The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick 5: The Eye Of The Sibyl (2015) - Plot & Excerpts
My Philip K. Dick ProjectEntry #32 = The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick: Vol. 5 - The Eye of the Sibyl (1964 - 1981) Well, here I am, skipping ahead in the chronology of Dick's writing again, this time all the way to the end of his life, and his very last story, “The Alien Mind”. This collection chronicles nearly 20 years of Dick's short stories, from 1964 to 1981, by far the longest span of time covered in any of the five collections. It's a great collection, showcasing Dick's evolution into middle age. While there are a few stories in here that mirror Dick's great early shorts with their exuberance and bizarre concepts (“The War With The Fnools”, “Holy Quarrel”, “Return Match”, among others), there are definitely more notes of melancholy and reflection, even bitterness (“Precious Artifact”, “Cadbury, The Beaver Who Lacked”, “A Little Something For Us Tempunauts”, “I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon”, among others). The language is saltier, the themes more adult, but with a sort of quaint "sticking it to the man, man," kind of 60s-70s vibe around the edges. Some of these stories, especially "Faith of our Fathers", are terrifying. And then we have the brilliantly masterful "The Electric Ant", perhaps the purest distillation of Philip K. Dick into written form.t This is also the most intimately personal collection of stories, for a variety of reasons. First of all, many of these stories were never written with the intent of being widely published, and were circulated privately. "Cadbury, the Beaver Who Lacked" is a very odd little story, dealing explicitly with Dick's well-documented problems with women, which appeared with more frequency in his works. The titular Cadbury is literally a beaver, specifically, a worn-down middle aged schlub in a dead-end job married to a nagging shrew (not literally a shrew, mind you, she's a beaver as well). Cadbury finds love with a lovely lady beaver, but finds out in the end she personifies woman-kind in all her facets. There is love, and warmth, but eventually they take everything from Cadbury and leave him fading into oblivion, in the darkness. It's a strange and bitterly misogynistic little tale, apparently born out of a bitch session between Dick and some of his friends. On the other hand, a silly trifle like "The Day Mr. Computer Fell Out Of His Tree" is apparently an elaborate love letter of sorts to his latest paramour at the time. "The Pre-Persons" is as baldly anti-abortion as any story could be, leaving no possible room for doubt as to Dick's opinions on the subject, for which he was not apologetic. And of course, the intriguing title story, "The Eye of the Sibyl", is for the most part Dick's true account of his experiences after the pink laser changed him, and he came to believe he led a double life in ancient Rome. But perhaps the best of these personal tales is "Strange Memories of Death", hardly even a story, really, more of a personal essay concerning an episode in Dick's life concerning of all things, a housing issue in the Los Angeles area. It's simultaneously humorous, sad, and thought-provoking, and ends with an ironic twist, a story which really forces me to wonder what kind of greatness Dick would have eventually been capable of had his life not been cut short so early. Another story that makes me feel this way is the bizarre and melancholy "Chains of Air, Web of Aether", where a reluctant favor done for an ailing neighbor sends a man's life into a downward spiral of banality that he can't bring himself to end. Perhaps the highest praise I can give to this book is the surprisingly intense melancholy I felt upon finishing it. For not only was it the end of a single volume, it was the end of Dick's short stories for me. Never again will I have the feeling of knowing there is some PKD short story that I haven't read yet. I've read them all, and I can never take that back. I've come to love them so much, so it was like parting with an old friend. In fact, I'm well over the halfway hump on this project now, and there are less novels in front of me than behind me, although many of his most acclaimed books still await me. Still, I'll miss these strange little short stories. My edition: Citadel Press Paperback, 1992Up next: “The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch”! One of Dick’s most acclaimed novels.November 15, 2012
America’s master of surreal science fiction doesn’t disappoint in this collection of short stories. By warping the fabric of reality with his prose, Phillip K. Dick explores what it means to be human. There is not much I can write in a short review that will do the breadth of these works justice. In truth, there is not much I can do in a short review to encompass his writings at all. Like Borges, they must be experienced to be understood. However, in spite of Dick’s genius, his works with surreality are not always as successful as Borges. Sometimes Dick’s fantasies seem to run away from him, leaving him, and the reader, fumbling with the absurd. Still, this text of short stories is very good writing and required reading for science fiction fans.
What do You think about The Collected Stories Of Philip K. Dick 5: The Eye Of The Sibyl (2015)?
El quinto y último tomo de los cuentos completos de K. Dick. En estos cuentos uno encuentra ya las historias que, para mi, son las más atractivas de este autor. En particular, aquellas ligadas a las dudas sobre la realidad y la alienación de la conciencia. Todo lo que vivimos puede no existir y ni siquiera somos conscientes de ello. Un accidente, un error, un sabotaje nos revelan luego que lo que vivimos es pura ilusión, que somos otro, o que el universo ni siquiera existe. Estos cuentos, muy probablemente son el reflejo de la esquizofrenia que sufría (o creía sufrir) Philip K. Dick. Extrañaré leer sus cuentos.
—Julio
It's impossible to review each story in a collection, but as a whole I can heartily recommend any of the PKD short story collections. He's not your normal SF writer (at least from the golden age); he's more of a postmodern Kafka-esque fiction writer whose stories are set on far away planets or which involve alien minds. When you finish one of these stories you're strongly tempted to stop reading and try to digest it for a while, because it will tell you something about the human condition and about yourself.
—Mike
I read a lot of short stories, and I have a couple books' worth of them on my "to-read" shelves. I like the way you can get into a story, with a beginning, a middle, and an end, in a single sitting - this is particularly convenient with a little kid around - and this is the third or fourth book of PKD short stories I've read. As with other short story collections, some of the individual stories are better than others, but even the lesser ones are over quickly and you can try again.Many of Dick's favorite themes and ideas are here - questions of what is and isn't real, paranoia, distrust of government authority, his dreams of galactic exploration - but I think he steps outside his usual milieus on a couple of the stories. Unfortunately, some of them are pretty bad - "The Pre-Persons" is the notorious stinker here. But when he's good, he's among the best, and stories like "Faith of Our Fathers" are worth the price of admission.
—Tim Giauque
