Paperback, 297 pagine
lingua Spanish
Pubblicato il 10 Novembre 2004 da Ediciones Urano.
Ubik, written in 1966 and published in 1969, is one of Philip K. Dick's masterpieces (The Three Stigmata of Plamer Eldritch is another one). Ubik is the first novel to introduce spiritual elements that will culminate in his last novels VALIS, the Divine Invasion and the Transmigration of Timothy Archer. According to movie industry rumor Ubik could be the next big PKD movie project. Philip K. Dick himself wrote a screenplay for Ubik in 1974 but it was never made into a movie. PKD was hoping that it would by sending "the novel to the agent of Victoria Principal- whom he revered - in hope that she'd wind up reading it."(Tim Powers in the introduction to Ubik: The Screenplay). Ubik was expanded and adapted from the short story "What the Dead Men Say" published in Worlds of Tomorrow in 1964. Ubik is one of the most published books of Philip …
Ubik, written in 1966 and published in 1969, is one of Philip K. Dick's masterpieces (The Three Stigmata of Plamer Eldritch is another one). Ubik is the first novel to introduce spiritual elements that will culminate in his last novels VALIS, the Divine Invasion and the Transmigration of Timothy Archer. According to movie industry rumor Ubik could be the next big PKD movie project. Philip K. Dick himself wrote a screenplay for Ubik in 1974 but it was never made into a movie. PKD was hoping that it would by sending "the novel to the agent of Victoria Principal- whom he revered - in hope that she'd wind up reading it."(Tim Powers in the introduction to Ubik: The Screenplay). Ubik was expanded and adapted from the short story "What the Dead Men Say" published in Worlds of Tomorrow in 1964. Ubik is one of the most published books of Philip K Dick in the world.
...having said that you probably need to be a PKD fan to get into it at first. I am willing to bet more than a few people met this book first and noped out of PKD forever, which is a shame. Not the most accessible story, takes a bit of stamina, imo, but the payoff is well well worth it.
I've never read a book that more convincingly took a dreamlike premise and made it work so powerfully. If there was a book which encapsulated the experience of being in a nightmare you can't wake up from, this would be it. Very, very good.
Borrowed this book from Geri.
I do not have a good history with P. K. Dick. I never could really appreciate his writing style, I've always found it too unstable, unpredictable, as if he's making things up as he goes. But then again, last time I read a Dick's book I was still a teenager, so why not give it another try?
Well, this time it went remarkably better.
I still find his stories a little aimless, without a well defined direction, like something one writes under the influence of... something. Like when you're drunk and you try to make a conversation, but you keep jumping from one topic to another without apparent connection. But now I think that this is not necessarily a bad thing.
In this novel you never know what to expect on the next page. If in my young age I found this somehow annoying, now, with a lot more read …
I do not have a good history with P. K. Dick. I never could really appreciate his writing style, I've always found it too unstable, unpredictable, as if he's making things up as he goes. But then again, last time I read a Dick's book I was still a teenager, so why not give it another try?
Well, this time it went remarkably better.
I still find his stories a little aimless, without a well defined direction, like something one writes under the influence of... something. Like when you're drunk and you try to make a conversation, but you keep jumping from one topic to another without apparent connection. But now I think that this is not necessarily a bad thing.
In this novel you never know what to expect on the next page. If in my young age I found this somehow annoying, now, with a lot more read books under my belt, being surprised is not something that happens so often, so I happily embrace anything that can surprise me. And Ubik definitely could.
There's a strange, surreal mood throughout the entire novel, that feeling that you can't decide if what you're reading is real or a fever dream by one of the characters. You often find the main character wondering something like "this may be happening because I'm dead and this is half-life, or maybe not, maybe HE's the one who's dead". It would even be funny if the overall atmosphere wasn't so damn creepy.
Because we've got all kinds of psi powers here (telepaths, precogs, reanimators, and inertials that counteract them) as well as people in half-life (people that are dead, but not really dead dead, so you can still talk to them via some kind of electronic telephone-like device. Don't ask). We've got coin-operated talking doors that won't let you out of your apartment if don't pay. We've got all kinds of crazy stuff, but if you know Dick even just a little bit, you can't expect anything less.
So, did I enjoy this book? I did. I still can't be 100% at ease with Dick's writing style, but there's a lot in this novel that makes it worth a read.
Non penso di poter recensire onestamente questo libro perché non penso di averlo capito del tutto - è il mio rapporto con le storie di Dick, alzare la testa alla fine e pensare: "quante cose mi sarò persa questa volta?", devo accettarlo.
Ciò detto, credo che l'angoscia, che è un po' la marca stilistica di questo autore, abbia in questo libro tutto lo spazio di esprimersi appieno e, è il caso di dirlo, anche tutto il tempo. I salti temporali della trama restano per me un mistero, ma quello che è certo è che riuscire a distribuire la storia e le atmosfere in ambienti così diversi e quasi slegati tra loro (se non dalla parola Ubik) è un'impresa da gran maestro.
Per quanto riguarda Ubik in sé, che Dick non concede la grazia di farci capire cosa sia esattamente, io credo che sia da un lato un semplice espediente …
Non penso di poter recensire onestamente questo libro perché non penso di averlo capito del tutto - è il mio rapporto con le storie di Dick, alzare la testa alla fine e pensare: "quante cose mi sarò persa questa volta?", devo accettarlo.
Ciò detto, credo che l'angoscia, che è un po' la marca stilistica di questo autore, abbia in questo libro tutto lo spazio di esprimersi appieno e, è il caso di dirlo, anche tutto il tempo. I salti temporali della trama restano per me un mistero, ma quello che è certo è che riuscire a distribuire la storia e le atmosfere in ambienti così diversi e quasi slegati tra loro (se non dalla parola Ubik) è un'impresa da gran maestro.
Per quanto riguarda Ubik in sé, che Dick non concede la grazia di farci capire cosa sia esattamente, io credo che sia da un lato un semplice espediente narrativo per tenere insieme tutti i pezzi, e dall'altro sia una densità di significato che ricorre ma non si riesce a comprendere fino in fondo (e da qui la sensazione di: "cosa avrò mancato di cogliere?"). Per me personalmente, che non ho letto critiche o teorie al riguardo, Ubik sta per ubiquity, che è uno dei temi del libro e una delle grandi questioni della modernità secondo novecentesca che è la zona di caccia di Dick (o forse è la zona in cui la realtà va a caccia di Dick, considerata l'ansia che si porta dietro).
Per fortuna c'è un onesto 95% di probabilità che mi sbagli di grosso.
