Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
By: Philip K. Dick / Narrated By: Phil Gigante
Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
In which: I TRIED to love this, honestly!!!
Okay… I watched Blade Runner… and that’s it. That’s been my only experience of Philip K. Dick… uhm, would y’all mind terribly if I took a ridiculously-ill-earned liberty/familiarity with the man… after this, my single dive into his work? …PKD…?
I’d forgotten some of a dear friend’s faves, tho’ we message, like, all the time. But when queried, he’d offered PKD as a fave. So I dived into m’ Library because his birthday was in this (As of this writing) month of October. And lo and behold: Ta DAH! I have Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said. So, awesome and onto a Listen for a Birthday Review.
I also have a collection of Short Stories of his early work, and…? Those? I’ll listen to cuz this story is all over the place and, to me, lacking in heart. It could’ve been pared down a lot to get at the Dystopian world he’s manufactured.
Jason Taverner is a famous entertainer, and apparently? That’s the only facet of him that merits notice. He’s a highly unsympathetic Hero. As he never even attempts to keep It In His Pants, he winds up with a girlfriend, gets zapped with alien life forms (The likes of which disappear from the story in WHAM! No time at all). After this attack, he wakes up in a seedy flophouse with an incredibly large sum of money. The problem is that he can’t remember how he got to be there -AND- his identity is gone.
The whole of the story is of him trying to figure stuff out…
…AND… dealing with women who are caricatures and wish to bed him.
Big Sis and I discussed this Listen, and she posited it this way: It was written in an era when women were, quite simply, viewed as not much of anything. M’ husband, whom I was kvetching to, posited it this particular way: male writers of SciFi, no matter how competent, how famous they become, never actually get over being kinda sorta geeky. Theirs is a view written from the cheap seats where women aren’t all that much. Every single woman from the get-go is cheaply written, with questionable competencies. And they’re nutty. They’re doing stuff like waiting for a love who is probably dead (And thus, is sexually available to Taverner), or they’re talented potters who do NOT wish to bed him but who instead get all starry-eyed and worshipful once his fame is noted.
-OR- they’re the one individual who’s not toooo terribly keen on him but just happens to be the incestuous wife of her brother (The man who holds Taverner’s fate in his hands).
LOVED Phil Gigante tho’ the narration of some of the women, given how they’re written, are passively relayed, or are nutbags from hell and sound all crazed and stuff, or are exceedingly amped up on illicit drugs and come out like spazzes. Gigante, who performed the VASTLY fanTAStic The Cowboy and the Cossack (Which was mostly male characters), does well with the plethora of other characters in this male-dominated dystopia. And I still love him, would listen to anything else he narrates. I’m definitely a fan…
I do indeed adore my Doulos friend, wish him the best for this coming year, but YIKES! I just couldn’t get through this one fast enough. The meaning comes in but a single instant, and if you blink you’ll miss it. Likewise dozing off (And I wasn’t even eating Uber-Carb-Laden trail mix!), one has to backtrack posthaste, but usually only to find Taverner griping or spazzing, and what else is new.
So Happiest of Birthdays to m’ favorite buddy, and dude! I PROMISE I’ll try another PKD, like, fairly soon. It’s just this one’s sexism irritated me, annoyed me, all in one fell-swoop. Take care and have a wonderful year!!!
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