Tell Me What is You don't Like About Yourself?

[shadowkat]

This is the opening line of Nip/Tuck, where two attractive male plastic surgeons stare at a patient and state each episode: "Tell me what is it that you don't like about yourself?" Each beautiful or not so beautiful person comes in and finds something wrong with their body. Some external nip, some external tuck to be removed. The physical blemishes are merely metaphors for spiritual flaws the characters can't quite remove. And beauty it turns out may or may not be only skin deep. In a society that is increasingly obsessed with how we look, what material possessions we own, and seeks validation through others eyes - this show hits all marks.

This line could just as easily sum up Philip K. Dick's amazingly trippy and wryly entertaining satire : The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Actually let's extend that line a bit, "what is it you don't like about your life right now that you want to change or you feel is missing?" "Tell me what is about your life you don't like - so you have to escape?" Much truer to the mark. Don't worry, Dick isn't preachy or didactic. You have to read a little between the lines to get any of this.

I owe dherblay from the ATPO board for the discovery of this gem. A book he keeps suggesting people read and they keep ignoring him. Now that I am reading it, I am absurdly amused no one has selected it for a melee or book club. OF all the books online discussion boards or fan-related boards pick? This baby should *really* be at the top of the list. Why? Would involve giving far too much of the book away.

The book in a nutshell takes place in the distant future, an overly sunny/hot utopia, where people escape their mundane existence by chewing an illegal drug called Can-D. What Can-D does is literally translate their spirtual essence or at least appear to translate it into a male and female doll on a fantasy layout - created from a popular tv show or movie several years back. Into this world of consumer products and designer drugs and desire to evolve into something better, comes the distant traveler Palmer Eldritch who has brought back with him an even trippier substance called Chew-Z. This substance promises a bit more than mere escapism - it promises eternal life, or better yet a means of finding enlightenment with a price.

Dick unnervingly satirizes our modern obsessions with technology, escapism, evolving, spiritual enlightenment, and consumerism. Yes, like most Dick books, he's not that great with the female characters - it's heavily male centric, but it does play around with some very interesting concepts as well as a few frightening ones. By no means a perfect book, there are a few flaws here and there. But to me at least, a thought-provoking, humorous, and oddly frightening one. Why frightening? Is it horror? No not really. What scares me, is that I can see humanity going down the hellish road Dick paves in his novel. Heck, some of us are doing it already. Of course this view could have a little something to do with the fact that the Republican National Convention is still going strong nearby. And my fear that Kerry won't defeat Bush in the Fall.

Comments

[arethusa2.livejournal.com]

This convention is unreal. I am currently waiting for Bush to come out so he can tell us that (in case we forgot) we were attacked on 9/11 but if he is reelected we will be safe from any future terrorism. And that the economy is recovering and schools are inproving and freedom is bursting out all over, tra la la.

I've been reading that Bush is gradually working towrds the end of entitlement programs, governmental regulations, public schools, and the progressive tax rate. There's probably some hyperbole there, but his actions are in line with this process. I think if Bush is reelected there will be years of discord between the government and the population, but if Kerry is elected the rabid section of the right will instantly start to tear him to shreds, and not rest until the government grinds to a standstill like it did with Gingrich, or Kerry is driven out. And the government's meanness encourages ordinary people to give vent to their spite too. A guy on the delegate floor attack a protestor that was being led away by the police, the crowd roared at every slur against the patriotism of Democrats in general and Kerry in particular, the stupid slurs against purple hearts.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I think if Bush is reelected there will be years of discord between the government and the population, but if Kerry is elected the rabid section of the right will instantly start to tear him to shreds, and not rest until the government grinds to a standstill like it did with Gingrich, or Kerry is driven out.

I am having a lot of difficulty tolerating the "right" at the moment.

This sounds like an impossible situation any way you cut it. If Bush wins, we're doomed. If Kerry wins, we're doomed.

Then again? Is the religious right really that big a majority or just an incredibly vocal minority? Not sure, since that abhorrent Fox NEws is number 1.
I'm just hoping something shifts soon.

[arethusa2.livejournal.com]

I don't think they're that big a majority, but it seems clear from what I've been reading that Rove has given up on the swing vote and is trying to ensure his base votes for him Bush. So he's pandering to the far religious right, by trying to pass that hopeless anti-gay marriage act among other things.

My father-in-law is a (literally) devout Bush supporter and watcher of Fox news. We had some discussions this summer and he can't understand how the daughter of a Vietnam vet can support Kerry. I tried to tell him that it's because I know how much the death of a soldier affects his entire family that I want to make sure every death stands for something. Those medals the Republicans are mocking were awarded posthumously to my father-a purple heart and silver star. He served for only four months, but it was long enough to get killed. And he was a pilot. While Bush was avoiding his responsibilities, my father, who was too poor and too proud and patriotic to avoid service, was dying in his place. I'll be damned if I vote for him or any of the other blood-thirsty cowards that work with him. McCain's sold his soul for the chance to run for president in the future.