, you just bought into a large quantity of reds and took them with some cheap wine late at night with the phone off the hook so that no one could interrupt you. The plan in part, had to do with the artifacts you wanted found on you by later archaeologists so they’d know from which stratum you came and also could piece together where you head had been at at the time that you did it. He spent several days deciding on the artifacts, much longer than he had spent deciding to kill himself and approximately the same time required to get that many reds.
He would be found lying on his back, on his bed with a copy of Ayn Rand’s “The Fountain Head” (which would prove that he had been a misunderstood superman reject by the masses and so, in a sense, had been murdered by their scorn) and an unfinished letter to Exxon protesting the cancellation of his gas credit card (that way he could indict the system and achieve something by his death over and above what the death itself achieved). Actually he was not as sure in his mind what the death achieved as much as what the artifact would achieve, but anyhow, it all add up and he began to make ready like an animal sensing it’s time had come and acting out it’s instinctive programming laid down by nature when it knew it’s inevitable end was near.
At the last moment, as end time closed in on him, he changed his mind on a decisive issue and decided to drink the reds down with a connoisseur wine instead of Rip or Thunderbird. So he set off on one last drive over to Trader Joe’s who specialized in fine wines and bought a bottle of 1971 mondali Cabernet Sauvignon which set him back $30
(all he had). Back home again, he uncorked the wine to let it breathe, drank a few glasses of it, spent as few minutes contemplating his favorite pages of “The Illustrated Picture Book of Sex” (which showed the girl on top). Then he placed the baggie of reds beside his bed, laid down with Ayn Rand book and the unfinished protest letter to Exxon , tried to think of something meaningful but could not (although he kept remembering the girl being on top) and then with the glass of Cabernet Sauvignon, gulped down all the reds at once. After that, the deed being done, he laid back. The Ayn Rand book and letter on his chest and waited.
However, he had been burned. The capsules were not barbiturates as represented. They were some kind of kinky psychedelics. They were a kind he had never dropped before, probably a mixture new on the market. Instead of quietly suffocating Charles Freck began to hallucinate.
“Well”, he thought philosophically,”this is the story of my life, always ripped off”.
He had to face the fact that, considering the number of capsules he’d swallowed, he was in for some trip. Next thing he knew a creature from between dimensions was standing beside his bed, looking down at him disapprovingly. The creature had many eyes all over it, ultra modern expensive looking clothing and rose up eight feet high. It also carried an enormous scroll.
“You are going to read me my sins,” Charles Freck said.
The Creature nodded and unsealed the scroll. Freck said, lying helpless on the bed,
“That’s gonna take a hundred thousand hours”
Fixing his many compound eyes on him the creature from between dimensions said,
“We are no longer in the mundane universe. Lower plane categories of material existence such as space and time no longer apply to you. You have been elevated to the transcendental realm. Your sins will be read to you ceaselessly in shifts throughout eternity. The list will never end”
“Know your dealer,” Charles Freck thought and wished he could take back the last half hour of his life.
A thousand years later he was still lying on his bed with Ayn Rand book and letter to Exxon on his chest, listening to them read his sins to him. They had gotten up to the first grade when he was six years old. Ten thousand years later they had reached the sixth grade (the year he had discovered masturbation). He shut his eyes but he could still see the multi-eyed, eight foot high being with its endless scroll reading on and on.
“And next….” it was saying.
Charles Freck thought, “At least I got a good wine”.