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| Used copies of the British publishing of The Broken Bubble go for over $50 on Amazon! Source: Amazon.com |
The Broken Bubble, by Philip
K. Dick
The Broken Bubble by Philip K. Dick, was, from my quick research on the subject, one of the few “mainstream” novels that Dick wrote, and was not published during his lifetime. It came out in 1988 after that author’s death. The book is about people in San Francisco, California during the year 1956. The plot is humanistic and revolves around two couples, one a pair of adults who have been previously married and are now divorced, but are continuing to see each other since they both work at the same radio station. The other couple are a pair of under-age kids who have decided to get married and are struggling to make a life for themselves.
There is also an odd subplot that gives the book’s title its literal meaning which involved an ophthalmologists convention that, once the regular business is concluded, turns into a weird exhibition wherein a young prostitute who is encased in a plastic bubble is tossed into the room naked and the men take turns rolling the bubble around, exposing her various “parts” as the ball bounces about. Yeah, its weird. When somebody decides to see what happens when they pour water into the girl’s breathing hole and half drowned her, the young woman’s pimp comes in and rescues her. The bubble is left behind, and the ophthalmologists decide to fill it with various junk and toss it off the roof of the hotel in which the convention is being held. For a gas, they claim. We’ll talk about this night for years, they say. When they do toss it off the roof, the bubble lands on a lady walking on the sidewalk. You never find out how badly she is hurt. Hmmm... The point of this subplot is both really disturbing, and kinda lost on me to tell the truth. So let’s go back to the main plot, shall we?
The Broken Bubble by Philip K. Dick, was, from my quick research on the subject, one of the few “mainstream” novels that Dick wrote, and was not published during his lifetime. It came out in 1988 after that author’s death. The book is about people in San Francisco, California during the year 1956. The plot is humanistic and revolves around two couples, one a pair of adults who have been previously married and are now divorced, but are continuing to see each other since they both work at the same radio station. The other couple are a pair of under-age kids who have decided to get married and are struggling to make a life for themselves.
There is also an odd subplot that gives the book’s title its literal meaning which involved an ophthalmologists convention that, once the regular business is concluded, turns into a weird exhibition wherein a young prostitute who is encased in a plastic bubble is tossed into the room naked and the men take turns rolling the bubble around, exposing her various “parts” as the ball bounces about. Yeah, its weird. When somebody decides to see what happens when they pour water into the girl’s breathing hole and half drowned her, the young woman’s pimp comes in and rescues her. The bubble is left behind, and the ophthalmologists decide to fill it with various junk and toss it off the roof of the hotel in which the convention is being held. For a gas, they claim. We’ll talk about this night for years, they say. When they do toss it off the roof, the bubble lands on a lady walking on the sidewalk. You never find out how badly she is hurt. Hmmm... The point of this subplot is both really disturbing, and kinda lost on me to tell the truth. So let’s go back to the main plot, shall we?
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| Philip K. Dick / Source: Wikipedia.com |
The young man and the older woman have an illicit
affair, and the young woman - his wife - becomes attached to the older man (but
no inappropriate behavior there, for one thing she’s pregnant with her
husband’s, i.e.: the younger man’s - baby).
The story is strange and complicated and really doesn’t go anywhere.
And there is a further subplot where the young man who has the affair
with the older woman is involved in a plot with a guy named Guntherman who is
an anarchist of sorts. He’s planning to overthrow the established system,
or at least that is the claim. This ends up coming to nothing, but was
actually a fun little part of the story, and quite offbeat. Or at least
it was fun compared to the drama going on between the younger guy and the older
woman. Drama, drama, drama...
I’m of two minds on this book. On the one hand, Dick wrote quite well, and the plot is an interesting take on the 1950s and some of the things going on that we don’t think about when the period is mentioned. Things such as discrimination against youths, the struggles associated with shady businessmen, the growth of women’s lib and the sexual revolution, and the odd domestic situations that were a result of life in San Francisco in the post-World War II period but before it became an icon of the wild 1960s counter-culture are all covered. Though not published until ‘88, the book was written in ‘56, the same year in which the events are portrayed, so it is kind of a time capsule of sorts. All these aspects were interesting to me.
On the other hand... well, it wasn’t what I was expecting from Philip K. Dick, and though I can stand a surprise or two, the plot was a wee bit overly dramatic for me. Really, I don’t know what to say. The book seemed a bit pointless. I think that was part of the point, but it didn’t really work with what I was looking for. I suppose this book is like a sort of “statement piece,” or one that is really a statement piece but was not written to be that sort of book. The sort of book people would read and say: “can you believe what they did?”, or “it’s a shame how the world is going to hell, don’t you think?” But since it wasn’t published until 1988, it becomes a window onto a period that, by the time of publishing, was quite foreign to most younger Americans. And by 2012, it is sure strange to me.
I’m of two minds on this book. On the one hand, Dick wrote quite well, and the plot is an interesting take on the 1950s and some of the things going on that we don’t think about when the period is mentioned. Things such as discrimination against youths, the struggles associated with shady businessmen, the growth of women’s lib and the sexual revolution, and the odd domestic situations that were a result of life in San Francisco in the post-World War II period but before it became an icon of the wild 1960s counter-culture are all covered. Though not published until ‘88, the book was written in ‘56, the same year in which the events are portrayed, so it is kind of a time capsule of sorts. All these aspects were interesting to me.
On the other hand... well, it wasn’t what I was expecting from Philip K. Dick, and though I can stand a surprise or two, the plot was a wee bit overly dramatic for me. Really, I don’t know what to say. The book seemed a bit pointless. I think that was part of the point, but it didn’t really work with what I was looking for. I suppose this book is like a sort of “statement piece,” or one that is really a statement piece but was not written to be that sort of book. The sort of book people would read and say: “can you believe what they did?”, or “it’s a shame how the world is going to hell, don’t you think?” But since it wasn’t published until 1988, it becomes a window onto a period that, by the time of publishing, was quite foreign to most younger Americans. And by 2012, it is sure strange to me.
Anyway, I can’t say I’d recommend it. Not that
it wasn't technically good, but because it was... well, pointless. Like I
said, I imagine that was partly the point, and also I am missing some of the
point because I am not terribly sophisticated (and I gather that the book is
written as a “sophisticated” sort of work), and because it didn’t say much to
me personally. If you really want to understand the point better, I am
sure there are reviews out there that can do it more justice. The sort of
reviews written by people who can better articulate things like theme and
undertones and the subtext of the story and what-have-you. For me, it was
just a story, and I’m just as happy to have finished it as I was to have read
it. Which in essence means that it won’t have a lasting impact on me, to
tell true. Your mileage may vary.
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| San Francisco, circa 1956. Really puts you in the mood to read The Broken Bubble, doesn't it? / Source: Scan My Images.com |
Oh, one last thing though. There is a portion
of the book in which the author takes a minute to have one ancillary character
read a short story that he has written, and the whole thing is reproduced in
the text. It’s called “The Peeping Man,” and it’s about a man who has
psionic powers and can see into other possible dimensions of our planet’s life.
In his own dimension, Earth has been ravaged by nuclear war, but he sees
a time and place where choices made would lead to a real utopia. The last
part of this short story involves a woman coming to him from this other
dimension and they go off and repopulate the human species together. This
short story, if it is really extant out there somewhere in Dick’s writing
(other than just in this book, that is), was quite interesting to me. In
fact, I thought this short tale was the best part of the whole book, to tell
the truth. He was quite the Sci-Fi genius in many ways. Too bad his
mainstream book The Broken Bubble, was only so-so.
The parting comment:
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| Source: Hell in a Handbasket.net |
A school girl firing a minigun, which is a modern version of the old Gatling developed in the early twentieth century (I don't recall specifically when, it may have even been pre-turn of the 20th century). The look on her face gives me a chuckle. Can't tell if that's rage or terror, of both. At least it looks like she's having fun... maybe. Ok, so it isn't a great parting comment today. What can I say? I'm kinda limited to what the internet has to offer by way of odd/funny photos.
That book sounds so terrible. Why did you even waste your time with a review?
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