|
October 19th, 2007
11:56 pm - Ubik
I got round to reading Ubik by Philip K. Dick. It was the first Philip K. Dick I'd read, and I wasn't sure quite what to expect, given that three of my favourite movies (A Scanner Darkly (in which 'Ubik' was referenced in the background when Freck went to the store) Blade Runner and Minority Report) and two of my least favourite movies (Total Recall and the truly abysmal Paycheck) are based on his writing.
Well, I think what I disliked about Total Recall was purely Arnold Schwarzenegger. Unlike Tom Cruise, who, in Minority Report failed to do his usual job of ruining an otherwise great film, Arnie was always capable of ruining any film (except The Terminator - in which he only had eleven lines and acting like a robot was an advantage. Coincidence? We think not.) Paycheck, surprisingly, wasn't ruined by Ben Affleck but by the fact that you could drive a bus through one of the plot holes (and also by being kinda silly in general).
So what about Ubik? Well, the first thing you have to get your head around is the idea that it's set in a futuristic 1992. This is, of course, the bane of futuristic science-fiction authors. My copy contains an introduction by Michael Marshall Smith, who says:-
One of the key challenges facing any work of futuristic fiction is that of lasting. ... There's also the matter of getting the resonance right. Even if someone does manage to predict people running around with portable 'communicators' or some such far-speaking device, they probably won't also imagine the market in downloadable ring tones or soft porn wallpapers, or realise how much time will be spent using said communicators to bellow "The shuttle's just getting into the spaceport now, should be back at the livePod in 0.5 Earth hours," to people who already know what time you're expected home, and don't in fact really care.
That's beside the point, but I liked it. The point is that the fact that the 1992 that actually happened was far closer to the 1969 when the novel was first published than it was to the 1992 that Dick imagined. That would distance the reader, somewhat. However, much of the book conveniently does strange things with time, and as a result, reading Ubik it becomes impossible not to believe in Dick's notional 1992, and, on a meta level, we might even convince ourselves subconsciously that we the readers are reading it in 1970.
Anyone who's seen more than, say, three film adaptations of Philip K. Dick should be able to spot a common theme that apparently runs through much of his work. Perception (Minority Report), memory (Total Recall, Paycheck), the sometimes fuzzy line between reality and simulation (or hallucination) (Blade Runner, A Scanner Darkly). Ultimately it's about the mind, and Ubik is no exception, carrying varying shades of all three facets.
Basically, I thought it was pretty awesome, but also very instant. In a strange way, you can definitely see why it's both so hard to adapt Philip K. Dick for movies (because of their psychological themes), and why Dick's novels and short stories are eminently suited for movies (because of their instant appeal). I'll definitely need to read some more by Philip K. Dick.
|
September 28th, 2007
08:45 pm - Some things happened
So I'm going to have to rush through them in a list.
Textbooks arrived
Rather worryingly, two of the six were shipped from Kuala Lumpur. What makes this worrying is that books apparently shipped from Malaysia got here one little day after the four books shipped from Gourock, just outside Glasgow. That is weird.
I read Making Money
Discworld is entertaining as always, but I can't help but feel it's getting a little repetitive, now.
I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey
Maybe it was the fact that I was ill. Maybe it was the fact that I dozed off at a couple of points. In any case, I really did not understand this film, and I also didn't really understand why everyone thought I should see it.
I listened to Future Future Future Perfect
It is a Freezepop album and that is all I really need to say. There's a tiny bit more noise in the arrangement, but other than that it is exactly as you might expect. That's not so much a bad thing, though. The video for Less Talk More Rokk is cute for involving meece. Predictably youtube is full of shit vanity Guitar Hero 2 videos, but if you can face myspace (and it's only a little worse than the stupidity of youtube comments but unfortunately not embeddable on lj) click here.
I got my new iPod
Now, so you don't dismiss what I have to say about this, please remember that I am specifically trained in Human Computer Interfaces. My comment is about the interface so this is pertinent. My comment is this: WTF IS THIS SHIT?! But it's all good (well, clearly not all, but apart from the shitty interface it is).
I finally watched Team America: World Police
Yesterday, when I was ill. I was not, however, ill enough to find it remotely funny. But you knew that, since I was healthy enough to actually make an entry on LJ. I mean, man, you'd need to be seriously half-my-brain-is-missing ill to find that shit funny.
I'm going to read The God Delusion
I haven't read it yet, so I can't say too much about it, but I'm a bit apprehensive because although I spend a large part of my time online around people who feel strongly one way or another about its content, I don't actually know very much about what its content is. The title makes some suggestions, but I've read a bit of the preface, where Dawkins claims that idiot harmful fundies are more numerous than reasonable, moderate, religious people. I'm not so sure that's true - although they're certainly more vocal, they appear to be a minority.
I got assigned my project group for Software Engineering
I have to work with these people for the next year. I've technically known most of them for two years already, but I don't really know them that well. This is to be expected, though, since as a group we (Computing Science students) are probably the biggest fucking asocial geeks on campus.
I am going out for a cigarette now
TAKE THAT, BATMAN!!!
|
|
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
thegooseking's journal