From the novels I have read about him: The Man in the High Castle (1962), The Ray Gun (1967), The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1982), Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), Ubik is the one that I liked the most. This is a super subjective judgment that I will not try to defend in any way, or in the least correct way, that is, being even more subjective in the foundation: I really liked it because it was the one that blew my mind the most.
I'm going to dwell on this ultra hackneyed metaphor. Blow up the head. It is assumed that reason, thought, common sense reside in the head: well, Ubik puts a bomb in all these corners where the human being feels comfortable to carry out their daily tasks: cleaning the house, washing the car, attending to children, rejoice at the increase in salary, etc.
Ubik distorts, Ubik lurks, Ubik is everywhere because as he or she is in charge of saying "I am Ubik. Before the universe existed, I existed. I made the suns and worlds. I created lives. .. ".
It is a novel that helps our perception of things become more flexible.
Of all the reasons that one could give to tell someone "look, this novel is really good", I think that is the most forceful: reading Ubik stretches the senses, as long as one wishes to do so, of course. But no, even if one is a lazy jerk and always owner of the truth, Ubik bends you: Ubik may cure not only nonsense but also arrogance.
Because if something characterizes pride, it is the security of its position and its knowledge. Ubik is a bomb under the armchair of pride.
But what is Ubik itself? When I started reading the novel I assumed that when I finished it I was going to understand it and, believe me: I was close.
However, here I am confessing it: I do not know exactly what Ubik is. Maybe other readers of the novel may know, if I had not read the novel maybe I could know what Ubik is, but having read it I must say - I have to say, because that is or could be the truth - I don't know what It is what it is, but it is there.
They say it is a humorous novel, it may be that it is; but more than laughter, history produces the same physical sensation that a meticulous contemplation of the sea gives rise to: annulment of all the senses, a happy inauguration of full freedom, happiness in the face of the ungraspable.
Several volumes of analysis must have been written about this work, it happens that it can be approached from an infinity of perspectives. The narrator of the story himself tells us about the Platonic archetypes, there we would have nothing else to entertain ourselves for a while.
The date it was written: we are in the middle of the Cold War and with the United States sinking in Vietnam: that is in the novel, although it is not named at any time, it is in the novel.
Postmodernism, it seems to me, is also present: there is no totality, there is no certain thing to believe in, everything fades, I must distrust everything: the ethics of disappointment.
Anyway, I don't want to go overboard on issues that certainly exceed me. You don't need anything to enjoy this little work.
I have a habit of standing up for books that made me happy, because everything that makes you happy should be standing up. This little book deserved that applause. What is the use of reading? To know that other face of happiness: to find in the silence of words the music that makes the stars turn.
Damn Philip Dick, thanks again.
