Eye in the Sky is another early Philip K. Dick novel that is uneven, but uneven in a different way to his later writeitinaweekonspeed works. While it may be silly to just compare Dick's efforts to each other in lieu of considering their merits individually, I'm pretty much a neophyte when it comes to SF. I like it, a lot, but mostly I read Dick (see my last essay) because I really like Dick, so I can't really say how Dick's early work fits in to the canon of 50's/60's SF. I can however, talk about the experience I've had with Dick so far and how much the less popular work lives or doesn't live up to the Dick everybody's read because they saw the movie.So, Eye in the Sky. It seems at first to be very much Dick. An accident with a particle accelerator causes the minds of the people present at the accident to become trapped in an alternate universe, which is quickly revealed to be constructed along the lines of, and controlled by, the particular feelings and ideologies of one character at a time, a kind of revolving door of personal anxieties and pet peeves. A religious fundamentalist society, a world ridden of everything someone thinks is “nasty”, a world in which paranoia reigns and everything really is out to get you, including a house coming to life and trying to eat people just like in the movie Monster House, which is excellent and you should watch, by the way.The idea of multiple realities or things not being as they seem is so prevalent in Dick as to almost be a calling card, but in this case the idea is not explored as thoroughly (or as weirdly) as Dick would later do in novels like Ubik or The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Instead of making points about the construction of reality itself, he is more using the fractured reality to discuss character quirks and ideologies themselves. The novel almost has a setup like a bottle episode in a TV series, or an episode in which every character has a kind of fantasy that is played out at length. Remember the episode of The Simpsons where Homer reads to the kids? Bart as Hamlet, Homer as Odysseus, that kind of thing. In Eye in the Sky all the character's bodies remain in the place of the accident, it is their minds, their fantasies, that wander. You could almost argue it's a series of cleverly disguised character sketches strung in to a plot. A plot, however, that doesn't really fundamentally question anything, but instead elaborates the private fears and thoughts of a group of characters, all of which you get to know very well, although, yup, the women are still (rampantly misogynistic) caricatures.The distinction people make (Kingsley Amis does, in New Maps of Hell, anyway) between SF and sci-fi tends to be that SF has a core idea or ideas that are used to shape the story, that are based on some kind of science, whether natural, chemical, electrical, sociological or whatever. Sci-fi on the other hand uses the trappings of science to tell a story that could be told just as well otherwise (the best example of this is probably that Star Wars is basically a western, but ~in space~). In Eye in the Sky, it's a particle accelerator called the Bevatron, which to me sounds like some pornographic software for the matrix, but your mileage may vary (let me know in the comments). So, it's not the hardest SF, or even “SF” at all, that Dick wrote, but you could consider it from the angle of New Wave SF, in which case it is SF. Confused yet? Despite the Bevatron basically being a magic plot device that allows Dick to elaborate on characters, he does use this magic plot device to chart out inner space, as opposed to outer space. After all, psychology is a science, as hard or soft as it might be. In this sense it's SF the same way J.G. Ballard's The Terminal Beach is SF. Still, the focus the plot takes is very uncharacteristic of Dick.I don't mention the sitcom plot structure/focus (I'm aware it's anachronistic, but bear with me) just because of a vague resemblance, either. Because the largest part of the plot happens in a dream world, and as far as I can tell there isn't any “if you die in the matrix, you die in real life” kind of thing, there's no real sense of threat, or questioning of reality as a structure, or the paranoid vibe that is another calling card. The protagonist works for a defence company contracted to the military, and the plot begins with him essentially losing his job because his wife is a communist (a real world parallel the kind of which doesn't often occur in Dick's work), but this just serves as a bookend to the character sketches, really. It figure later in her dream world, sure, but apart from that it's largely forgotten. The characters might face challenges and threats in the real world and the dream worlds, but the tone, in addition to the structure, can be so silly at times as to undermine it (see: aforementioned Very Hungry House).And there's a happy ending! A proper dénouement with everything tied up and everyone returning to their normal lives having become friends, overcome their challenges and learned something. It's a nice ending. You do come to care for these characters and the bookend plot does get resolved, but it results in an uneven tone. Again, it reads like the end of a sitcom episode. Perhaps the simplest way to put it would be that it's a Dick novel in which reality is bent and twisted, but in the end “true” reality returns and nothing is really questioned, no thoughts provoked, no lingering anxieties. Just things returning to normal. Normal is very, very strange in Philip K. Dick's work.For what is a mainstream novel with sci-fi trappings, Eye in the Sky is still plenty weird and plenty interesting if you're in to Dick. If you liked Ubik, then you'll probably like this too, just realise that it's not quite as accomplished. As I said in the last review, Dick was always known as a spotty writer in terms of craftsmanship, and this is another example of a spotty writer in his even spottier youth. That said, there may be more to this than I've elaborated on. There's probably a reading in Eye in the Sky about ideological conflict, or about how we all construct our own, more preferable versions of reality to try and shield ourselves from The Real. Or a story about the dangers at the extreme fringes of ideology. Or a parable of McCarthyism. Plenty here if you care to dig for it, just be aware that it's not Dick at his ego death inducing best, and that, depending how you look at it, either it's not SF or it's SF in the truest sense of the word. It's still pretty interesting for a bottle episode, though.
Dick wrote this novel in 1957 and set it in 1959. That's not much of a leap as things go in sf novels, but it allows Dick to keep the society he describes, that of Northern California with its combinations of defense contractors and university types, contemporary. When I read the novel, I thought the slight time alteration also allowed him to create the fanciful Bevatron, some sort of particle accelerator whose malfunction propels the plot. But it turns out UC Berkeley did have a genuine Bevatron on hand, an early precursor of the CERN projects currently attempting to capture anti-matter along the Franco-Swiss border. The one in Belmont featured in the novel is fictional.I doubt, however, that the real Bevatron could ever have caused the situation that arises in Eye in the Sky. Dick's novel is a kind of Bridge of San Luis Rey in reverse. Instead of learning the past of those characters who die in the collapse of a bridge in Peru, we enter the dreamworld of the victims of the Bevatron's misfire, which has left them unconscious on the floor of the contraption. Initially they are all pleased to find they have come through the event relatively unscathed, but something has changed. They live in a theocratic society and a geocentric universe where the the sun is a low-burning star rotating close to the earth, the moon is a tiny lump of matter, and when two characters ascend into the heavens by holding onto the handle of large black umbrella -- don't ask for details here -- they see the fires of Hell burning below the earth and float over the walls of heaven where the great unblinking eye of God glares up at them.The main action of the novel involves the characters' efforts to extricate themselves from one world only to find themselves in another: the saccharine, sexually neuter land dominated by the whims of a prissy, middle-aged woman; the monster-filled world imagined by a paranoid old maid; and a fantasy of America as depicted in Communist propaganda.The Communist angle figures large here. In the opening scene, Hamilton, our main character, loses his job at the missile plant when his wife comes under investigation for her possible left-wing sympathies. Dick and his wife were briefly investigated by the FBI in Berkeley about the time he wrote this novel, but that could not have been all that uncommon an event in 1950's Berkeley. In fact, Mr. and Mrs. Dick seemed to have got on well with their investigators. One of them taught Philip to drive, and his wife cooked for them. The relationship soured when the Dick's turned down an opportunity to relocate to Mexico as spies.The book is dated by other attitudes and behaviors. Everyone smokes like a chimney, although that is probably true of most 1950's fiction. The central character's liberal attitude toward the "Negro situation" can be awkward, although Laws, the black character, is given one good chance to let loose on Hamilton. The ugliest aspects of the novel are Dick's relish in describing the ugliness of two female characters, one obese and the other the uptight old maid who fills the world with monsters. Hamilton's wife, on the other hand, is perfect in every respect. Silky is the only other female character. She is a bar waitress/prostitute who appears in each of the worlds, and her ever-changing breasts receive DIck's usual level of scrupulous attention.Going from dreamworld to dreamworld threatens to become boring, but the device Dick employs to cut things short is a cop out. The "normal" characters with a firm grasp on reality will not be creating any dystopias. The one twist at the end is not worthy of the dynamic Dick has put into play. Of course, nothing can live up to that umbrella ride to heaven that takes place so early on in the book.The denouement is another charming period detail. Hamilton and Laws leave the defense industry to start producing state-of-the-art hi fi equipment. This will usher in a new world of racial harmony and high-end electronics
What do You think about Eye In The Sky (2009)?
Il primo aggettivo che mi viene in mente per descrivere questo libro è "denso". Denso di fatti, denso di idee e denso di significati. Il viaggio dei protagonisti attraverso questa serie di mondi paralleli offre a K. Dick La possibilità di indagare minuziosamente la mente umana e soprattutto la nostra percezione e la nostra idea di realtà "vera". Del resto cosa sia vero e cosa no si ritrova in più o meno tutti i racconti e i romanzi dell'autore, ma in questo libro emerge prepotentemente e viene analizzata a fondo. Alla fine seppur non trovando una risposta il protagonista ha comunque imparato qualcosa e lo comunica al lettore quasi come fosse il morale di una fiaba: "D'ora in poi sarò sempre più che onesto con tutti, dirò esattamente ciò che penso, e farò esattamente ciò che ho voglia di fare. La vita è troppo breve per viverla in un altro modo. "
—Giorgio Bonvicini
Easily one of PKD's best funny books Eye in the Sky creates a perfect satire of how people view reality since it takes place inside people's minds. The book shows how people can have such different perspectives of the same reality. I'd have to say the first two parts of the book are the funniest but later it starts to die down and become more serious. It also has everything you'd expect from a PKD book; Alternate Realities, Love Complications(Much less than his other books though), Paranoia, Religion, and the Red Scare. So if you enjoy those things in his other works here he does really well with them. My only complaint though is the confusingish transitions. I found myself reading a segment of a page where the characters are in one place and then found myself reading that they were in a new place without any real segway. It can be forgiven though since as mentioned earlier it takes place in people's minds.The characters in the novel are fleshed out well and diverse. On one hand you've got a war vetran who joined a cult, is racist, and feels that he's higher than the others for fighting for them while on the other hand you have a black man who is very intelligent and is angry since he works as a tour guide. So there are opposite characters and its interesting to see them all interact. This is definitely one of PKD's better books.
—Sean O'Leary
This book was pretty entertaining, and I enjoyed reading it. The concept was fun, and the pacing was nice and brisk.There were some stylistic things that bugged me. The characters would often assume something about their surroundings, and until a twist near the end, their assumptions were always right. The book portrays hostile worlds that exist inside the characters' minds, and occasionally it's implied that these characters honestly believe that's what the real world looks like, but they'd have to be pretty mentally unbalanced to believe some of the stuff that happens. Also, I was kind of disappointed that there are eight characters, but we don't get into all of their minds. The characters with "realistic" worldviews are exempted. This is a choice I disagreed with, because I feel like everyone's perspective distorts the world in one way or another, and I felt like that was the point that the book was going for.But that's a stupid thing to complain about! It's stupid to complain that you wanted to read one thing and you had to read something else instead! This book was worth my time!
—Eli Parker
