WILD RUMORS OF REALITY

"They looked at the two sets of text in front of them.  Slue's copy suddenly appeared to be very plain, short, and uninteresting when compared to the image floating in front of Hieronymous, where the sentences described things they did not fully understand, and passages appeared to be written for the beauty of themselves, and the images they provoked, and the sounds they made as the words were echoed in the reader's mind." 
—page 59, One Hundred Percent Lunar Boy by Stephen Tunney.

WILD RUMORS OF REALITY

Caroline said, "She's terribly, terribly disruptive." "So is reality," Hawthorne said. 
—page 228, The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick, in the Library of America edition (Four Novels of the 1960s).

WILD RUMORS OF REALITY

"The shitty takeout containers and the trick-or-treating monks seemed but a hallucination.  This right here—this vibrantly colored orange— this was the real world, clean and alert, confident and rejoicing.  She slipped a seedless grape into her mouth and closed her eyes as her teeth punctured the skin with a snap.  She poured a glass of orange-guava juice and downed it in five gulps.  Satiated, she pranced into the bathroom, where she faced her wall of soaps, exfoliants, conditioners, and moisturizers, the balms, muds, glosses, and creams.  She cranked the shower up to steamy, stripped out of her pajamas, and proceeded to enjoy a forty-five minute session under the nozzle."
—page 323, Blueprints of the Afterlife by Ryan Boudinot.

BLUEPRINTS OF THE AFTERLIFE

I kept seeing a title of a book crop up on Facebook, Twitter feeds, local alternative newsweeklies, the websites of Elliott Bay Books and Powell's City of Books, and various literary blogs and review sites.  The book was Blueprints of the Afterlife by Ryan Boudinot.

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One night, I found myself wandering the stacks of Elliott Bay, killing some time until my writing group began, and there it was: Blueprints of the Afterlife, its cream cover adorned with "AFTERLIFE" spelled out in the skyline of New York (Alki) under construction.

(The layout of the cover alone, both inside and out, is attractive and enticing.)

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On the front of the book: the sticker: "Autographed Copy."

And inside: a line drawn through "Ryan Boudinot," a few humps of squiggly ink lines, and a cat body drawn upon the Black Cat imprint logo.

Mr. Boudinot had read from Blueprints the night before, when I was unable to attend.

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The cover was strewn with names dropped and blurbed like nobody's business.  Comparisons are many.  Philip K. Dick (many times over).  China Miéville.  Kurt Vonnegut.  Charlie Kaufman.  Thoman Pynchon.  Neil Gaiman.  Neal Stephenson.  Chuck Palahniuk.  George Saunders.  William S. Burroughs.  Aldous Huxley.  David Foster Wallace.  Haruki Murakami.  J.G. Ballard.

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Other authors they could have name dropped and blurbed, but didn't.  Jeff Noon.  William Gibson.  Paul Di Filippo.  Bruce Sterling.  Rebecca Brown.  Kathy Acker.  Matthew Sharpe.

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Anyway, it looked and sounded like something I would read, so I skimmed a few pages, bought it, and brought it home.

I was instantly snared within its pages once I sat down and began to read.

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Blueprints of the Afterlife is one of those books that really defies comparison.  The authors that Boudinot were compared to speak in their own voices, as does Boudinot.  Even though he may share elements here and there with each of them, his voice is unique, his vision his own.

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"I tried to determine if these sad thoughts were just the results of growing old.  Probably, but that didn't make them any less real.  Maybe I had lost so much myself—my family, my friends—that I couldn't help but project my grief onto the world at large.  It was no longer enough for me to grieve for a lost mother, father, sister, or friend.  Now my grief intended to encompass the planet."

—page 333, Blueprints of the Afterlife by Ryan Boudinot.

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The novel takes place a couple hundred years in the future, after the Age of Fucked Up Shit, or FUS.  Time is measured as pre-FUS and post-FUS.  We get glimpses of the FUS—a marauding malevolent glacier apparently bent on eliminating human life, robot (newman) armies fighting against corporate militias (Boeing, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and the like) for the control of the United States, hinted-at cataclysms.  The world isn't in good shape, but has been somewhat put back into place, albeit with a lot fewer people.  Some areas have been rebuilt and some areas are abandoned.

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Much of the action of the novel takes place in the Pacific Northwest.  Bainbridge Island figures prominently as it is the site where New York Alki (a to-scale replica of Manhattan) is being built.  Seattle, Portland, Lake Chelan, and Vancouver BC all make cameos.

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To say too much about the story ruins it.  There are plenty of things that go unexplained.  The novel is a labyrinth filled with turns, twists, dead ends.  Its minotaurs are giant floating heads that communicate with some of the characters.

Strangeness abounds.

There are plenty of false starts and stops along the way.  Storylines are sometimes introduced or dropped without warning, although the core stories that emerge feel like the right ones.  In the end, the novel feels as "complete" as it's going to be, which, for me, was alright.

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Blueprints is a hypercube onion, with layers peeled back to reveal other possibilities.

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I feel a bit pummeled and sore (and sad) at the novel's conclusion.  What was it that I just experienced and witnessed?  It was compelling and unlike most other novel's I've ever read.  It reminded me a bit of many of the novels and short stories of Philip K. Dick, but perhaps was a closer cousin to Sesshu Foster's Atomik Aztex or the novels of Jeff Noon (Vurt, Pollen, Automated Alice).

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I highly recommend this novel.  It is not one you will soon forget.

And don't let the list of science fiction authors Boudinot was compared to on the cover of the book scare you away.  This is not your dad's science fiction, and definitely not your grandmother's.  This is a good, solid read that will make you examine your own life, the culture we share, the world we live in, and what we are currently doing to each of them.

WILD RUMORS OF REALITY: IN HIS DREAMS

"The galley slave stayed between his sea and sky.  In his dreams.  The dreams parted for just that long, then they resumed their course.  He watched and he saw sea monsters, storms, moonlight, the bustle of port towns, markets, and fairs; walnuts as fat as a man's head, ivory and eels.  No, this couldn't be real."

—page 272, The Galley Slave by Drago Jančar.

WILD RUMORS OF REALITY

"Earlier ways of finding information—going to the National Diet Library, sitting at a desk with piles of bound, small-sized editions of old newspapers, or almanacs—might soon become a thing of the past...What a weird world. Ushikawa preferred a world where smells and pain still existed, even if the smells and pain were unendurable. Still, people like Ushikawa might become out-of-date relics."
—page 662, 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami.

WILD RUMORS OF REALITY

Reflective surface of a broken compact disc + kitchen chandelier + incandescent light + close up setting on digital camera = kaleidoscopic photography.

POET(S) NEEDED

Troy's Work Table needs your help!

The last TWT year-long reading project was "Cutting In." It revolved around the work of Herman Melville, and specifically Moby-Dick.

This year's reading project is "Wild Rumors of Reality." I built it with The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick, edited by Pamela Jackson and Jonathan Lethem, as its foundational text.

Then, I began to read or re-read Philip K. Dick novels mentioned or referenced in The Exegesis. A few other non-PKD novels started to revolve around The Exegesis, although they seem to fit with what I have noted as themes of interest to me.

Below is a list of books in various stages of being read, some completed, as well as a couple of related films. I also have a few books to seek out.

But I need your help, dear reader. I am looking for works a poet (or poets) whose work fits into the "Wild Rumors of Reality" reading project. I need your suggestions and recommendations.

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Possible themes of poetry (and of "Wild Rumors"):

-Reality

-Alternate reality/realities

-Alternate timeline/history

-Science fiction or surrealism

-Religious overtones

-Metaphysics

And to a lesser extent, although it seems rather foundational to PKD's work:

-Christianity

-Gnosticism (specifically that of a Christian flavor)

-Tension between/amidst "orthodox" or "heterodox" Christianity and Gnostic Christianity

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Novels currently included in the "Wild Rumors of Reality" reading project:

-The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick by Philip K. Dick

-VALIS by Philip K. Dick

-Ubik by Philip K. Dick

-The Divine Invasion by Philip K. Dick

-1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

-These Dreams of You by Steve Erickson

Non-fiction or short fiction currently included in the "Wild Rumors of Reality" reading project:

-What If Our World Is Their Heaven?: The Final Conversations of Philip K. Dick edited by Gwen Lee and Doris Elaine Sauter

-Counterfeit Worlds: Philip K. Dick on Film by Brian J. Robb

-Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick by Philip K. Dick

Films currently included in the "Wild Rumors of Reality" reading project:

-A Scanner Darkly by Richard Linklater

-Minority Report by Steven Spielberg

-Blade Runner by Ridley Scott

-The Adjustment Bureau by George Nolfi

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If you would, then please review the above themes and works, and leave recommendations of the work of a contemporary poet (or poets) who dabbles in or tackles these same issues (in comments about this post).

WILD RUMORS OF REALITY

"Suddenly from some unknown source, a narrow beam of light pierced Aomame's body. She felt as though, mysteriously, she had become transparent. When she held her hand up in the beam, she could see through it. Suddenly there was no longer any weight to her body."
—page 220, 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami.

Aomame's Philip K. Dick 2/3/74 moment.

WILD RUMORS OF REALITY

"She kept this up for a long time until finally, the thought struck her: Maybe I can look at it this way—the problem is not with me but with the world around me. It's not that my consciousness or mind has given rise to some abnormality, but rather that some kind of incomprehensible power has caused the world around me to change."
—page 106, 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami.

"After you do something like that, the everyday look of things might seem to change a little. Things may look different to you than they did before. But don't let appearances fool you. There's always only one reality."
—page 108, 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami.

WILD RUMORS OF REALITY

"But at least one thing had been proved: Fat might be clinically crazy but he was locked into reality—a reality of some kind, although certainly not the normal one."
—page 318, VALIS by Philip K. Dick, as found in VALIS and Later Novels (The Library of America).

WILD RUMORS OF REALITY

"Things may look different to you than they did before. I've had that experience myself. But don't let appearances fool you. There's always only one reality."

—page 9, 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami.

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Herman Melville. Philip K. Dick. Steve Erickson. Haruki Murakami. Others, many others.

WILD RUMORS OF REALITY

"That is the power I have, and it is not the power of enchantment; it is the most precious gift of all: reality."
—page 540, The Divine Invasion by Philip K. Dick, as found in VALIS and Later Novels (The Library of America).

WILD RUMORS OF REALITY

"...wild rumors abound, wherever there is any adequate reality for them to cling to."

—from "Moby Dick," chapter 41 of Moby-Dick by Herman Melville.

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A new yearlong reading project begins.

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Originally, it seemed that The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck was the natural next book and project to ruminate upon. The scope and structure of Steinbeck's masterpiece seemed the terrestrial companion to Melville's oceanic tome.

Then, however, The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick was published.

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The more than 8,000 pages of The Exegesis have been edited, arranged, and curated by Philip K. Dick scholar Pamela Jackson and author Jonathan Lethem, and distilled into almost 1,000 pages of presentable material.

It appears that two of the most referenced works in the first hundred pages of The Exegesis are Ubik and VALIS, so they were the first two Philip K. Dick novels that I read.

Now, it is time to continue to read in The Exegesis, to revisit Ubik and VALIS as necessary, and to read other Dick novels as necessary (Radio Free Albemuth anyone?). Additionally, various Philip K. Dick biographies, articles, and scholarly papers will be delved into.

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The "Wild Rumors of Reality" begin.