Rating: 
Summary: Steep Learning Curve
Review: This is one of PKD's more obscure titles, and in some ways, this status is warranted. Of all Dick's novels, I found Galactic Pot-Healer to be the most unconstrained and it is certainly not for the uninitiated. Even though I've read almost all of his other works, the convoluted plot and the always transient identity of the Glimmung was very confusing. But, as Dick's career attests to, just because it's unconventional doesn't mean it can't be successful in a quirky sort of way. And I think because of this, Pot-Healer is one of Dick's funniest books. I just love the part where Joe is trapped in the box and calls in to the radio talk show, asking where he is. But the focus of the book is a very serious exploration of metaphysical interplay between the Glimmung and his (her?) antithesis the Black Glimmung. Strangely, there was something about Joe's investigation that I found terrifying. Even more than The Game Players of Titan, the paranoia is tangible and omnipresent, and it makes Pot-Healer a very dark book. It is NOT light metaphysical comedy, and Dick never provides the reader with sure footing or any character that can truly be trusted. I recommend checking out a few of the more straightforward PKD books (The Man in the High Castle, Now Wait for Last Year) before reading this, because, though it is one of his shorter works, it can be daunting for someone unacquainted with PKD.
Rating:
Summary: The Author as 40-Ton Alien
Review: When a man finds a job offer floating in his toilet, he's either desperate or in a Philip K. Dick novel. Joe Fernwright, the title character in this novel, is, of course, both.We might consider it odd that a job offer in a place like that should lead Joe Fernwright to his life's purpose, but this is, after all, PKD's world; the job offer does exactly that. At the start of his story, Fernwright has little else to hold onto - his ex-wife thinks he's a joke and tells him so as often as possible, the craft of ceramic repair that he loves is useless in his plastic age, his government gives him no privacy even in dreams. It's part of PKD's brilliance to give us such a character - we believe that Joe Fernwright would accept the offer in his bathroom tank, just on the off-chance that it might restore his dignity and give his life some meaning. The search for meaning is not an uncommon theme for PKD, but "Galactic Pot-Healer" is different in the extent to which Joe Fernwright's search is conducted alone. There's community in it, to be sure; on the other hand, Fernwright begins and ends the book in isolation, an unusual state for PKD characters. It's an important one, though, because although his isolation at the end of the book saddens him, he is content. It would be unfair to suggest that he's content with his isolation because every other character in the story drives him crazy, but any reader might be excused for saying so. Most of these beings, human and non-human alike, change their attitudes from paragraph to paragraph for no discernable reason, which can get dizzying real quick. For instance, Joe has a love interest, Mali. Within the space of ten pages, she introduces herself to Joe with flattering interest, turns completely cold at a remark from him that she finds insulting, warms up again within minutes of his approach, humiliates him in front of a large group of people, and then takes him to bed. She never can seem to figure out how she feels about him, but it scarcely matters - neither can anyone else. And if Mali is a bundle of neuroses, then Glimmung, the being who provided that toilet-tank job offer, is completely certifiable. Is it near-omnipotent or enfeebled? Calm and generous, or peevish and subject to towering rages if crossed? Tyrannical or profoundly grateful for its friends? Well, that depends on which page you're looking at. Like the characters, the story lurches from mood to mood, theme to theme, a state of affairs that is not helped by the fact that Joe and Mali and Glimmung and everyone else suffer from Eloquentiasis. That's the disease that causes fictional beings to declaim on various philosophical points at the drop of a hat, instead of letting the story make their points clear for them. This sometimes produces an amusing or touching moment, as when Joe's ex-wife challenges him to prove that he can speak intelligently to her dinner guests and he launches into an analysis of Beethoven's music as opposed to Mozart's, but most of the time it just slows things down. Here, in addition, it confuses the heck out of anyone trying to find a narrative thread to hang onto. And yet, despite all the technical flaws, this is still PKD, and as usual he redeems himself by the love he feels for his characters. Indeed, this story grips and moves because of that exact love and care - Joe Fernwright, self-involved loser, learns from the 40-ton Glimmung that all life is worth caring about. It is this that makes him, as Glimmung says, "the best of them," the most whole of all Glimmung's hirelings, this that enables him to stand in isolation at the end and try something new. PKD was a big guy - I suspect he might have seen himself as the huge, gelatinous Glimmung, teaching his own character the way to love. Speaking of which, I've got a soft spot for "Galactic Pot-Healer" for an additional, very personal reason. Early on, Joe consults an automatic adjustable clergyman for advice on how to proceed with his life. He goes through various religious settings and gets a lot of very spiritual advice. Just before his money runs out, he sets the device to Judaism, and it advises him to eat a bowl of soup. As a Jew, after I laugh myself silly at this, I say it shows very clearly just how much PKD cared about the children of his own mind. We should all have something we care about that much. Benshlomo says, The flawed need love too.
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