Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

I love Philip K. Dick, and this is definitely one of my favourite works of his.

A truly astonishing work that, in my opinion, should easily stand among PKD's best work save for one flaw - an unnecessary epilogue that saps a bit of power from the otherwise gut-wrenching finish, putting a happy polish on what should have been a more bleak finale. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said is, like the works that best represent Philip K. Dick's career, a "What is reality?" book. The scenario he lets unfold - one day a guy is the Johnny Carson of his time, known and loved by all, the next day he is an unknown without an identity and doesn't know why - keeps you turning pages, wanting to know the truth as badly as the protagonist. The world he creates is, as always, intricate in its not-quite-the-world-we-know details. And the ending? Wow. Remove that epilogue (which in a very unDickian manner wraps everything up in a neat little bow at the end) and it's very powerful. If you've read PKD before, this will be familiar to you - twisted reality, hazy drugs, a world turned on its head - and if you haven't, Flow My Tears offers a good look at everything that makes up what a Philip k. Dick book is. If only it didn't have that darn Hollywood ending ...

Philip K. Dick, as many people know, had a series of visions / hallucinations throughout his life and these are explained in detail on the Philip K. Dick page on the Wikipedia. The famous illustrator and cultural documentarian/commentator R. Crumb illustrated "The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick" -- an 8 page comic story / graphic novella [philipkdickfans daught-kham (four wards lash) weirdo (forewards lash) weirdo1 (daught aychee,tee,em ] (sorry, phonetics... otherwise ah-mah-zhan sense "or's" it! ) On "page 8", the last page of the story there is a reference to this book (Flow my tears) stating: "One of his books in which there is a "cipher" a secret prophetic message aimed at "particular people"; and which Dick was not even aware of when he wrote the book in 1974." I just thought that was interesting. Cheers!

This is my first Phillip K. Dick novel, and in my opinion "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said" deserves high praise. For starters, it wins the fight against one of the most difficult opponents that a sci-fi novel could face: Cliché. Simply put, this story is based on an overused plot-the man who loses his identity and struggles to regain a sense of self. Cliche is a tough monster to beat, and most sci-fi novels are devoured by it boots and all. Going into this novel (which I read on a recommendation from a friend) I had low expectations, because I for one am sick to death of this particular premise. However, Phillip Dick somehow managed to actually win the battle against this tired fiction formula, and won me over in the process. He actually found, somehow, a unique way of telling the story. A very unique way. It deserves kudos for this alone. Not the snack, but the regard and esteem. Apart from being pleasantly surprised at Dick's ability to pull this story off, there is a lot more that deserves commendation, too... there's a like-him-hate-him anti hero, a wonderfully fleshed-out policeman (two, actually), and a manically bizarre "mini-heroine" that pops up to simultaneously help, hurt and hinder the protagonist, Jason Taverner. Another aspect of the book that I enjoyed was Dick's writing style. The story is written upon a fine line between poetry and prose that often lulled me into a false sense of security. He managed on several occasions to make me say "wow" due to some particularly inspiring turn of phrase, or through some witty and poignant philosophical observation... in fact, some of his descriptions, in their poetic simplicity, created such vivid images in my mind that I am inclined to compare them to Bradbury's classic Fahrenheit 451, which contains one of my favorite pieces of descriptive text of all time. All-in-all, "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said" is an easy read with very realistic characters, a healthy dose of political and philosophical impact (which is what sci-fi is all about after all), a delightful plot-twist at the ending (I loved the ending), and an overall quality and completeness that many novels lack. The ending (did I mention that I loved the ending) was ripe with potentialities as well, an amalgam of hidden possibilities and quantum probabilities. Basically, the premise of the book (that a man is sucked into some alternate reality where he does not exist) is caused by something that does not fully cease to occur until somewhere in the epilogue (That will make more sense after you read the book. Pay attention at the end, and wonder just what is real and what isn't. It's fun).

My first Dick book. While not for everyone, it's pretty accessible to anyone who can appreciate alternate reality/paranoid sci-fi. It's classic man-against-the-clock stolen identity stuff in the tradition of D.O.A. and (to a much, much lesser extent) Enemy of the State. Jason Taverner, anti-hero as he may be, is a great character in which to carry the main storyline of arrogant celebrity turned underground fugitive, but the smaller characters are what make this book into something more than "one man out to get back what was stolen from him." When read as a whole, it is a great testament to being human in the face of mechanical adversity. Not clanking robots, mind you (although it does have it's share of cool futuristic gadgetry), but rather the mechanisms imposed by society, and ourselves, that would otherwise strip away or mask what is good and human in everyone. The best character in the book (in my humble opinion) is the policeman who has a ferocious hard-on for nailing the fugitive Taverner, and from whom the wonderful title is taken. To those who start this book and are inclined to put it down partway through, be assured! Good things will come to those who wait. The scene at the end that involves the title is one of the singly most beautiful ever penned, in sci-fi or any other genre. But it is a very subtle beauty and perhaps not suited for every reading palette. If yours is a refined taste that can grasp a sentiment that is not delivered with a sledgehammer, and enjoys it in the setting of a eerie future America that smacks dangerously of our present one, read this book post-haste.

Written straight from Philip K. Dick's broken and wandering heart, this is one of the genre's best, and saddest, books. Instead of clanking heavy-metal robotics, quantum theory, or brave new worlds, Dick offers up our future peopled by fragile humans, all looking for love. It is impossible to read this book, and not feel Phil's heart breaking as he wrote every beautiful word