In a fuzzy sort of way (as in ‘logic’ and ‘Bear’, though not as in ‘creatures from Alpha Centauri (those were furry, which opens a whole ‘nother can of worms)), I’ve been rereading all the Philip K. Dick novels in sorta the order of publication, and so at last came to 1964, and so to The Simulacra. And thus it was that I just yesterday finished what turns out to be a quite prescient novel about lies told by the elites to harried normies who can see no way out from an increasingly untenable present and future. But there I go again, projecting.
The Simulacra (and please note the plural) highlights the divide between the Geheimnisträger and the Befehlsträger—the ‘keepers of secrets’ and the ‘followers of orders’—,which occurs in many other PKD stories and novels, notably in The Penultimate Truth, but this scission is most explicit here. The term Geheimnisträger derives from Dick’s study of Nazi Germany (another recurring theme that recurs with a vengeance in this novel), and particularly from Adolf Eichmann, one of the ‘bearers of the secret’ with knowledge of the Final Solution. Hannah Arendt’s study of Eichmann’s trial in Israel was first published in 1963, just the year before The Simulacra was released by Ace Books. Of course, the ‘secret’ of this far-distant USEA (United States of Europe and America) is not so savage and brutal as the Holocaust, but … well, you should just read the book. Somehow it reads different in these Endtimes of American ‘democracy’ than it did the last time I read it a few decades back. Somehow Philip K. Dick manages to become more prescient with the passing years, though in our own case we seem to live more and more in an open secret, though no ‘Open Conspiracy’ seems able to rise. Ah, me.
I only gas on about The Simulacra (I usually keep my pedestrian thoughts about books to myself; I haven’t an insightful bone in my body) because it turns out to be my 1700th Book in my silly little book tracking project which I’ve been doing for just over a decade now. For those of y’all who haven’t read my blather on this subject, just know that 12-and-a-1/2 years ago my wife gave me a barcode scanner and a database for keeping records of the far too many books I have (and seem to keep acquiring). A coupla years later I started noting when I finished a book, and now I have apparently read seventeen hundred books since starting this nonsense away back in July of 2015. I’ll be posting the full list of this last hundred books read shortly, I hope.
My reading pace slowed somewhat during this last century of books, but the previous rate (for Books #s 1501–1600) was a ridiculous 1 book per 0.96 days. For this most recent tranche of one hundred tomes, I managed a respectable pace of 1.28 days per book, with an average page count of just under 195 pages per book, which works out to be ~152 pages per day—which is actually a significant decline from the previous pace of 193 pp/day. (I blame the holidays.)
I also re-read a previously read book (The Man In The High Castle, again part of my re-reading Philip K. Dick ‘project’, and a shame, ’cause I have other copies I could have pulled off the shelf instead), as well as some 11 comic books and that ilk. As previous readers of this sometimes blog know (perhaps there is one?), I do not count comics or graphic novels as part of the ‘official’ book count, though I do track them. More will be revealed in the soon-to-come full list of all the books read in this last set of one hundred books (112 if you count the re-read PKD and the comics).
Part of the reason for the ludicrous pace of reading is to try to keep my ‘Books Read’ figure greater than my ‘Books Bought’ figure, though the sad truth is that during this past set of 100 books I only managed to have a net reduction in my Books Unread total of just 14 books. Which means, yes, that I added some 86 books to my collection during this past four months. Yikes. (Also, I do count comics, graphic novels, BD, etc. in this total, on both sides of the ledger, but we’ve already gotten too deep into the mathematical weeds of what you must by now surely agree is an aptly named ‘silly’ book tracking project.)
The first book of this past century was Professor Stewart’s Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities by Ian Stewart, which I finished on September 3rd of last year, which was … well, I remember my mother’s dictum. It was okay I guess, though some typos made the explications difficult to follow.
Once again Science Fiction dominated the last 100 books read, at nearly a quarter of the total, mostly due to the PKD novel-re-reading ‘project’. (His name appears in 10 of the works read in this last set, 11 if you count the re-re-reading of The Man In The High Castle, but 4 of those are digests in which Dick’s short stories were originally published.) Mysteries—which are the usual winners in the genre competition—came in third at 17 books read, beat out by the 22 Children’s books I read in an attempt to maintain parity with the books coming into my shelves. (Well, not actually onto the shelves, which are now pretty much entirely full, and ohmigosh do I need help.) I only read 7 books of straight-up Fiction, though the average page count for those was much higher than the genre works, due to reading Lispector, Joseph McElroy, and Wilkie Collins.
The pace was a quite alacritous 128 days to read these 100 books, fully a third greater than the last century of books. If we include the comics, the pace was a little over 1.14 days per book read. Of course we don’t, so … moving on.
1 Book per 1.28 Days
See you soon with Book List(s), j’espère!