The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I don't know Dick.

I've read some of his work and enjoyed it. But this was a deep philosophical dive on top of the classic psychological-warping mind games that PKD is famous for. All the tropes are here: a bevy of unlikable characters, each flawed in their own way; a scathing side-wise attack on the supposed values of 1950's America including rank capitalism, political subjugation of colonized peoples (or in this case, the colonizers themselves), and plastic-surgery-enhanced beauty; religious zealotry; and so on. Everything you'd want in a PKD novel is here. I thought I knew Dick. There was more that I just didn't get in my past readings of some of his other works. Really, I don't know Dick.

What really "gets" me about this novel, is that it gets me - right in the heart. PKD is mainly known for challenging readers intellectually by shattering their preconceived notions of reality. There is plenty of that here. In fact, more so, even, than many of his other works. But The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch doesn't rely purely on mind-tweaking to engage the reader. This novel has heart, especially in the chest of the one unlikable person who eventually emerges as the main character, Barney Mayerson. There are moments of genuine emotional pain, a sense of deeply-felt loss, which is rare in science fiction, generally, much more so when one is caught up in the psychedelic gonzo web of a Philip K. Dick novel. Mayerson's past choices and subsequent regrets are absolutely heart-crushing. Atonement is held out as a potential cure for his bad, even cruel decisions, then just as quickly withdrawn as unattainable.

There was such a thing as salvation. But -
Not for everyone.

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