Part 7 Philip K Dick 1971 Interview
Philip K. Dick: now, in one story that I wrote called Human Is…which is the title of a short story collection I have for Valentine. That I’m involved with. I had a human being, a scientist type. I don’t like the scientist types because they are cold, schizoid, like matter of fact. Drives us unrealistic. He was some kind of an archaeologist freak. He goes bopping off to an asteroid to, you know, go through the ruins. He was a really cruel guy. Mean to his wife. Kicks the dog, kicks the child, kicks the wife. You know, telling his wife: you would make a good laboratory specimen if you were in a bottle. it would be a better environment for you than oxygen. You know, you would look better if your veins were full of, you know… And then he goes off chuckling at his mordant wit. While he was on this asteroid. Something was living there on the asteroid. You know, in a kind of a suspended animation form. Something from the asteroid seized his brain and takes it over and kicks him out. Kicks him into the little urn that’s sitting there on the shelf in the ruins and comes back in his body. Well now, he goes away, cold-cruel and anal-retentive. So this, he comes back. He comes in the door… I have not read the damn thing since I wrote it. But you know, like if I don’t read it, it is probably funny, you know. Because maybe I didn’t do it as good as it looks. He comes on the door and he says, “Hi Marley.” Let me look at what I wrote down when I went through his memory bags. He says, “Hi Cynthia! God you’re pretty.” Have I got that right? Yeah, well that is probably right. You know, pretty beautiful, lovely and attractive. So you are attractive and Cynthia enabled whatever it was, the woman was proud and able. And this early life form has been living in this urn for ten million years and it really is sincere. I mean, it is happy to be alive. Happy to walk around. Happy to do what the child, the dog, you know… Happy to see every object, every person and it just screws it all up, you know. It gets the names wrong and it starts using terms that have been out of use on earth for 200 years like it says things like, “I see you saucy baggage “. May I surprise you in some manners such as diddling you. And he said, “Wait a minute, that has not been said since 1720.” Let me get a look at this. She finally grasped the fact that it was an alien life form. Just about that time, the FBI shows up and says, “Madam, this is not your husband. This is an alien life form and we are going to zap it. All we need is you sign this document to corroborate from your experience with your husband that this is an alien life form.” And she says, “Gosh, no! My husband has been nice, kind, beautiful and wonderful like this all the time I have known him.” And that was too bad, they can’t do a thing. The alien life form later says, “Thank you Mayflor.” Or Cynthia or whoever you are having because I will get it yet. [laughing]
James Holmes: [laughing]
Philip K. Dick: She says, “Okay Chester, Charlie, Arthur or Glen or whatever your name is. I like you fine and I will always have liked you fine ever since I met you twenty-two years ago.” She’s not an alien, I don’t want to make it sound like that. But it doesn’t matter because what is alien is the thing that went off chuckling mordantly to itself and what came back is human. So this still carry’s the same thing. Reality versus illusion.
James Holmes: Uh-huh.
Philip K. Dick: But it shows that the preoccupation is not in one direction. This life form has a ball. It is walking around. It is going across the street to pick up the newspaper or whatever. It didn’t get better at it. It picks up the newspaper from the lawn across the street.
James Holmes: [laughs]
Philip K. Dick: But it enjoyed everything it does because if you have been sitting in a little urn for ten thousand years, you would enjoy anything. Even picking up the San Mateo Merchandiser and reading about you know, cane bottom chairs being sold. You would enjoy that too. It is really enthusiastic. It can’t even figure out how to kick the dog because it thinks that the dog is the wife and the wife is the dog.
James Holmes: [laughs] Where did you go from there?
Philip K. Dick: Downhill.
James Holmes: [laughs]
Philip K. Dick: Where can you go from there? I got $35 for that story. It was published in Startling Quarterly. It attracted the same attention as the preparation H ad and the Hernia belt on the back page attracted. Oh, and I think they made more money with the Hernia Belt. I could not think of a way to go on with that because I was sort of, “What else can you say after you said that.” That again was a variation though at that time in my mind on the basic theme, which was reality versus illusion. I did not see that as an end in itself. I thought of that merely as another way of exploring the subject. That what I did there was important intrinsically. It did not occur to me until I was putting the short story collection together. I was going over a list of every short story I ever wrote
which is not all that long. I came across that and I thought, “Nobody has anthologized that.” And I got to thinking about it and I thought, “You know, that is a little different way of handling a human being possessed by an alien mentality.” You know like, do you remember Robert Heinlein’s, The Puppet Masters?
James Holmes: Uh-huh.
Philip K. Dick: Well, The Puppet Masters preceded that story. For the benefit of the Tijuana radio network or whatever we are taping this for. It was a classic example of what I call… If you are going to talk about a paranoid view of aliens versus human beings, it was a great novel dramatically. I mean, The Puppet Masters… The guy sitting around his name is Chester Knoll, and he’s your brother in law. Normally, he reads the Sporting Green in the morning. One morning, he picks up this Sporting Green and a strange look appears on his face. I forgot what he said but he said something like, “We got you now. We are only pretending to read this Sporting Green. Actually, we are burning out your cerebral cortex by our electronic rays that we are emitting through the
front page.” And you discover that a little parasite has got into the gangly of his spinal column. It was actually sitting on the back of his neck, is that correct? Or little…
James Holmes: Uh-huh.
Philip K. Dick: …horrible lump or thing, you know. And that’s the master and he is the puppet. People talk really funny when they become a puppet. They suddenly… I don’t know, they just do something. They really get awful. I mean, they get really horrible.
James Holmes: [coughs]
Philip K. Dick: And then these little blobs take it over by… It was a great novel. I read it and I said, “Oh my God, this is a terrible thought, you know.”
James Holmes: [breathing sound]
Philip K. Dick: The illustrations in the magazine they were really good. It showed Colonel Conway before and after you know, before he is smiling and holding out his hand. Then after, when the blob has got him, he is giving you a shot with the whoopie electric joy buzzer in his palm and his hands attached to…
James Holmes: [laughs]
Philip K. Dick: …a million volt battery in his pocket. It ain’t no American legion shock. It is curtains. The whole thing really freaks me and I said, “Gosh, they had gone out west and there were little pockets of resistance that you have seen on these.” That did that pretty well, you know. The human being reduced to a puppet. Because I think at the end, they went to pry the little creatures off or something like that.
James Holmes: I see.
Philip K. Dick: Then I got to thinking and then, “Wait a minute now, that was pretty frightening.” But I remember when that was first used. It was used on the Buck Rogers Radio Serial for kids in 1937. Those days, it was called the psychic restriction ray and went like this, “Wilma, what is going on down there in the basement?” Well, come on down and let us sit here and huddle together. And then there was a strange sound and that was the psychic restriction ray emitted by Killer Ken’s agents. And also she said, “Come down here Buck and look in to the front end of my blast pistol and let’s see if it is still working.” And he says, “Gosh, she doesn’t usually talk like that.” I am like, “Gosh, I heard all that in 1937.” It didn’t faze me then, I was only a little kid, you now and it is the same idea. The end of it was the same idea. They got the psychic restriction ray turned off. I don’t see why it should freak me now as an adult when it didn’t freak me as a kid. I never really worried that much after that. I think Robert Heinlein still worries about that kind of thing.
James Holmes: [laughs]
Philip K. Dick: I was going to write that, the Puppet Masters. Let us say like, Robert Heinlein said it to me but he will not probably ever say. I feel like I can’t quite make this novel come off. Could you write the final draft?
James Holmes: [laughs]
Philip K. Dick: So I say, “Sure Bob.” Which I probably wouldn’t say. I will be happy too. Let me look it over. So I look it over and I will say, “First of all, the blobs of protoplasm they are all identical.” And that is stupid because how can you write a dialogue for them if they are all identical? So I will have then named. Bill, George, Chester, Charlie, Gloria and so on. And they would all speak idiomatically. One blob with protoplasm will say to the next one, “You got your puppet under control Bill?” Bill would say, “Yeah, Fred but I am having a little trouble working the legs you know. Could you hand me the manual?”
James Holmes: [laughs]
Philip K. Dick: Well that thing is page 33. It shows that pedal extremity, you know, structure has something to do with the tendon linkage. And finally, my novel, my version of his novel will all break down with the little master’s fighting, arguing, saying, “He screwed up his puppet, didn’t he? You know, he always would. I knew he would be a failure. His mother said he would be a failure.” Pretty soon they would be talking and acting like people and then I will give it back to Robert Heinlein and he would go back to Colorado and lock himself up in the gorge that he lives in, with the barbed wire everything and brood even more. Heinlein has been solo, he always has been.
James Holmes: [laughs]
Philip K. Dick: But I would enjoy writing a dialogue if they were different from one another. Whereas, the way they all were all puppets when they opened their mouths. Do they not all talk somewhat alike?
James Holmes: Uh-huh.
Philip K. Dick: That was pretty much the nitty gritty of it, yeah.
James Holmes: Yeah.
Philip K. Dick: And there is not much fun in writing dialogue under those circumstances. “Hey Bill, how did you do? Fine Bill, I did fine. How about you Bill? Yeah Bill, I did good too. Let’s ask how has Bill did. Yeah, I did good too Bill.”
James Holmes: [laughs]
Philip K. Dick: “Bill did you do good? Yes, I did good.”
James Holmes: [laughs]
Philip K. Dick: How many pages can you fill with talk like that? If all the creatures are named Bill, it is good for a one story. But, as a matter of fact, that might make a pretty good story.
James Holmes: [laughs]
Philip K. Dick: Would you edit this last out of the tape so nobody can plagiarize it?
James Holmes: [laughs]
Philip K. Dick: I may be able to do a satire on The Puppet Masters like that. Hey Bill, let us invade earth. Okay Bill, which one is earth? They’re all like earth. That’s earth over there. It’s the green one over there. They all look like earth.
[both laughing]
Philip K. Dick: Yes. That is yours over there, it is the green one. No, it is the green one over there named earth and so on. All the human beings look alike. They are named Fred, George, Charlie and Gloria.
James Holmes: [laughs] Well, The Man In the High Castle seems to deviate from that you know subjective reality type quite a bit.
Was that sort of the next place that you went or was that the natural conclusion … that doesn’t make sense but…
Philip K. Dick: The Man in the High Castle was an anomaly. …
Continued in:
Part 8 Philip K Dick 1971 Interview
