Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

Brilliant!

Many questions arise when one reads Philip K. Dick’s 1968 sci fi classic. But one question I specifically had to ask myself was, Why on earth did I give this a four star rating when I joined Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ? Am I completely nuts? I leave it up to you, dear Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ friends, to answer that question. But thanks in advance for your encouraging words.

Personally I’m going to put it down to circumstances. I was reading this book for the first time while I was on vacation in Barcelona. It took me about a week to read it, even though it’s only 193 pages, because I simply didn’t have much time to read. And therefore most of my reading was done in short spurts, often while I was standing in crowded places or even not been standing at all, but walking to some other place. That’s really not how a book like this should be read.

Even though it is a fairly easy read, and possesses the qualities of a page-turner, your mind will be working overtime. Trying to figure out what is, and what is not, and what it all means.

There is much more in the book than there is in the movie. Mood organs, empathy boxes, Wilbur Mercer and Buster Friendly, an electric sheep, of course. There’s much for you still to discover, if so far you‘ve only seen the movie(s).

But the main point is the same as it was when in 1982 Blade Runner finally got onto the big screen. As androids have become so similar to us that it is increasingly hard to tell if they are androids in the first place, and they might not even know it themselves, then what is it that differentiates us from them? And is one worth more than the other? What if we have decided on a certain quality that distinguishes us from them, but then we realize that some people don’t possess that quality? Or maybe they possess it to a lesser extent than the average person does. Are they not humans then? Are they lesser humans? Are they? Are we? What are we?

We follow bounty hunter Rick Deckard on his assignment to retire six rogue androids, as he wrestles with those questions himself. He will come across some persons that could be androids or could be humans. Deckard will not know initially. And neither will the reader. At some point the reader might even ask if Deckard himself is an android. The ambiguity of the text, in spite of PKD’s easily flowing and easily understandable prose, is a real treat.

The other POV is that of J.R. Isidore, a special, meaning someone with a below average IQ that was not allowed to leave for Mars, as most of mankind did after World War Terminus, and is now degenerating because of the radioactive fallout. He’s living all by himself in a deserted apartment building and basically only comes into contact with other people while he’s at work. That is, until one day he discovers that an android has moved into the building and he tries to befriend her (it?).

At some point the paths of these characters will inevitably cross and all of them are about to lose something in the process.

And then there’s the matter of Wilbur Mercer and Buster Friendly, of course. Find out for yourself. ;)

Thanks to my pathetic memory (or the circumstances � remember the circumstances?) I tremendously enjoyed this re-read. And honestly, I think there’s so much here in the text and also between the lines that I’m quite certain I’m going to read this again in the future. And I might enjoy it equally as much then or even more than I did during this second read.

I’m finally moving this to my favorites shelf now.

Highly recommended!

Brilliant!