I Am Alive and You Are Dead: A Journey into the Mind of Philip K. Dick

Wow! What can you say about Philip K. Dick and this biography? I mean, I knew Philip K. Dick was a paranoid, but I had no idea to what degree he was. Stunning. I’m surprised he didn’t die from a stroke much earlier in his short life. This book also confirmed for me that many of Dick’s books were written in a drug addled state, although he only took LSD once — everything else was uppers, for the most part. It’s how he churned out his novels so fast.It seemed to me that Dick had a miserable, tortured life, and I left the book feeling quite sorry for him. His interactions with women played a significant role in his life — he was married five times. We can see elements of these women in some of his works. However, I thought the biographer kind of glossed over some really critical information about these relationships for several of the marriages. I think more could have been learned about Dick if more were put into that area.I always wondered if Dick was writing from his life, if he was as paranoid as his characters, as caught up with alternative worlds and realms of being. This book seems to answer those questions with a resounding yes, I was right! He really did seem to write from his life. Clearly, he was one messed up dude. However, his literary gems wouldn’t exist today without his tortured life to serve as an example for him. On the whole, it was a pretty sound book, and I don’t know how Carrere pulled off such a comprehensive work.

After enjoying the fictional works of Philip K. Dick (probably the movie adaptations more than the books themselves) I was hoping to find the subject to be in touch with a higher plane of existence, especially given his statements about the reality of alternate histories. Sadly, the fact of the matter is that Philip K. Dick had deep psychological problems that were compounded with rampant drug use. He wasn't in touch with reality, he was completely divorced from it. This is a sad story more than anything else.

There is a sense in which this is a strange book about a very strange man.It's basically a biography but it's a biography by a novelist and at times reads like a pretty good novel.I'd have to say Dick lends himself to that approach.He wasn't exactly Mr.Mainstream.Undeniably bright , talented and extremely imaginative , Dick was a self destructive mess.I'd say as he got older it sounds like he was completely loosing it.Harlan Ellison had promoted the myth of Dick as groovy counter cultural guy and eventually Dick - embarrassingly tried to live the myth.Dick had little higher education .This is sometimes a strength particularly when it frees you from academic pretension but it can be a disadvantage.It was for Dick.A little organized learning and academic discipline would have done him a world of good.It might have freed him from a tendency to wander off in a thousand disorganized directions at once.I almost hate to do it but I feel compelled to compare him to Ursula LeGuin in this context.My point is not that she is a better writer - perse- (although she is a much better literary stylist)-but in part because of her more academic, intellectual background LeGuin comes across as more grounded and lucid than Dick.Still , Dick wins the mad genius award!I tend to like him best at his craziest-UBIK ,VALIS ,THE DIVINE INVASION, PALMER ELDRITCH.Finally, my favorite anecdote, Dick convincing himself that Stanislaw Lem was trying to lure him to Warsaw so the KGB could take control of him.

I don't know much about Philip K. Dick. I'm not a fan. But surfing the web, I came across some articles about him that intrigued me enough to want to learn more. I found myself spending about an hour on Amazon's Search Inside the Book, reading through as much of this book as I could (i.e., the first 3 or 4 pages of each chapter). Well, that wasn't enough to quench my thirst. So I bought it, and it was a book that I swallowed in one gulp -- I couldn't put it down. Fascinating stuff.Carrère is a very good writer, and this is a book that works on several levels. First, he brings to life the various phases of Dick's personality, from his nerdy adolescence, to his semi-straight 20s, to his drug-drenched 30s and 40s. The book is also very good at evoking the three distinctive eras of American culture Dick lived through: the 1950s, the 1960s, and the 1970s. Too, Carrère limns with great clarity the complex twists and turns of Dick's spiritual journey, and also offers thoughtful commentary on Dick's prolific body of writing (with some especially interesting observations on how the details of Dick's life were reflected and transformed in his fiction).All in all, a great introduction to Dick. He was a fascinating man, and this is a fascinating book. Carrère is clearly a fanboy, but he's also a very smart and talented writer, so this book far transcends typical fanboy biographies. Indeed, it's a first-rate work of literature.By way of a postscript, I liked this book so much I picked up Carrère's  The Adversary  -- which is a superb non-fiction thriller, another mind-blowing great read (that appears to be Carrère's specialty).

Deeply researched, and a brilliant piece of writing that by the end really makes you feel like you're getting inside Philip K Dick's mind. Even if you are not overly familiar with his work (I've seen films based on his stories but never read one), don't be put off. Heartily recommended. (You wouldn't know it was a translation as the choice of vocabulary is nuanced and clearly great care has been taken over that aspect.) It certainly makes me want to seek out other books by the biographer, who has also written works of fiction.

Quarter of a century after his death, Philip K. Dick's reputation and status is beginning to transcend mere founding fatherhood of modern science fiction and drift towards a more general greatness within the broader pastures of modern American literature.Dick was exasperated about the perceived limitations of his genre while he was alive but before his untimely death in 1982 he had received industry acclaim for  The Man in the High Castle  in the sixties, but otherwise had garnered only cult following. Broader recognition beckoned - Ridley Scott's  Blade Runner , based on Dick's altogether more complex  Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?  was in post-production. Fame and fortune beckoned, but by this stage, as Emmanuel Carrere makes plain, even if he had not suffered massive stroke, Philip K Dick was in no state, mental or physical, to enjoy or capitalise on it.That Dick was a troubled soul is relatively well known, but Carrere's biography explores and extrapolates Dick's unstable mental state into his literature and life choices, which became increasingly bizarre as the Seventies wore on. Carrere sources Dick's discord in the death in infancy of his twin sister Jane, and was compounded by Dick's hypochondria - and has produced an effervescent and fascinating portrait. Carrere, perhaps by taking some licence, gives us a close and personal view into his subject's unusually complex psyche which is rare in a contemporary biography (the only other comparable example I can recall is the Gilmans' excellent  Alias David Bowie ). Because of Carrere's aproach, Philip K. Dick is made very real on the page.Some will complain that Carerre's approach crosses a sacred line into fictionalising, but philosophically I don't have a problem with that (I'm not sure there even is such a line in fact): particularly since Philip K Dick is long dead, outside the content of his oeuvre we don't have any "facts" against which Carrere's story can be measured - which will give pause in some quarters - but it doesn't feel to me that Carrere has breached the poetic licence he undoubtedly as as a biographer. That the complaints, such as they are, have mostly been "in principle" and not on substance seems to confirm that. These are fair fictionalisations, that is, and they paint a vibrant and fascinating picture of the man and an excellent introduction to his major works which are analysed and contextualised in a good amount of detail.The implication, never actually made, is that Dick's hypochondria transcended simple pharmaceutical dependence and evolved into paranoia and ultimately genuine psychiatric illness. One might wonder what effect the cinematic success of Blade Runner and the many subsequent Dick dramatisations might have had on his mental state and subsequent writing career, but not for long: on Carrere's account he was a burnt-out husk by the end so, most likely, none.Carrere is a novelist himself, and he writes well - as, it should be said, does his translator. This didn't feel at all like a translated book.Well recommended.Olly Buxton The Man in the High CastleBlade RunnerDo Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?Alias David Bowie

Writing a biography is one thing, getting inside Philip K Dick's mind quite another. In this novelisation of the science fiction writer's life the biographical facts are incidental, and reconstructing the amphetamine fuelled thoughts that drove him to write, divorce (four times?), attempt suicide (twice), and invent and inhabit his own fantastic and fear-filled worlds is M. Carrere's objective.He succeeds brilliantly. It's astounding that in his paranoid delusional state Dick achieved so much, although paradoxically that's what drove him. It's a testament to M. Carrere's skill that his portrait is so lucid. His book could so easily have fallen apart, as Dick did.If you've seen some of the films (Blade Runner, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly) or read some of the books (The Man in a High Castle, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Ubiq) reading this book will enhance your appreciation of them. You'll suddenly realise what Dick was getting at, where before you'd enjoyed the ride.It left me wanting a 'proper' biography (which exists, it's by Lawrence Sutin). That's not a criticism, Dick's universe had little room for reality. He discards the bit players in his life when they cease to be relevant. Now I'd like to know about Dick, as they saw him. The 'real' Dick, perhaps.

A brilliantly unique take on the biography. Also a deep dive into the psyche and the truth of Dick's non-simulated existence.

Schnelle Beförderung, prima Zustand!