Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick

by Lawrence Sutin

  In the first three chapters, says Phil, you introduce three key characters. In Chapter One comes:

  First character, not protagonist but "subhuman," that is, less than life, a sort of everyman who exists throughout book but is, well, passive; we learn the entire world or background as we see it acting on him; he is "the guy who has to pick up the tab," the "Mr. Taxpayer," etc. Okay. Dramatically we get little him, but, more important, we see the world we are going to be inhabiting, and here the novel differs from the short story: it is not a dramatic progression culminating in a Scene or Crisis but, as I say, an entire world ... "with all the holes plugged up," as Jose Ortega y Gasset says.

  In Chapter Two comes the "protag," who gets a two-syllable name such as "Tom Stonecypher," as opposed to the monosyllabic "Al Glunch" tag for the Chapter One "subman." The protag

  works for-and here comes the Institute or organization or business or-well, almost anything just so long as it supplies these: it tells us what Mr. S. does, and what it does: its function. We also learn this: the personal (or private or domestic) life of Mr. S. His marital problems or sex problems or whatever it is that worries him uniquely and not the big corp for which he works ... so we no longer have background or mass or abstraction, here; we have the immediate, the now, this not that; the problem is urgent and involves someone else, such as a wife, a brother, etc. See?

  In Chapter Three comes a figure who soars beyond the prior two in stature, and the scope of the novel is transformed:

  We switch tracks, and here we begin to develop in a manner forbidden to a short piece. We continue with both Mr. S. and the subhuman Mr. Glunch ... in a sense. But in another sense, although technically we carry on with Mr. S., we are in another dimension; that of the super human. This is the huge They problem, for instance, an invasion of Earth, another sentient race, etc., and, through Mr. S.'s eyes and ears, we glimpse for the first time this superhuman reality-and the human being, shall we call him Mr. Ubermensch? who inhabits this realm; [...] just as Mr. G. is the taxpayer and Mr. S. is the "I," the median person, Mr. U. is Mr. God, Mr. Big. [...] He is Atlas, carrying the weight of the world, so to speak, however evil-and he may well be the heavy-or good; in any case, power has brought responsibility, and it hurts; it weighs, ages him ... yet he is big enough to fill this high office; he can endure it; he is sufficient.

  Phil stresses that "the entire dramatic line of the book hinges on the impact between Mr. U. and Mr. S." A first glimpse of this impact is given in Chapter Three. "We are deep in a book, not a mere story, now [...]" because of the interplay between the three characters. It is the fate of Mr. S. to "dramatically evolve along a pathway which carries him into a direct confrontation with Mr. U.-and hence the option to decide which way Things-i.e. Mr. U.-will jump ultimately, in the crisis section, fall on Mr. S."

  And now comes the great fusion of worlds toward which the narrative has pointed:

  Mr. S., in ch ii, thought he had problems (he did: personal ones). But now look at him here in ch iv. He's got a bit of the Atlas weight on him: quite a jump problem wise. And: the original, personal problem has not gone away; in fact it's gotten worse. So we have true counterpoint, two problems, the earlier personal along side the later world-wide, each inflicting harm or injury or increment on the other.

  And, the great dramatic moment comes at last when Mr. U., now deeply involved with Mr. S., enters the personal problem area originally stated for Mr. S. And so in a sense at the latter part of the book the two worlds or problems or dramatic lines fuse.

  The drama is heightened by total entanglement:

  So the terminal structural mechanism is revealed: THE PERSONAL PROBLEM OF MR. S. IS THE PUBLIC SOLUTION FOR MR. U. And this can occur whether Mr. S. is with or pitted against Mr. U.; see what deep-cut varieties already present themselves structurally? (For instance, what if Mr. S., after a period of "working for" Mr. U. has dramatically quit-has turned against him to rejoin PPI ["Phenotype Products, Inc." or whatever company "of dubious moral value" has been invented] in its fight to survive-has gone back to his old boss again?

  Phil suggested one possible "final dramatic development" in the form of a clash of some kind between Mr. S. and Mr. U., with the latter perishing despite his great power. But "Mr. S. survives, and all is well ... except for some very deliberately left-untied loose ends: Mr. S. has perhaps solved his personal problems or the world's problem-but whichever it is that has, in this book, been solved-the other is worse now, ironically . . . and here we bow out." Earth has been saved from "the Demolishing Green Pea Giants from Betelgeuse IV after all ... so we can relax, world-wise, and leisurely take time out to feel along with Mr. S."

  The "coda" is a final glimpse of Mr. G.-"how goes it with him ... he who is almost forgot, in all the turmoil?" Pretty much the same, though he may have a slightly better job. It's a wrap:

  Anyhow, dearly beloved, this is how PKD gets 55,000 words (the adequate mileage) out of his typewriter: by hav[ing] 3 persons, 3 levels, 2 themes (one outer or world-sized, the other inner or individual sized), with a melding of all, then, at last, a humane final note. This is, so to speak, my structure. 'Nuf said.

  The letter to Goulart is a wonderful gallery of Phil's male character types (surprisingly, given their key roles, women are here only incidentally alluded to as plot pawns). In practice, the range of those male characters exceeds the apparent simplicity of G, S, and U. In Palmer Eldritch, for example, the G in the first chapter is Barney Mayerson, who fits the S type far better. Palmer Eldritch is clearly enough a U of the evil variety, but Leo Bulero is a cross between S and U: very human, and at the same time an "Atlas" who confronts Eldritch. There are no consistently accurate schema for the novels, not even those of Phil's devising.

  Goulart recalls Phil's preference for letters over phone calls. Visits to Goulart in Pacific Heights were out of the question. "Phil would say, `My car only works to and from my house and my psychiatrist's office-it breaks down if I cross the bridge.' " When they did speak by phone "Phil would make asides like `Are you guys getting this?' and 'Do you want me to spell that name?' He said that the FBI was tapping his phone." Goulart didn't know what to believe, but Phil's unpredictability scared him and his wife. At the same time, he thought that Phil was "a terrific comedian." With his beard he could look "Dickensian" while dissolving a crowd in laughter.

  By a strange quirk of fate, the September 1964 SF Worldcon was due to be held in Oakland, not far from Phil and Grania's house. Gossip led some incoming SF writers and fans to expect the worst upon meeting Phil. At the Con one well-known writer (later to become a great admirer of both Phil and his work) remarked: "Just by glancing at him, I think he's certifiable."

  Phil and Grania decided to throw a convention-eve party. It was a success, unless you count the cats getting into the party dip. Just in from New York were Ace editor Terry Carr, who worked under Don Wollheim, and his wife, Carol, with whom Phil immediately fell in love. Now, everyone flirted at Cons; Phil enjoyed flirting and was good at it: intense blue eyes, deadpan humor, rapt listener. But once in a while he really fell head over heels, and with Carol, a warm, attractive, and funny woman, it was one of those times. Phil didn't pursue an actual affair with her-that wasn't the point for him (or for Carol, who enjoyed Phil's attentions but was happily married). Phil loved her.

  Love for Phil was urgent business: He loved ardently, hilariously. At that time he was living with Crania and had invited Anne (in one more brief effort at reconciliation) to attend the Con with him the following night. But at the party, Phil, true courtly lover, ignored the difficulties and flirted madly with Carol throughout.

  It was a tribute to the late Terry Carr's patience and to Phil's comedic talents that the flirtation went on as smoothly as it did. Terry and Carol stayed over at Phil's East Gakville house their first night in town. The next morning, Carol recalls, "Phil gets up and calls the Dial-A-Prayer of one county, doesn't like it, hangs up and calls the Dial-A-Prayer of another county." All through the day, ac
cording to Terry, Phil "kept offering to buy or trade something for Carol. I finally said, just to get rid of him, `Go, Phil, go away, I'm the jealous type.' " At four the next morning, he and Carol were awakened by a phone call from Phil, who excoriated Terry (his editor at Ace!) for his unseemly jealousy. Phil apologized later that day but was back in action that night, locking Terry out of his own party.

  Dick Ellington, a knowledgeable SF fan, first met Phil at the Con and recalls:

  "My belief system at that time"-that's the way Phil operated. He changed his ideas often, but he made no bones about it; he wasn't embarrassed by it. "Oh yeah, I was heavily into that for a while." Like the dope. Phil dabbled in a lot of dope, but I never saw him befuddled by it. He used to talk sometimes about some kind of acid, but I never saw him wasted. At times he would allow as he'd had a few of this and a few of that kind of pill, but it didn't seem to affect him. He was one of the most completely normal people to talk to-erudite, intelligent, witty, nice person. But very run-of-the-mill. There was nothing whatsoever in Phil that a shrink would describe as inappropriate behavior.

  Lots of folks had fun with chemicals at the '64 Con. Ellington threw a party to which one of the invitees brought a friendly off-duty Berkeley cop:

  Phil showed up in this three-piece suit with lots of vest pockets, and this cop was standing around. And I swear to God Phil had enough foreign and exotic substances in those pockets to stock a large drugstore, with enough left over for a voodoo shop. And Phil was really going into the lore of different drugs, their effects and backgrounds. Finally the cop left-I'd assumed someone told Phil, but no one had! Then someone said, "Thank God that cop is gone." And Phil went: "Jesus Christ!" I told him it was cool. "I don't give a damn!" He was really pissed off at the guy who brought him along.

  Terry and Carol returned to New York after the Con, which provided the perfect context for Phil's strange brand of love letters. Through late 1964 and early 1965, Phil sent off a flurry of missives-a blend of confessions of the heart and pure wordplay. There are stories of Phil's severe bouts of depression and visits to the shrink, collaboration with Ray Nelson and deep platonic love for Ray's wife, Kirsten, all-night talk-andwrite sessions with close pal Jack Newkom, pulling a .38 on a "creature" who threatened the life of a friend. As to spiritual solace, Phil was lost in doubt and pissed off to boot:

  When I took communion the last time I refused to say the general confession: "We do earnestly repent, and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; the remembrance of them is grievous unto us; the burden of them is intolerable. Have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us, most merciful Father." I can never go to the rail, now. Non credo.

  Around Halloween, Crania moved out and took new lodgings in an apartment in the Berkeley home of SF writer Marion Zimmer Bradley. It was a blow for Phil, who hated to live alone and had made it clear to Crania that marriage was fine with him. Crania recalls: "Phil believed in serial monogamy. His idea was when you made love, you then got married." She didn't want to leave off seeing Phil altogether, but she was weary of his mood swings.

  In December, to fill the void, Jack Newkom and his wife, Margo, moved in with Phil. This awkward living arrangement endured roughly a month; Phil wound up asking Jack to leave, after Margo had already departed on her own. But their blood-brother friendship endured. After all, Phil had given Jack the manuscript of High Castle as an "insurance policy" (on the correct assumption that it would one day be a valuable collector's item), and Jack swore he'd hold on to it as long as Phil lived, which he did. And while they were housemates they had fun-like hooting the Calcutta taxi horn on Phil's '56 Buick while roaring past Grania's new home. Was it Phil who stole the diaper-service delivery off the porch, infuriating Marion Zimmer Bradley? Street pranks, two guys out on the town. Newkom says that he gave Phil his first hit of acid sometime in 1964.

  Phil never much liked LSD. He took it only a very few times, despite wild rumors that he often wrote on acid-rumors Phil resented but himself helped get started. In 1964 he dropped acid on at least two occasions, with Newkom and with Ray Nelson. Nelson recalled that during his trip Phil was sweating, feeling isolated, reliving the life of a Roman gladiator, speaking in Latin and experiencing a spear thrust through his body. In a July 1974 letter Phil confirmed that A Maze of Death (1970) included "my own LSD vision from 1964 which is depicted with exact accuracy." Here's the quote in Phil's edited version in that letter:

  "Agnus Dei," she said, "qui tollis peccata mundi." She had to look away from the throbbing vortex; she looked down and back . . . and saw, far below her, a vast frozen landscape of snow and boulders. A furious wind blew across it; as she watched, more snow piled up around the rocks. A new period of glaciation, she thought ... A chasm opened before her feet. She began to fall; below her the frozen landscape of the hell-world grew closer. Again she cried out, "Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna." But still she fell; she had almost reached the hell-world, and nothing meant to lift her up.

  Phil further detailed this acid vision in an August 1967 letter:

  I perceived Him as a pulsing, furious, throbbing mass of vengeanceseeking authority, demanding an audit (like a sort of metaphysical IRS agent). Fortunately I was able to utter the right words the "Libera me, Domine" quoted above], and hence got through it. I also saw Christ rise to heaven from the cross, and that was very interesting, too (the cross took the form of a crossbow, with Christ as the arrow; the crossbow launched him at terrific velocity-it happened very fast, once he had been placed in position).

  During the autumn, Phil contributed to Terry Carr's fanzine Lighthouse an essay entitled "Drugs, Hallucinations, and the Quest for Reality," which appeared in November 1964. In it, Phil proposed, quite shrewdly, that "hallucinations, whether induced by psychosis, hypnosis, drugs, toxins, etc., may be merely quantitatively different from what we see, not qualitatively so." He reasoned that hallucinations may simply be aspects of genuine reality that are, in daily life, filtered out by our Kantian a priori neural organizing categories (such as space and time). When hallucinations, however triggered, arise to confront the human psyche, there is an override of those categories-new perceptions come flooding in despite our best efforts to hold to our standard reality convictions. This override leaves us isolated and terrified. "No-name entities or aspects begin to appear, and, since the person does not know what they are-that is, what they're called or what they mean-he cannot communicate with other persons about them." Isolation, for Phil, was always too high a price to pay for any revelation (though he would wind up paying it again and again):

  Real or unreal, originating within the percept-system because, say, of some chemical agent not normally present and active in the brain's metabolism, the unshared world which we call "hallucinatory" is destructive: alienation, isolation, a sense of everything being strange, of things altering and bonding-all this is the logical result, until the individual, formerly a part of human culture, becomes an organic "windowless monad." [...]

  One doesn't have to depend on hallucinations; one can unhinge oneself by many other roads.

  Ever since leaving Anne, Phil had been warding off solitude with might and main. Falling in love was the best method he had found. That December, in letters to Kirsten Nelson, he typed out (as he had for Carol Carr) pages of his favorite poems, including Yeats's "The Song of the Happy Shepherd" and verses from Lucretius, Euripides, Spenser and the libretto for Schubert's Die Winterreise. He even wrote a long poem of his own for her.

  They talked so often on the phone that Phil bought an extra-long cord to allow Kirsten to sit more comfortably during their sessions. Having just emigrated from Norway, Kirsten was often lonely and un comfortable in social situations. She recalls: "I don't know that he exactly fell in love with me so much as he kind of adopted me. I think he cast me in the role of his dead sister. He felt he had to watch out for me." Phil was a most attentive caretaker: "One time I had a kidney infection and I was very ill. Phil called and I was home alone-Ray was busy. That got Phil
very upset-he cooked me some clam chowder, came in a cab with the chowder from Oakland, took care of my kid, gave him a bath, put him to bed. "

  But, as Phil well knew, there was no future for him with the married Kirsten. And Phil yearned not only to adore from a distance, but to have a wife by his side.

  In early 1964 Phil had become acquainted with Maren Hackett, a brilliant woman who also attended St. Columba's Episcopal Church in Inverness. During one visit to Phil and Anne's home, Maren had brought along her stepdaughter, Nancy Hackett, a shy, attractive young woman with long dark hair. Now, late in the year, Phil again met Nancy, as well as her sister Ann, at a dinner at Maren's home. Phil was strongly attracted to both Nancy and Ann. To complicate matters further, Maren was attracted to Phil. But Phil soon focused his courtship exclusively on Nancy, who still felt attached to a boyfriend she had met in France during a year of study at the Sorbonne. During that year, Nancy had been hospitalized due to a nervous breakdown and had been forced to return to the States and the care of her family.

  Nancy worried (as did Maren) that, at twenty-one, she was too young for Phil, who had just turned thirty-six. But Phil, drawn powerfully to this kind, beautiful woman, spared no efforts to allay their fears. During this time he composed a poem, "To Nancy," which began: "High flower, thin with / Instabilities of youth:" and ended with a Lucretian vision: "We are your atoms / You the friendly total world." On his birthday, December 16, Phil sent Nancy a letter in which he tried to play it cool: "Realize, I love you for what you are now, what you can give me and have already given me, not what you might or will give me-in other words, don't think about the future in your relationship with me; don't worry about some form of external ultimate commitment."