Book Review: Philip K. Dick: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

What about [my] books? How do I feel about them?
I enjoyed writing all of them. But I think that if I could only choose a few, which, for example, might escape World War Three, I would choose, first, Eye in the Sky. Then The Man in the High Castle.Martian Time-Slip (published by Ballantine). Dr. Bloodmoney (a recent Ace novel). Then The Zap Gun and The Penultimate Truth, both of which I wrote at the same time. And finally another Ace book, The Simulacra.
But this list leaves out the most vital of them all: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. I am afraid of that book; it deals with absolute evil, and I wrote it during a great crisis in my religious beliefs. I decided to write a novel dealing with absolute evil as personified in the form of a "human." When the galleys came from Doubleday I couldn't correct them because I could not bear to read the text, and this is still true.

-Philip K. Dick

*Warning: SPOILERS AHEAD

Philip K. Dick's The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (from now on known as Sitgmata is about pure evil. Not in the sense of "the most cruel, unhuman, monstrous, etc. thing you can think of; no, it is about the cruelty of having a chance to attain what you could never have.

It is an evil analogous to the forbidden fruit (which is actually discussed in the novel). It goes so far as to explain why God answering every prayer may not be in the best interest of the universe as a whole. Philip K. Dick has always had an interest in trying to explain God. In this novel he creates a synthetic God. Not only does this end up having consequences, it becomes a symbiotic relationship in which humanity is fed on by a parasitic alien.

Stigmata mainly follows two people. Barney Mayerson, a pre-cog (someone who can see the future in vagaries, such as being able to read the headlines of a future newspaper) who works for the Perky Pat Layout company, and Leo Bulero, the head of P.P. Layouts, and the kingpin of a drug cartel which sells the drug Can-D.



Let's get this out of the way. In the year the book is set, the Earth is getting increasingly hotter. people can not go out during mid-day without personal cooling systems. Only the richest can afford homes in colder areas, and Antarctica has become a resort for the wealthy. Because of this crisis, The U.N. has begun to colonize planets as well as moons. The people that colonize these places are downtrodden, depressed, and somewhat mentally unstable. They are stuck on bare, acrid planets. To combat this, they buy pieces to the Perky Pat miniature set. This includes most everyday settings such as a library, a television, a beach, etc. Technically it is pretty much a doll house set.

Now this is where Can-D comes in. As I stated Can-D is manufactured and pushed by Leo Bulero, who also runs Perky Pat. When a colonist ingest Can-D, they are transported mentally into the Perky Pat layout that they have created. A female enters Perky Pat, a beautiful woman, while men enter her boyfriend, Walt. Whatever they do in their time inside the bodies depends on what parts of the layout they have purchased.

So pretty much, Leo runs a monopoly on both the layouts and the drugs.

Eventually Leo's monopoly is threatened by a man named Palmer Eldritch, who has recently returned form the mysterious Prox zone (basically other universes, containing sentient life, that the powers that be do not want people traveling too). Eldritch has returned with a new synthetic drug, which he calls Chew-Z, which allows the user to create their own universe, basically live whatever life they want inside their mind. On top of this, the time lapse in the real world when using the drug is only a few minutes, even though you can spend a lifetime in your own personal world.

So as the book progresses we learn more about Chew-Z. Whoever takes it does end up in their own world, but the world is controlled partially by Palmer Eldritch. Pretty much whoever takes the drug gives up a portion of their mind and body to him. This is where the analogy to Christianity becomes strong. Of course there is the obvious analogy to transubstantiation (the body in the wafer and the blood in the wine). It also touches on the deeper idea of this: if we can have anything we want, basically live in our own controlled world where we are happy, would it be worth giving up a part of your soul?

I won't go into any more detail than this. The book itself is a pretty good read. Dick has always shown flashes of brilliance in his dialog, and his ability to expound on ideology both big and small without missing a beat in his stories is the reason he is one of my favorite authors. His main characters, Leo and Barney, are both fun to follow, Barney, still haunted by his past decisions to choose his career over his wife, and Leo, whose brilliance in the business world has made him one of the most powerful men in the world. It is interesting to learn what makes him tick.

In closing, Stigmata is a book with the uncanny ability to tell both a centralized narrative while simultaneously expounding on the nature of religion, humanity, and temptation. The only problem I had with Stigmata is that, like most Philip K. Dick books, it has a relatively weak ending. The man could certainly write a story, but he seems to have trouble finishing what he started.

Verdict: 8.5/10

*Recommended