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This is one of the best Literary Biographies I have ever read. Yes, I said Literary Biography because, despite what detractors say this pretty much is a Philip K. Dick biography even if it isn't written in scholarly manner. Of course it would have better if it had been properly sourced, had footnotes, etc. but I wonder, of that is the criteria for "good" biography, how one about most subjects could even be written. Unless the subject was a U.S. President like Richard Nixon or Lyndon Johnson-who
A compelling biography of Philip K. Dick, science fiction's most creative storyteller. Dick was plagued with mental illness throughout his life, most likely exacerbated by the amphetamines he took to write his books quickly and several periods of living amongst the intelligentsia and the burnouts of southern California, and his sanity slowly metamorphosed into something far stranger. He would have prescient dreams where he heard words of ancient Greek he'd never known; and once accurately diagno...
As biographies go, this one is expertly written. The author delves deeply into Dick's life and works, and their intertwining. A thorough biography which remains balanced and objective while immensely readable, even for non-'Dickheads'.
This is in no sense a scholarly work—no footnotes, no bibliography, not even a "further reading" list. Emmaneul Carrère is an unabashed fan of Philip K. Dick who, having read everything there was to read, still wanted to know more about how Dick's mind worked. He pursued this quest through much of Dick's unpublished material and apparently interviews with those who knew him. (I say "apparently" because the lack of footnotes, while adding to readability, does detract from complete clarity about s...
I would have given Emmanuel Carrère's "I Am Alive and You Are Dead" four stars, but it wasn't quite what I expected. I came to Carrère's book, thinking that it was a traditional biography but instead found that it was crafted more like a work of fiction, where Dick is of course the main character. "I Am Alive..." is a well written book, but one has to wonder how much liberty Carrère has taken with the "truth" of Philip's life. I cannot say for sure, because I have only read a handful of Dick's s...
Wow! What can you say about Philip K. Dick and this biography? I mean, I knew Dick was a paranoid, but I had no idea to what degree he was. Stunning. I'm surprised he didn't die from a stroke much earlier in his short life. This book also confirmed for me that many of Dick's books were written in a drug addled state, although he only took LSD once -- everything else was uppers, for the most part. It's how he churned out his novels so fast.It seemed to me that Dick had a miserable, tortured life,...
PKD was one of my favorite authors throughout high school, and it was fascinating to read this biography almost a decade later and to realize that one of the reasons I may have liked him so much is may latently possess some of the same neuroses that are in full swing for Dick.
A fantastic approach to biography, using PKD's own fiction to inform and dramatise the story of his life. This was an absolute delight to read, bringing warm memories of the Dick books I've read (and wonderful insights into their inception), sending me back to read yet again my well-thumbed copies of Scanner, High Castle, and the early short story collections, and giving me a few titles to add to my must-read list. I admit to mixed feelings regarding the man himself: he lived with such selfish s...
This biography of writer Philip K. Dick imagines that his body of work is essentially one extended AUTObiography. This in itself would not be an interesting claim (eg, who would ever want to read a biography of John Updike?), but Dick's work consists of some of the most tripped-out science fiction ever written. The project is elegantly executed, in an extraordinary simulation of Dick's own style, and surely based on at least some facts. Reading it is an unusually thought-provoking experience.
I've read a pile of PKD books during the last twenty years and found this to be interesting. This tied in what was happening in his life and the parallels with the books he was writing. This book would mean alot lot less to me if I hadn't read the books. I became less interested in the end as PKD went really over the deepend during the Ubik/Valis Divine Invasion years. The book was enjoyable and I felt that Carrere had an understanding and a appreciation of PKD. There are also a number of books
