One thing I have learnt is that you can always trust that you've got a good read ahead of you when Chris Pugh lends you a book ~ thanks Chris~. I was addicted to this book and finished it in a day whilst at work. It was the only day I felt annoyed when customers came through the door because I wanted to be reading.
I have now passed Ubik onto my Dad to read, whilst under the strict instructions of "don't read the last few chapters first". Sound like a weird request? Not really, my Dad is a bit of a weirdo ~sorry Dad but it's true and I'm publicly shaming you for it~ who thoroughly enjoys reading the end bit first - Yeh, I don't get it either. But it would totally ruin the whole book as the entire book leaves you utterly confused and filled with suspense as to what the heck is going on. In normal circumstances if your confused it's not a well written book, BUT we as the reader are utterly confused along with the characters as to what is Ubik. I personally love a book that has you guessing and trying to figure it all out and then kicking yourself for not getting it before it is all revealed.
A Spoiler free plot synopsis:
In Phillip K Dick's world people can live half lives. This means that if you're near death your body can be stored and effectively preserved in a tank. There are also people with abnormal powers and Joe Chip works for Runciters (these two characters are both narrators at different points in the book) company that hires these people to stop Ray Hollis' telepathic company invading other peoples privacy. Oh and you have to pay doors to get through them... weird.The amount of times you think you've figured out whats going on is uncountable, as is the amount of times you are wrong. The endless hypothesis' from yourself, and even Joe Chip (the main narrator), will keep being crushed by the immense amount of surprises Phillip K Dick will throw at you changing your whole understanding of this piece of science fiction. It's almost like guessing the many possibilities of how Sherlock survives the fall.
“From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless steel knife; with it he began systematically to unscrew the bolt assembly of his apt's money-gulping door. "I'll sue you," the door said as the first screw fell out. Joe Chip said, "I've never been sued by a door. But I guess I can live through it.”
Now as much as I want you to read my whole blog post, I also want you to read this book not knowing what happens- its such an amazing feeling to keep guessing and then finally knowing what happened and yet still being confused. SO if this has interested you in the slightest what are you doing? Go and read it! and don't forget to come back and read this blog post and tell me what you think Now for the lovely people who have read the book or just want to carry on reading: please continue
Personal review *full of spoilers*:
Love Love Loved it! I had no clue what was going on, what the hell Ubik was or where Joe Chip and the others were. And how baffling was it when they kept going further backwards in time! AND THEN all the messages from Runciter like the clues from the coins with his face on and the note on the mirror. ABSOLUTE GENIUS, I fell for Dick's authorial trick of getting us to distrust Runciter and like the blurb says questioning: "Glen Runciter is dead. Or is he?". I am still stunned to think that it was Joe and the others in the half life when we are so convincingly persuaded that they were putting Runciter in after Joe saw him injured in the bomb explosion. It was because of this and I actually trusted Pat and believed all her excuses (which was an unthinkable thing to do at the beginning when we saw how easily she was able to manipulate Joe our protagonist).
Here's what happened. We got lured to Luna. We let Pat Conley come with us, a woman we didn't know, a talent we didn't understand – which possibly even Hollis didn't understand. An ability somehow connected with time reversion; not strictly speaking, the ability to travel through time … for instance, she can't go into the past either; what she does, as near as I can comprehend it, is start a counter-process that uncovers the prior stages inherent in configurations of matter.
And oh boy that ending! Never in a million years would I have guessed Jory was evil, I had soooo much pity for him at the beginning of the novel- it actually disturbed me to my core to find out he was the one devouring the half lives. BLOWS MY MIND to this day.
Snarlingly Jory bit him. The great shovel teeth fastened deep into Joe's right hand. They hung on as, meanwhile, Jory raised his head, lifting Joe's hand with his jae; Joy stared at him with unwinking eyes, snoring wetly as he tried to close his jaws. The teeth sunk deeper and Joe felt the pain throughout him. He's eating me, He realised 'You can't he said aloud'; he hit Jory on the snout, punching him again and again. 'The Ubik keeps you away'
But what even is Ubik. This is the most we get:
“I am Ubik. Before the universe was, I am. I made the suns. I made the worlds. I created the lives and the places they inhabit; I move them here, I put them there. They go as I say, then do as I tell them. I am the word and my name is never spoken, the name which no one knows. I am called Ubik, but that is not my name. I am. I shall always be.”
The format of the book really helped to empathise and exaggerate the confusion Phillip K Dick intentionally creates. Each chapter began with a little remark about ubik beginning as a sort of advert and then a warning at the end. It gave little clues and really really intrigued me as a reader. Definitely a style of writing I want to experiment with in my own work in the future.
The way the time goes backwards is almost an Analepsis narrative but not (as an English student I am confused) because going back in time in this novel is actually still the present in the way the narrative is structured so it's not a flashback. But this structure of time creates a sense of urgency in the text as the characters are against the clock trying not to go further and further back in time. This made me as the reader want feel so anxious along with the characters that I actually could not stop reading and when I had to I was constantly worried for the characters. If that's not a good writer then what is?
I'm not really sure how to end this review because even the ending of the novel isn't conclusive so I'm going to be mean and leave it with the eerie quote the book finishes with :
"Most things in life eventually can be explained. But - Joe Chip on a fifty-cent piece?
It was the first Joe Chip money he had ever seen. He had an intuition, chillingly, that if he searched his pockets, and his billfold, he would find more.
This was just the beginning."
So does this mean Runciter is actually a half life too? or the whole Joe Chip thing wasn't real itself ? WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? I need answers.
Thanks Chris for the book lending, please remind me to give it back to you! Thanks to everyone for reading my waffly, chatty, and over excited review... It'll hopefully make sense to those of you who have read it. If anyone ever wants to hypothesis about this book with me I'm game. Sam Jordison wrote an article for the Guardian which advances a bit further into the meanings of Ubik and other ideas which I have read since drafting this post. It is worth a read: https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/mar/18/philip-k-dick-ubik-reading-group
Subscribe for more of this and the many other things I get up to. My lastest posts were about my trip round Scotland so be sure to check that out if you haven't read it already.