Time out of joint - Rambling Readers

255 pages

English language

Published Jan. 28, 1979 by Dell.

ISBN:: 978-0-440-18860-5
OCLC Number:: 9367637

(2 reviews)

Time Out of Joint is a dystopian novel by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in novel form in the United States in 1959. An abridged version was also serialised in the British science fiction magazine New Worlds Science Fiction in several installments from December 1959 to February 1960.

The novel epitomizes many of Dick's themes with its concerns about the nature of reality and ordinary people in ordinary lives having the world unravel around them. The title is a reference to Shakespeare's play Hamlet. The line is uttered by Hamlet to Horatio after being visited by his father's ghost and learning that his uncle Claudius murdered his father; in short, a shocking supernatural event that fundamentally alters the way Hamlet perceives the state and the universe ("The time is out of joint; O cursed spite!/That ever I was born to set it right!" [I.V.211-2]), much as do several …

Time Out of Joint is a dystopian novel by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in novel form in the United States in 1959. An abridged version was also serialised in the British science fiction magazine New Worlds Science Fiction in several installments from December 1959 to February 1960.

The novel epitomizes many of Dick's themes with its concerns about the nature of reality and ordinary people in ordinary lives having the world unravel around them. The title is a reference to Shakespeare's play Hamlet. The line is uttered by Hamlet to Horatio after being visited by his father's ghost and learning that his uncle Claudius murdered his father; in short, a shocking supernatural event that fundamentally alters the way Hamlet perceives the state and the universe ("The time is out of joint; O cursed spite!/That ever I was born to set it right!" [I.V.211-2]), much as do several events in the novel.

Ragle Gumm is an ordinary man leading an ordinary life, except that he makes his living by entering a newspaper contest every day -- and winning, every day. But he gradually begins to suspect that his life -- indeed his whole world -- is an illusion, constructed around him for the express purpose of keeping him docile and happy. But if that is the case, what is his real world like, and what is he actually doing every day when he thinks he is guessing 'Where Will The Little Green Man Be Next?'

21 editions

Kian Ryan reviewed Time out of joint by Philip K. Dick

Review of 'Time out of joint' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Here's a novelty - Dick managed to write a novel for which the main narrative mechanic did not revolve around drugs! Time Out of Joint is part science-fiction, part mystery, part alternative-reality, where the main protagonist, a man who completes competition puzzles for a living, starts to pick apart the reality around him.

The story is good. It's mostly linear, and involves moments of the surreal. Unusually these surreal moments are later explained in a perfectly straightforward manner, something that doesn't usually happen with Dick's stories.

My one gripe comes to the relationship between Vic and his family. Vic is quite happy to abandon his wife and child on a whim and travel with his brother-in-law with no good motivation of his own. This seems somewhat inconsistent when the rest of the time he is presented as a loving husband and father.

The idea that a fake reality can be …

Here's a novelty - Dick managed to write a novel for which the main narrative mechanic did not revolve around drugs! Time Out of Joint is part science-fiction, part mystery, part alternative-reality, where the main protagonist, a man who completes competition puzzles for a living, starts to pick apart the reality around him.

The story is good. It's mostly linear, and involves moments of the surreal. Unusually these surreal moments are later explained in a perfectly straightforward manner, something that doesn't usually happen with Dick's stories.

My one gripe comes to the relationship between Vic and his family. Vic is quite happy to abandon his wife and child on a whim and travel with his brother-in-law with no good motivation of his own. This seems somewhat inconsistent when the rest of the time he is presented as a loving husband and father.

The idea that a fake reality can be presented as reality, given a little suggestive thought and willingness from the participant, is good. Unlike a forced reality, where every detail needs to be maintained, and a small detail can cause a break in the illusion, because the protagonist has mentally regressed (at one point he is called insane), he is willing to believe that a cardboard cut out of a person is a real human being. Glimpses of reality break through where he experiences lucid moments. It works.

If you've been reading a lot of Dick, this is a refreshing change from the norm. Some of his usual themes are still in play here, but the arrangement is atypical. It's good - and I'll revisit it again.

Jon PENNYCOOK

rated it

Oct. 28, 2008

Subjects

Science fiction, American.