Philip K. Dick’s bizarrely titled Galactic Pot-Healer begins in a dystopian future (more 1984 than Brave New World), before moving into–you guessed it–more galactic territory. Joe Fernwright “heals” ceramic pots–a relatively useless job, seeing as all the broken pots have now been mended. He wiles away his time playing word games with other cubicle minions across the globe, until an alien called Glimmung wisps him away to Sirius Five so that he can aid in resurrecting an ancient cathedral from the depths of an ocean where the laws of time do not apply. Lots of very strange stuff happens.
Galactic Pot-Healer is typical PKD, which is to say thoroughly atypical sci-fi with a philosophically paranoid twist (or is that a paranoid philosophical twist?). The story begins as a satire of modern workaday existence, and Dick’s assessment of cubicle life, written in the late 1960s, is almost too-prescient. Fernwright is a typical Dickian hero, a Walter Mitty figure who, real or not, gets to live his dream out (there’s a girl, of course, a sexy alien). After the action moves to Sirius Five, Dick becomes overtly concerned with the major themes of the novel. A precognitive alien race called the Kalends publish a book, a sort of daily newspaper, that accurately predicts the future. The Kalends predict that the raising of the cathedral will fail, and all involved will die. Glimmung, who is repeatedly compared to Faust by everyone in the book (all of these aliens from different planets are not only familiar with Goethe’s version, but other versions as well), attempts to prove that he is master of his own fate. Attracted to this, Fernwright risks his life in the project, and finds a new hope and vitality in meaningful work that he didn’t have back in his cubicle on Terra.
Galactic Pot-Healer is as weird as its title, and at times suffers from Dick’s manic jumpiness. One imagines him sweating out the novel over a few weeks, feverishly hacking at his typewriter. The links between concrete events–narrative action–are often frantic (if they exist at all), and there’s little subtlety here: Dick’s characters will quote verbatim Kant or Goethe, or wax heavy on determinism and ontology at the drop of a hat. At other times, the prose sings with lyrical beauty, sorrow, and a density of imagination that more than makes up for Dick’s occasional lack of cohesion. As good a place as any to begin a journey into the weird wonderful world of PKD.
(Images from philipkdick.com’s kickass covers gallery)
“The book started out a lot more like a big happy Love Boat episode, then 9/11 (and all that followed) happened and blew it in a new direction.”–Chris Adrian (McSweeney’s interview)
Chris Adrian’s 2006 novel The Children’s Hospital begins with the end of the world. A flood of (excuse me) biblical proportions drowns every living thing on earth with the exception of a children’s hospital which has been specially engineered with the aid of an angel to withstand both the flood as well as life at sea. The residents of the newly nautical hospital–doctors, med students, specialists, nurses, some 699 sick children, portions of their families and sundry others–must navigate an uncertain future drenched in despair and loss. Their mission of helping the ill is the only thing that sustains them–initially.
Central to the story is Jemma Claflin, a mediocre third-year med student with a haunted past. Years before the deluge, each member of her family and her long-term boyfriend died in a horrific way, leaving Jemma unable to love, let alone believe in a positive future. However, as the book progresses, it becomes apparent that Jemma will have to best her fear and become the hero of this epic novel.
I really, really enjoyed The Children’s Hospital. Adrian’s writing communicates a stirring mix of immediacy and pathos, tempered in a cynical humor that sharply bites at any hint of sentimentality. Despite its 615 pages, epic scale, and use of multiple narrative viewpoints, The Children’s Hospital never sprawls into logorrhea–Adrian holds the plot reins tightly at all times, sparingly measuring details which accrue neatly to an affecting payoff. The middle 200 page section of this book is easily the best thing I’ve read in the past few years. I actually had to stand up to read it–the highest Biblioklept endorsement there is. Yes folks–if you have to stand up to read it, it’s truly excellent stuff.
You can read the entirety of Chris Adrian’s short story “A Better Angel” here.
Biblioklept 