tag: First Person Narrative

Strange Memories of Death

The Eye of the Sibyl and Other Classic Stories by Philip K. Dick
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First published in Interzone Summer 1984

An unnamed narrator (presumably Dick in this autobiographical story) lives in an apartment building that is being converted into condos. He is the only one who has decided to buy his apartment and stay, and everyone else has moved out except his crazy, antisocial neighbor known as the Lysol Lady. 

The narrator wakes up on the last day the Lysol Lady can legally occupy her unit before getting evicted, spends the day wondering what will happen to her and then finds out the next day from the building’s sales rep that she moved out several weeks ago after the Housing Authority found her a new apartment. 

Cast of characters

  • the unnamed narrator
  • Mrs. Archer aka The Lysol Lady – the narrator’s neighbor
  • Al Newcum – sales rep for South Orange Investments

The Eye of the Sibyl

The Eye of the Sibyl and Other Classic Stories by Philip K. Dick
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First published in Philip K. Dick: The Dream Connection March 1987

I don’t know the entire history of the legendary Cumaean Sibyl, but in a scenario related to his VALIS experience Dick imagines the Sibyl as a prophetess who is visited by two aliens from the star Albemuth, and then sees himself as taking up her mantle in the present day.

At the beginning of the story the priest Philos Diktos witnesses the Sibyl talking with two Immortals who predict two thousand years of darkness and ignorance. Jumping forward to 1974 Philip remembers growing up and his desire to be a science fiction author all the while having dreams and visions of ancient Rome. One night when he is an old man he is visited by the two aliens who tell him they now work through mortals to wake people up and bring springtime to the winter world. Back in Rome we find all that was an account of Philos Diktos who had traveled into the future. He documents this in a scroll to his fellow Romans along with the poet Virgil’s declaration that the tyranny in the future will eventually come to an end and springtime will be reborn.

Cast of characters

  • Philos Diktos / Philip Dick – a Roman priest / twentieth-century sci-fi author
  • The Cumaean Sibyl
  • Carol Heims – Philip’s psychologist
  • J’Annis and F’fr’am – the Immortals from Albemuth

The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford

Paycheck and Other Classic Stories by Philip K. Dick
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First published in Fantasy & Science Fiction Jan 1954

Doc Labyrinth decides he has figured out the origin of all life: at some point in the distant past an inanimate object was annoyed enough by some irritant that it sprang to life to escape it. The Doc dubs this the Principle of Sufficient Irritation. 

In order to demonstrate this theory he builds the Animator (described as a Dutch oven but more accurately is probably a crock pot since it has a heating mechanism). When his invention doesn’t sufficiently irritate a brass button enough to provoke sentience he sells the device to his friend for five dollars. His friend puts his wet oxfords in the Animator to dry overnight and one oxford is sufficiently irritated enough to come to life. Everyone is sufficiently amazed especially when the oxford finds a woman’s slipper to animate for a companion. 

Cast of characters

  • the unnamed narrator – the same unnamed narrator from “The Preserving Machine”
  • Joan – the narrator’s wife
  • Doc Labyrinth – inventor of the Animator. Also inventor of the preserving machine in “The Preserving Machine”

The Preserving Machine

Paycheck and Other Classic Stories by Philip K. Dick
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First published in Fantasy & Science Fiction Jun 1953

Doc Labyrinth can’t stand the idea that all of our culture’s art, literature and especially music will one day be lost to time. His unorthodox solution is a machine which outputs animals after being fed sheet music of famous composers.

These animals, created from Mozart, Brahms, Bach, etc., eventually make their way into the woods behind his house, and when Doc and his friend next encounter these creatures, they find they have evolved into vicious beasts. When one of these is returned to the machine to be converted back into music the hideous result bears no resemblance to the original score.

Cast of characters

  • Doc Labyrinth – inventor of the titular preserving machine
  • the unnamed narrator – Doc’s companion

Radio Free Albemuth

Radio Free Ablemuth
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I prefer Radio Free Albemuth over VALIS, which I’m only making that comparison because they cover a similar story… I prefer a lot of Dick’s books over VALIS.

He wrote this one first in 1976, and when his publisher wanted to make some changes Dick instead rewrote it as an entirely new book which was published as VALIS in 1981. Radio Free Albemuth itself wasn’t published until 1985 several years after he died. The story from Radio Free Albemuth shows up in VALIS briefly, altered and in a much more tripped-out fashion, as a movie that Dick and his friends go see.

The book starts out narrated by Dick himself before switching to the point of view of his friend Nicholas Brady and then switching back to Dick’s POV at the end. It implies Dick and Nicholas are one and the same, just like Dick and Horselover Fat in VALIS, although that’s never revealed to be the case here. Rather Brady serves as a what if? version of Dick if he had left Berkeley sooner and had a different career. Some autobiographical details, like the burglary of Dick’s house (which he was convinced was orchestrated by the police or FBI) make their way into the story, but Brady inherits many of the other events from Dick’s life, such as being alerted to his son’s undiagnosed hernia by VALIS’s pink light.

The overall plot involves the effort of Brady, guided by VALIS, to stand up to the tyrannical rule of the U.S. president Ferris F. Fremont. Brady plans to sneak subliminal messages about Fremont’s ties to the Communist party into an album released by his record company, although I’m not sure how that would topple a totalitarian government that kills and imprisons with impunity. The middle section of the book told from Brady’s POV is the least interesting as it deals with the long-winded theology about VALIS which is a satellite that is also God… I think. One day I will read Dick’s 1000-page Exegesis and his VALIS theories may all make sense.

In the end Brady and Sadassa Silvia (who had also been contacted by VALIS) are both killed by Ferris F. Fremont’s stooges. After the U.S. destroys the VALIS satellite the opposition doesn’t stand much of a chance. The government lets Dick live imprisoned in a labor camp, and in a clever turn of events, at least from a meta point of view, they release agitprop books they’ve written under his name.

The low-budget 2010 movie, with some really low-budget special effects, most likely would only appeal to fans of the book. It’s very faithful, including all the elements that were probably silly even by the standards of the 1970s, although I do like Shea Whigham’s low-key portrayal of PKD.

Cast of characters

  • Nicholas Brady – an aimless resident of Berkeley turned record executive in Southern California
  • Rachel – Nicholas’s wife
  • Phil Dick – the part-time narrator as himself
  • Ferris F. Fremont – the president. A Nixon stand-in, although in this case Fremont is a sleeper for the Communist party
  • Vivian Kaplan – a young FAPer (Friends of the American People) Dick gets involved with
  • Sadassa Silvia – a young woman also contacted by VALIS who works with Nicholas to put subliminal messages in the albums put out by Progressive Records. Played by Alanis Morissette in the movie.