Puttering About in a Small Land

Author - Philip K. Dick ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Paperback Book item from Academy Chicago Publishers was reviewed on 6-Nov-2008.

Search ISBN:0897333845 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. Puttering About in a Small Land Reference Book. Classifications : Contemporary Literature & Fiction Subjects Books Literary Literature & Fiction Subjects Books General AAS Literature & Fiction Subjects Books General Science Fiction Science Fiction & Fantasy Subjects . Click the following link to view the cover of Puttering About in a Small Land.

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1) Paperback Book Puttering About in a Small Land by Academy Chicago Publishers. Pretty slow, but full of utterly believable characters that I really cared about (even though they´re pretty messed up people).¤

2) Paperback Book Puttering About in a Small Land by Academy Chicago Publishers. The title of this realist novel, written in 1957 but not published until 1985, refers to the "small land" of Roger Lindahl´s TV repair shop. His wife, Virginia is ambitious, and ends up taking control of the business and expanding it into a large appliance store; but she, as much as Roger or any of the other characters, exists in the small land of her own mind. California, the land of opportunity which had lured the Lindahls from the East coast, is small in its own way: the deadening conventionality of 1950s manners and morals contract the range of human happiness there as elsewhere. Into this wasteland a fertilizing influence appears in the person of Liz Bonner. Roger finds her refreshingly uninhibited and sensual. In its concentration on the triangle of Roger, Liz, and Virginia, Dick fully develops the psychological dynamics of marital and extramarital relations. His sometimes fantastic descriptions of the wasteland of the "small land" of this novel anticipate the entropic landscapes of his later science-fiction novels such as Martian Time-Slip and Ubik.¤

3) Paperback Book Puttering About in a Small Land by Academy Chicago Publishers. This book, a story about a TV repairman and his family in 1950´s California, contains many of the elements contained in Dick´s science fiction novels: bleak emotional landscapes; the aggressive wife; the everyman character stuggling to get by in the world. But it´s missing the inventiveness, the creepiness, and also the humor of his SF work. This one dragged for me, a bit, though it does contain some memorable characters.

This is one of several non-science fiction novels Dick wrote in the 1950s in an attempt to gain recognition as a serious writer. It didn´t work (while he was still living), and he went back to solid SF at some point. This one is worth reading for sure if you like PKD, but it´s not up there with his very best science fiction.¤

4) Paperback Book Puttering About in a Small Land by Academy Chicago Publishers. I loved this novel. The reactions the adulterers experience after their one ´affair´ are so atypical of drama, film, TV but I suspect so accurate of human life. We can all learn many things from reading Dick´s novels - both SF and otherwise. Somehow - even in extreme environments (which this novel does not show) - he shows everyday reality of the human mind.¤

5) Paperback Book Puttering About in a Small Land by Academy Chicago Publishers. I have a soft spot for this bleakly realistic novel about California life in the 1950´s. The main characters are little people, anti-heroes, average Joes, but Dick´s psychological insights are superb and singular. I remember one character´s description of being popular in elementary school for two days because of making ears from breadcrusts and causing everyone to laugh; and a brilliantly believable internal monologue about getting caught in the act of adultery. Dick´s evocations are haunting. He truly was capable of finding the unique and the universal in the quotidian realities of modern life, even when disguised by a wacky SF alternative-realm framework (not here, though). PUTTERING is straight slice-of-life.

I wish someone would make this one into a movie. It´s bittersweet, evocative--filled with character like an aged burgundy. Read it.¤

6) Paperback Book Puttering About in a Small Land by Academy Chicago Publishers. When the Lindahls meet the Bonners, their marriage is already in deep trouble. This meeting is a catalyst for a complicated series of emotions and traumas, set against the backdrop of suburban Los Angeles in the early ´50s. The best mainstream novel by this famed science fiction writer.¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 4-Dec-2008, 08973338459780897333849, 630-740-000-190-270-510-100-600-050-450-8

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