I Am Alive And You Are Dead
by Alex
I recently read — in, like, a day — _I Am Alive And You Are Dead_ by Emmanuel Carrere. It’s a biography (sort of) of Philip K Dick. I’ve always loved read PDK and I knew that they were all more or less true. That is to say, that he struggled with mental illness, died believing God was beaming information into his head, that he transcribed his own exegisis of the bible/science fiction novel that would eventually be articulated through him and so forth. But I had no idea just how bizarre Dick’s life was, which is to say, crazy beyond belief. He is the archetypical person who is too smart to go crazy but does so anyway — definitely a type I’ve encountered more than once in my life.
Carrere’s prose is racy and streamlined and clearly very French, although it never suffers from appearing to have been thought in one language and then written in another. Apparently there is now an extensive literature on PDK, none of which I’ve read. So while I have no idea how Carrere compares to the others, I must say that as far as I am concerned if you are looking for just one book to read on PDK this is it. It is a biography, but it is written as a novel in the third person but with long passages explaining the various mental worlds and dilemmas that PDK was living through. However it is also a guide to the content of his most important novels. This treatment of the subject, ignoring as it does the line between documented events, what the author merely imagines his subject to have felt, and the description of the actions in various novels, is quite fast and loose with the facts. This would only be a problem, of course, if your subject was anyone but PDK, who really didn’t see any difference between all of these worlds.
Given the ultimate tragedy of PDK’s life, the book is more than a little depressing. But the audacity with which PDK lives means that it is also very funny. And most importantly, it’s a fantastic read about a fantastic author. I highly reccomend it.
I continue to be no longer amazed at the things you are into. Philip K. Dick: yeah, of course Alex would dig that. He’s one of the few artistic experiences that make me a genuinely different person than I would otherwise be, I think. Despite a habitual avoidance of secondary material, I am going to read this. thanks.
I read it, in, like, a day. I found it as gripping and disturbing, yea, almost unto nausea, as many of PDK’s own works. Pity and terror. Seriously.
Thank you, I think.