Confessions of a Crap Artist (1959)

This is one of a reported dozen or so non-science-fiction novels Philip K. Dick wrote in the 1950s. It’s the only one published in his lifetime and that was not until 1975, though it was written in 1959. It showcases the deceptive simplicity and clarity of his SF and genre work. He was often writing in a rush before the late 1960s, but his prose style tends toward the lucid, if pedestrian. It’s part of what makes the mind-bending stuff work. If Confessions of a Crap Artist is any indication, stripping away the high concept unfortunately doesn’t leave us with much, at least not in this misogynistic story of Bay Area / Northern California life among the effete, feckless, and philandering. Dick dresses it up with some fancy literary conceits, shifting point of view as well as first-person and third-person modes from chapter to chapter. The crap artist of the title is Jack Isidore, who starts and finishes the telling. He is a connoisseur of conspiracy theories and falls in with a group of UFO maniacs. He’s not the main character, though—that’s his sister Fay, a “bitch” as they say it here, entitled, demanding, generally horrible. She goes around demolishing lives. She married a guy for his money and pursues a younger man and breaks up his marriage. Trying for a female point of view is Dick’s first and main mistake. It feels more like someone’s idea of a woman (say, Philip K. Dick’s idea) than like a real woman. How many times had Dick been married and divorced in 1959? Twice—I looked it up. In fact, in 1959 he was going through his second divorce (of five). So, sure, the hate and miserabilism come from a real place. And it is touching in a way to see how badly Dick wanted literary cred. I think it may well continue into the VALIS books, which I haven’t managed to get through yet (soon!). As I’ve said before, I like the playful goofy SF Dick more than any other. His jousts with reality can produce surprisingly powerful effects. This sour little novel seemed very small compared to the best of his science fiction. The Man in the High Castle is marred by its attempts at literary sophistication, which paradoxically may explain why it is at least close to his most popular. It has grounding elements. Whereas in what I would call his best (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Martian Time-Slip, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Ubik, others) he just lets the weird and wild ideas fly. And don’t get me wrong. I like The Man in the High Castle too. Sadly, there is nothing weird or wild or even very good about Confessions of a Crap Artist.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over.