The Penultimate Truth: A Novel [Paperback]

I am frankly surprised that this book is so little understood. I will grant at the outset that the writing itself is not very distinguished for sophisticated literary palettes--but its greatness lies in the ideas that it casts into the tireless tropes of speculative fiction.

To begin with, he spins a cognitive framework of a world in perpetual war, waged by robots above the surface of the earth which has become too ravaged by radioactivity to support human life. Humans are reduced to living underground in "tanks", subterranean factories whose economy depends upon the constant repair of damaged robot warriors from the surface. The only source of information about this grim cognitive framework pipes in through the Television tube, where a Dear Great Leader sits behind the imposing desk of authority, surrounded by the symbols of state. He prattles about the sacrificies made by the millions surviving in the tanks, he talks about the struggles to build a free society on the surface, the despicable nature of the enemy, the threat to liberty, and so on and so forth. You get the picture. You have heard it yourself on the nightly news for years and years.

So the crisis comes when the chief mechanic for the tank grows desperately ill. Death is certain unless they can obtain an artificial organ transplant. How can they do that? They have no power, no initiatives available in this regard. If he dies, they will fall behind in their quota, their food rations will be cut, the lives of the entire tank are at stake. So in a desperate state they decide to send one of their own to the surface on a quest for an artificial organ. When he makes his way to the surface, he fears instant incineration from the death dealing warrior robots--instead, imagine his surprise as he discovers that the entire planet is a beautiful sunlit garden, inhabited not by fierce warrior robots and smoking ruins, but instead a privileged leisure class served by the robots in luxury, devoting their time to spinning little fearful fictions for the slaves laboring down below...

Recognise this world? You're living in it. For you are either a Yance man--one who writes speeches for the Dear Great Leader--that is to say a wise guy--an Illuminatus--or you are a subterranean slave--a know nothing. Which one are you?

Actually, Dick shows a third way in the form of a mysterious native American, a member of the new Aristocracy, who plays the role of Scarlet Pimpernel with a time machine, systematically and methodically working against the Status Quo--and working for the liberation of the armies of slaves living and working in the underground. For, after all, none of us are supposed to awake, but then again, sometimes some of us do. And What Then? Do we join these forces of authority, intent on the domination of the great unwashed masses--Or ,do we work for the improvement of their lot, freeing them with useful knowledge and the simple facts of existence? How do you successfully inform someone that they are living in chains if they have never had them off? How do you force someone to actually realize that yes, everything IS connected to everything--and no, there really IS no such thing as a free lunch?

Dick's story takes Plato's parable of the Cave and cloaks it in a futuristic scenario. He brings the mystical ideas of the neo-platonists to life. He creates a metaphor for the secret teachings of the Gnostic Christians. He hints that the great liberating figures of the story, the time traveller, may be the second coming of Christ, and implys that Christ may have been a time traveller himself.

These are the grandest notions of bondage by ignorance vs liberation through knowledge, the salvation and healing available through simple practical truths. The story demonstrates clearly the workings of the "Authoritarian Mind", using fear, mystification, mythification,and reification to control the common man in his inherent ignorance-- and contrasts them with historical figures of liberation, who combated ignorance with knowledge and enlightenment. The title, and the story, begs the question, never answered...since it purports to reveal the Penultimate Truth, what is the revelation of the Ultimate Truth?

This is a world were the majority of people spend their time unknowingly serving the rich who lead lives of affluent decadence. The commoners leader is a vision that doesn't actually exist and represents a minority that cares nothing for them.

This is our world right now, and I must give P K Dick the credit he deserves for predicting this future. I love PK Dick and this is one of his most relevant works for today's society.

Philip K. Dick's 11th sci-fi novel, "The Penultimate Truth," was originally released in 1964 as a Belmont paperback (no. 92-603, for all you collectors out there) with a staggering cover price of...50 cents. Written during one of Dick's most furiously prolific periods, it was the first of four novels that he saw published that year alone! One of his more cynical depictions of a duplicitous U.S. government, the story involves yet another one of the author's post-atomic holocaust futures. Here, it is the year 2025, and the bulk of mankind lives underground in protective "cubbies," while a pitched atomic war is fought on the surface by the "leadies" (robots) of the opposing sides. What is actually happening, however (and this is not a spoiler; it is revealed in the novel's opening chapters), is that the war has been over for a full 13 years, and the government in charge--via Agency-written and -produced fake news bulletins and televised talks from a programmed "president"--is doing its darnedest to keep the populace underground and literally in the dark; a captive labor force for its own devices! Against this backdrop, Dick introduces us to a large cast of underground "tankers" and Agency men (the book features 47 named characters, as well as several unnamed), and concentrates on two converging story lines. In one, Nicholas St. James (president of the Tom Mix "ant tank," one of 160,000 such underground dwellings, each containing 1,500 living souls) tunnels to the surface for the first time in 15 years, to procure an artificial pancreas (an "artiforg") for his dying head mechanic. In the other, Joseph Adams, a writer for the Agency, becomes involved in a complicated scheme hatched by the 82-year-old world despot, Stanton Brose, to ruin a Donald Trump-like housing developer. This scheme becomes even more complex when its principals start getting killed off, leading to a mind-boggling melange of time travel, superweapons, satellite spying and double crosses. Thank goodness that Webster Foote and his independent intelligence corporation are on the case to make sense of things!

As you may have discerned, this is a fairly complex tale from Philip K. Dick, its primary theme of a conniving U.S. government similar to the one in his novel "The Simulacra" (also from 1964). Both Nicholas' journey of discovery and the Agency scheme are fascinating in their own way, and Dick, as usual, exhibits a good deal of empathy for his characters. Despite British critic David Pringle's assertion in his "Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction" that the book is "let down by a hasty prose style," and Dick biographer Lawrence Sutin saying, in "Divine Invasions," that the book is "blunted by its clunking style," I found the novel to be very well written, with some almost poetic passages and clever dialogue (although it is true that some of Dick's more complex sentences, filled with multiple semicolons and M dashes, might have been rendered more readable by a good copy editor). The book is endlessly imaginative and, if not as "trippy" as some of his other outings, still fairly mind-blowing. It is filled with all kinds of interesting touches (such as that German-made Gestalt-macher assassination device) and some amusing bits of humor (Foote's employees are naturally called Footemen); in all, another well-crafted winner from this important author.

That said, I must also add that "The Penultimate Truth" is not a perfect book. For the life of me, I still cannot quite figure out the full background story of Agency man David Lantano; very confusing! Dick is also guilty of a few errors in his writing, such as when he says "he dabbled at his mouth" with a handkerchief (instead of "dabbed"), and when Nicholas is given a sum of 40 "Wes-Dem fifty notes," for a total of 20,000 dollars (shouldn't that be 2,000 dollars?). The author also makes up his own words here and there, such as "vulturely"; not--as Seinfeld would say--that there's anything wrong with that! Still, these are quibbles. "The Penultimate Truth" is a fun and mordant vision of the future that should hugely entertain all readers. As for that unusual title, it only begins to make sense in the book's last couple of pages, and is most certainly worth the wait....

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 28 reviews  3.9 out of 5 stars