Time Out of Joint by Philip K. Dick Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Time Out of Joint
Book Review: A good introduction
Summary: 4 Stars
This is my first Phillip K Dick novel. He is most famous for works such as Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly and most famously Do Androids Dream of electric Sheep aka Bladerunner. This is an early novel written in the 1950s.
This was an excellent introduction. We are introduced to Ragle Gumm and his very mundane suburban existence. He is a serial competition winner who lives in an ordinary house with his sister and her normal family. Things however are not all that they seem. Is this world real or simply a façade? What is going on underneath and why does the man who wins a newspaper competition, apparently become the most important in the world. Or is this just paranoia? The sense of mystery is gripping and I finished it in a day.
Things indeed are not all they seem and a chase for escape and reason begins. This is in many ways a forerunner of other books and films based on this theme e.g. Truman Show. It was a great read and I will be trying some of the others.
The only slight criticism is that the ending is all a bit sudden. It comes almost as if it is grafted on to explain the mystery. But it takes nothing away from an excellent read.
Book Review: A very good novel from the tail end of Dick's "early period"
Summary: 4 Stars
Most serious student's of Philip K. Dick's literary career consider the height of his art to be a string of amazing novels that he wrote in the sixties. But even Dick's earliest novels are at least very interesting. THE COSMIC PUPPETS, for instance, is one of Dick's earliest works, far from the great works of the sixties, but still utterly fascinating. TIME OUT OF JOINT is one of the last novels before Dick's narratives became more complex and polished in the sixties. But that "more" has to be qualified. As one critic has written, Dick never wrote a truly great book. As a pulp writer, he was under tremendous financial pressure to wrap manuscript up rather than polish them. Even his best books like THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE and DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? are filled with literary infelicities, awkwardly constructed characters, and sketchy narratives. But this same critic remarked that while Dick never wrote that one great masterpiece like LeGuin's THE DISPOSSESSED or Keith Roberts's PAVANE, he may have written more "good" books than anyone else in the 20th century. He may have been merely a pulp writer, but he was a brilliant one.
TIME OUT OF JOINT, like so many of Dick's books from all periods of his career, reflects a preoccupation between what appears to be the case and what truly is. In a situation that other reviewers here have noted is reminiscent of THE TRUMAN SHOW, Ragle Gumm is at the center of a reality that has been constructed around him. He thinks it is 1959, but in fact it is 1998. He thinks he is the world's greatest champion in an ongoing newspaper contest, but in reality he is the central figure in the defense of Earth from attacks from Lunatics on the moon (it turns out the Lunatics are the good guys). The brilliance of the book comes from the way that Gumm's world is gradually undermined by bits of experience that don't quite jive with all the rest. Dick pretty much invented the alternative reality genre and while he would write even better examples in the sixties, few other writers would ever come up to the level of this book in any decade. In the world of alternative reality, Dick's main competition is himself.
The great thing about Philip K. Dick is that it is so hard to go wrong with any of his books. Even his weakest books, such as COUNTER-CLOCK WORLD or VALIS, have a lot to recommend them. If you have already read a great deal of Dick but have not read this one, I enthusiastically recommend it. If you have not read any Dick whatsoever, this is a great place to break in. Only, make sure it is not the last thing you read by him.
Book Review: Among Dick's best early novels
Summary: 5 Stars
In the hands of the right director, Time Out Of Joint could be one of the best recent speculative fiction films of recent years.
Equal parts Dark City and The Truman Show, this early Philip K. Dick novel touches on all that you expect from a PKD novel - "What is reality?" - and makes a real page-turner out of it. The pace after the lengthy into is blistering, the revelations exciting, and the Truth entirely strange and awesome. Predictable, maybe (I guessed it), but still quite a nice reveal. A real page-turner, this one, with some of Dick's best prose from his early days and a concept that has since been stolen a dozen times over. Never before has an uneventful drive in an 18-wheeler been so thrilling.
Likely considered minor PKDick, and I understand why some might make that argument, but I was really caught im in this scenario. Among his better early novels and an excellent novel for the PKD novice to dip into before trying out his more heady, less accessible later work.
Book Review: Aweseomest book ever
Summary: 5 Stars
After reading this book, I was very paranoid about my surroundings. Are we all living in a dream. Initially, when I began reading the book, I felt as though the characters' paranoia was uncalled for and went as fart as calling them irrational, then as the storyline progressed, I realized that the reasons for why they were so afraid were valid. I recommend it to anyone who wants to dig deeper into 50's paranoia. I had to read this book for a lecture on 1950's television production and it's context with society.Book Review: Definitely Worth An Afternoon
Summary: 5 Stars
Often in his works, Philip K. Dick will attempt to tie together too many plot threads and mind-bending concepts. Such books, with "Dr. Bloodmoney" being the best example I can think of, render themselves ineffectual and unenjoyable. As "Dr. Bloodmoney" was the second PKD book I read, and "Time Out Of Joint" the third, I was expecting to have to follow a complex plot and sort everything out. I was pleasantly surprised by what I read."Time Out Of Joint" investigates only one PKD concept- false reality being supplanted by true reality- but he goes far more in depth than usual. This allows him to develop his characters more than usual, and the decreased emphasis on sci-fi concepts causes the first three-quarters of the book to develop much like a novel. Given that that is not familiar PKD territory, it was also surprising how smoothly it developed. Toward the end, the book lost that smoothness, and the last few chapters went by very quickly and jerkily. This wasn't that bad, though, as Dick used that jerkiness to impart a sense of gradually increasing intensity. This helped, as dawning awareness of the situation corresponded to an increase in the urgency. The book's ending seemed rather abrupt, but PKD may have wanted it that way.
I would recommend this book to anyone, PKD fan or no. The compelling premise and highly effective dawning awareness make it very easy for anyone to read and enjoy. PKD fans should buy this for completeness- not just completeness of their collection, but also completeness of PKD's range of writing.