The Search For The Dice Man (1999) - Plot & Excerpts
In Search Of The DIceman is a sequel of sorts to original 70s/80s hit The Diceman. The central theme revolves around the authors own prescription to stress in life; to make decisions in an arbitrary way with a dice, “inviting chance into your life”. While the concept has its merits I think the story could have done much more with it.Rhinehart tries to show some knowledge of the social hierarchy in place in financial banking circles and use this as the springboard for the story. One of my gripes with the book is the intermittent sermons between the chapters and occasionally embedded within story -> they overdo the ‘chance as a religion/god’ concept.The ending felt extremely rushed and quite a let-down, could have been petered out more vividly and with some more dramatic conclusion imo. One amusing excerpt I took note of, simply because it reminded me of (and was prob lifted straight from) a Simpsons scene involving Mr Burns: “I swung a right fist in a short arc which ended striking the upper right part of the young man’s chest. Although rocked by the blow he looked down at the area as if a small fly had just landed there.”While amusing, narrative like this felt weak in places.Another quote, this one a bit more resounding; “easy solutions never lead to growth: life has to be hard to get interesting.”. Sound bites like this are dotted throughout the loosely knitted story which flips between first and third person narrative, but are never really effectively rounded to a clear cut conclusion. Perhaps this is the point; to leave you considering what exactly the concept he is trying to (re) sell with this sequel is. Main story was okay, but personally I only managed to finish the book for interest in the affair with the hot free-spirit ‘Kim’. Unfortunately only the very first intimate interaction is described in any detail. I know this isn’t an erotic novel or 50 shades, but at points it seemed like he couldn’t be bothered with building the picture spouting lackadaisical matter-of-fact prose instead: “ we fornicated many times a day”, “when Kim came home I quickly made love to her”, “ we made fabulous love”.I digress... The book at its essence sells the idea that ‘reckless’ or at least non-rationalised decision making can be beneficial and even profitable; you will achieve your desires by letting chaos into your life. I’d contend this is a dangerous notion. What the book hints at but fails to convey strongly enough, imo, is the idea of balance and selective ‘dice living’ as the most optimal way forward. The ideas touted of ‘freeing yourself’, “exploring the malleability of the human soul” and adopting multiple personalities were a little over my head unfortunately. The psychological idea is that we are trying to fit into a pre-defined ‘you’ which society or the environment moulds… perhaps the idea is to show occasionally that we are not totally bounded by these pre-sets and that such liberating behaviour (making decision with dice :O) can lead to opportunities and experiences we otherwise would not usually encounter.I agree that often stressing about a given decision is inane and at times the application of rationality cannot easily demystify the optimum choice (if it exists), taking a random path may indeed be better, for the reason in the previous paragraph.What I took from it, apart from it being no 50 shades, is that there is so much chance connected to the consequences of even an actively taken decision, so much variability and distortion down the line, so much butterfly effect in play, that even the most well intentioned decision can, in cases, be no better and even potentially worse than leaving it to chance. But this statement, the central thesis of the book I’d say, is ultimately vague and very flawed in the general case. Reminded me in places of many other ideas I’ve come across ie from Blink/ Tipping Point/Blank Swan, but it was not as coherent or well structured (obviously this was a ‘story’, where the books I mention were not), and ultimately the premise itself is hard to defend with any rigour. I’m left wondering if the original book “The Diceman” conveyed the idea better (scanning reviews that seems to be overwhelming the case), as apparently it was a big thing in its day. Maybe the author was genuinely trying to reinsert his ideas into the mainstream, or maybe he just got hard-up and needed some $ and decided to rehash his original.…I’m leaning to the latter.
"Novelist of the century" doesn't specify what kind of novelist he is. If I could fill in the adjective it would be 'the worst', 'the most irritating' or 'the most bizarre'.I'd never heard of The Dice Man before and I only stumbled upon its sequel when browsing the bookshelf in an Indian hostel. I did a little Wikipedia research about Luke Rhinehart so I had a vague understanding of the dice life culture, although having never read the original book, I was surprised at just how odd it is.For starters Rhinehart implies that it is a biography but how much of it is actually true. The book is also set up in three different ways- written by Luke's son Larry, written about Larry and random extracts from Luke's diary. It's particularly confusing, especially when it changes mid chapter.The content itself was baffling, particularly when describing 'Lukedom'- the community of dice lovers. There's pages of long speeches about dicelife which bores you to tears. The extracts of the journal can be skipped over as they add nothing to story. There is some funny 'dicelife' moments but overall it's just so odd; all the characters seem like they're insane.Although in the end I did read it very quickly. it just wasn't a subject I was interested in and I won't be reading it again.
What do You think about The Search For The Dice Man (1999)?
I wasn't a fan of this one really, an easy read and one you didn't have to think about but the plot was fairly one-dimensional and you could guess most of the twists well before they came to pass. Some parts were interesting but some of the dialogue between characters was terrible and sounded like it was written by a teenage boy with entire chapters describing a sexual encounter that seemed to be there for no other reason than to appeal to, you've guessed it, other teenage boys. I wish I'd read the first chapter (or at least skimmed it) before buying this one, I'd probably not have bothered picking it up if I had.
—Steven
Personally, I didn’t enjoy this one quite as much as the first. It was a good book following on from the first however I failed to fall in love with Larry as much as I fell in love with Luke and his dice choices.Written in the same easy-to-follow way as the first, this one follows Larry’s story on his quest to find his father. There are a lot of moments whereby you’re curious as to what will happen next, second guess what is to come, as there was with the first books. I think I was just expecting a little bit more dice-living than I was given as that was generally what made the first book so entertaining (by that, I mean I wasn’t laughing quite as much as I was with the first book). Nevertheless, it was a good way to tell you what happened years after the first book had its rather abrupt ending.
—Siobhan
Makes for a simple and entertaining read.I was not aware the original "dice man" book actually existed until I finished reading this book. I just thought it was all made up, so as to give a thicker background on the characters. I liked that fact, and did not inquire any further until I logged in to the site to make this review.Now that I know the prequel is a real book, I will still ignore the fact the book is based on a previous story. I want this book to exist independently. That way it is a much more original book. It is stupid to reference another book constantly. Because it just makes you feel you should be reading the other book. But then, if the book does not exist, it makes for a real nice writing technique. Too bad it is written on the first person. Oh well, at least it does not go deep into the thoughts of the main character. Oh wait, it does. It still is very enjoyable to read: I went through the book in less than a couple days.I finished the book because it was short. I did not like the ending. It did not make much sense, unless you really wanted to believe it. I should have left it aside and just made up an ending that made more sense. The guy is just dead, and it was only an elaborate scheme. That is what I will believe.
—Damián
