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Sheila Deeth
, May 01, 2018
(view all comments by Sheila Deeth)
It seemed oddly appropriate to read Philip Dick’s Scanner Darkly on my cell-phone. After all, it’s a book envisioning advanced technology; why not use modern technology to enjoy it. The plot also envisions a sadly decayed sociology, with concerns equally valid today, as the lines between guilty and betrayed grow cruelly frayed.
Substance D is a drug that destroys its addicts from within, splitting the mind in two, tearing the self apart. But the law enforcement agents tackling it might themselves be torn in two, part of the problem and the solution; hiding their identities from everyone, even themselves. It leads to cruel dilemmas and even crueler plots.
Scanner Darkly isn’t an easy read, but it’s filled with plausible dialog, deniable confusion, and characters deeply fascinating and flawed. It’s surprisingly easy to pick up the story again, forgetting who’s who just as surely as the characters do, and remembering too. Until that point where the plot begins to reveal itself instead of reveling in decay… until that point where it’s almost impossible to put the book down again because you’ve almost guessed but surely not and then you
have to know.
The novel reads as powerfully today as it must have done when first written. It blends hard realities with hilarious trials and tribulations, and it hides a wounded heart.
Disclosure: I borrowed it and I really enjoyed it.
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