Only Apparently Real: The World of Philip K. Dick

by Paul Williams

Philip K. Dick said that his purpose as a writer was "to pierce through the veil of what is only apparently real and get to what is really real." Meditation upon the nature of reality leads one down strange pathways. Nothing is as it seems. This is a book about a man who experienced this, expressed it brilliantly, and refused to stop at that, devoting himself instead in his works to the passionate and often comical search for what is, if it isn't what it seems to be.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction

184 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1986

About the author

Librarian note: There is more than one author on goodreads by this name.

Reviews

[Dustin]

Why isn't this book talked about more? Only thirteen reviews on Goodreads? Perhaps the fact that it lacks a synopsis or any product information (here as well as Amazon,) has something to do with that? In fact, I only heard of Williams' biography today, as it's the basis of a hopefully forthcoming biopic of Philip K. Dick’s fascinating life (keeping both fingers crossed that this pans out.)

Copy/pasted from Barnes & Noble:

This biography of Philip K. Dick, the great science fiction writer who died of a stroke in 1982 at the age of 53, is by one of his friendsalso his literary executor and founder of the PKD Society, a kind of fan club. Williams skillfully interweaves memoir with transcripts of interviews and conversations to give a portrait of the artist as friend, husband, father, genius, seeker after truth, paranoid and perpetually indigent writer. Tracing Dick's life from his Berkeley childhood through an apprenticeship under editor Anthony Boucher, his early novel sales to Donald Wollheim at Ace, his five marriages, Williams maintains that Dick engaged in an essentially religious questthe stripping away of the ``only apparently real'' to get to the real. The author has done a good job making this complex and unusual man understandable and sympathetic. (May)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paul Williams stayed with Phil Dick for several days in 1974 to interview him for Rolling Stone. This book is an expanded account of that interview. Williams transcribes several large sections of the interview verbatim, giving the reader a pretty good idea of Dick's eccentric mannerisms and his wide ranging conversational style. It's also interesting that although these conversations took place in November 1974, Dick is reluctant to talk about the mystical/spiritual/religious events he experienced earlier that year. Although his so-called 2-3-74 experience later became well known through his writings, Dick only mentions it here in vague and general terms. Dick had repudiated his associations with the drug culture, and may have feared that talk of visions, voices, and pink lights would make him seem like a crazy, drug-addled burnout. Instead, much of the discussion focuses on the break-in at Dick's house in 1971. Dick spins out numerous conspiracy theories about government agents, Black Panthers, and right wing loonies. Williams ultimately decides that what mattered more for Dick was the telling, rather than the knowing.

The cover painting of Phil Dick reading in his chair with the alien creature menacing his file cabinet was originally commissioned for the Rolling Stone article. It's marvelous and strange, like Phil Dick himself. Williams includes a letter from Phil to the artist, praising it profusely. It's kind of nice to know that he loved it so much.

[David Agranoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have mixed and complicated feelings about this short but important book. Look I don’t consider myself a scholar of Philip K. Dick, despite my position as the most research-minded of the hosts of the Dickheads podcast I am not as devoted as some of you. I know some of you think about Phil every day, down to tiny little details. That is really not my thing. I like other writers, am interested in the genre as a whole, and have my own science fiction to worry about.

Long before Hollywood found gold in the PKD hills when Phil was largely a working but not super successful author it was Paul Williams that put him on the map. He did this by writing an extensive profile in Rolling Stone that was compiled from a series of interviews with Phil in 1974 fresh off his pink laser beam upload. We also get brief appearances by a friend of the podcast Tessa Dick who was the last of Phil’s wives.

So the majority of this book is an expansion on that article, and transcripts of the interviews, that for better or worse are unedited. This is deep dive, drill-down information that I think is for hardcore serious DICKHEADS. If you want an actually readable biography or back story of PKD Sutin’s Devine Invasions can’t be beaten.

The thing is much of OAR is quoted on the online ‘THE ENCYCLOPEDIA DICKIANA’ or in Sutin’s book. So in doing research for two dozen or so Dick novels for the podcast I have stumbled upon many of these quotes.

Think this book suffers from moments that might sound interesting on recording but in the transcription feel repetitive. The details on the break-in of PKD’s house in 1971 is not nearly as interesting to me as Paul Williams. Some of his theories about his black militant neighbors have not aged well. There is great insight, warts and all. How deep do you want your Dick experience? I think the Sutin book is more important personally.

If you are interested check out the Dickheads podcast.

https://soundcloud.com/dickheadspodcast

[Williwaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you have read a few works by PKD and you liked them, you might want to pick up this book. It's a quick read, and it gives you the basics of Dick's life. It contains transcripts of several taped interviews between Dick and Williams (the author) from the 1970's. You'll get insights into Dick's writing process, his paranoia, his spiritual visions and his breakdowns. He was a fascinating person.

I just checked out a library copy yesterday, and I'm already about halfway through the book. It's a pretty effortless read for me.

If you have not yet read PKD, get a copy of "The Man in the High Castle," "Ubik," "A Scanner Darkly," or "Flow My Tears." If you loved the film "Blade Runner," you might want to start with "Do Anroids Dream of Electric Sheep?" (but be prepared for quite a different story!).

I also like Dick's short stories from the 1950's, but I realize that they are not for everybody.

[Keith Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rock & roll journalist Paul Williams interviewed science fiction author Philip K. Dick at the height of his paranoia and drug problems. Dick's mind is a fascinating place, but at times this reads like mental illness theater.

[ry. online · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely to hear PKD’s voice as he is analyzing from every angle imaginable the break-in that occurred at his house in the early ‘70s. The man was a Pandora’s box. Paul Williams, author and future PKD literary executor, briefly goes off to play amateur sleuth, speaking to witnesses, neighbors, etc. and reflects on what he learns.
I got the impression PKD suffered psychological trauma at the hands of his parents. Hearing a matter-of-fact comment he claims his mother made regarding his deceased sister is painful. You kind of wish you could call “time out” to console the boy and confront the mother (Side note, people are so awful to one another. I’m kind of amazed anyone tries socializing at all).
The author had a brilliant mind and lived an eccentric lifestyle. He would grow up with some serious physical and mental conditions that shaped his adult life. Self-taught with a passion for writing learned to be charming despite his anxieties. Somewhere we learn PKD had co-morbid claustrophobia/agoraphobia. He’d self medicate but believed drugs had no effect on his system. His brain, he said, came in second to his liver as most impressive bodily organ (this is after several published books, relative fame, Hugo Award, etc.).
PKD also discusses his writing process and how after becoming clean his body was conditioned to write as if he were still taking amphetamines. He researched for long periods of time and then would churn out the content in weeks.
This was a very cool read.

[Christopher Granczynski · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel an incredible and almost unbelievable connection with this book.

While I don't own it, I did take it out of the library on one occasion and read a good chunk of it, stopping in the middle of an interview that Williams did with Dick before I set the book next to my bed and drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, I remembered a very vivid dream in which my mother was African-American (which she was not and neither am I). It was an extremely sweet dream and I was sad when I woke from it in the morning.

I picked the book up that morning and, turning the page, I resumed reading the interview. On this new page, Dick mentioned a dream that he had in which his mother was African-American. My jaw dropped. It was if I had dreamed the next page, except with my mother taking the place of Dick's.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This fascinating collection of interviews between Williams and PKD, which began as part of Williams research for a Rolling Stone article, includes lengthy theories about the alleged break-in that PKD spent his later life obsessing over. The work illustrates PKD at his "most real."

"The art of the novelist is to make his or her story real for the person who is reading it. Often (fortunately for fantastic novelists) this has less to do with the believability of the material than with the way the story is told. In the case of Philip K. Dick, he had the odd power of writing and speaking with complete conviction in the moment, even thought he’d reported things differently a moment earlier and was well aware he’d probably see them another way tomorrow, or later in the chapter."

[David Allen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked it, but it's for Dickheads only. It's a modest attempt at biography and analysis, made up largely of Q&As of Dick conducted by his friend, who was later executor of his literary estate. An awful lot of the conversations concern a then-recent break-in at his home, about which Dick spun many conspiracy theories, which are entertaining to a point, and then tiresome.

[Beelzefuzz · Rating 4 out of 5]

It kind of drags in the middle during a rambling rehash of theories about the break-in, but overall it is interesting and compelling if you have read enough PKD books to have a loose timeline of his themes in your head.

[eternal.rain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great invitation into Dick‘s life and mind. Loved the fun facts.

[Zack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul Williams founded the first magazine to write intelligently about rock and roll as an art form, Crawdaddy! and he also wrote a lot of great books. Outlaw Blues and Das Energi are a couple of Paul Williams titles. Williams was present at the recording of "Give Peace a Chance" at John and Yoko's bed-in. He was also friends with Philip K. Dick and had the honor of being named executor of Phil's literary estate. Their conversations recorded here cover all the weirdest parts of Dick's legacy in unrehearsed-ly frank detail. Readers receive the most authentic portrayal of the visionary eccentric Dick in his own words in conversation with the intelligent, perceptive Paul Williams, who knows him well enough to respond in ways that further the conversation and clarify points in an efficient manner. Something I learned: almost all of Phil's books were written on speed (except A Scanner Darkly and maybe some after) BUT there was something about his metabolism that prevented the drug from EVER contacting his neural tissue! According to doctors, according to Dick. So it was like he was taking a placebo the whole time, and he came to think of it as a protective camouflage while researching the habits of the drug fiends he was hanging around with in the persona of one of his characters, undercover narc Bob Arctor from A Scanner Darkly. Read this book to learn more!

[TrumanCoyote · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gotten kinda bored I guess with all that stuff--like the break-in conspiracies and the 2/3-74 hoopla. Especially with the verbatim transcripts Phil just sounded like some old college roommate you had who was sort of loose in the head--and pretty drunk at the time too. And how can you be larger than life when you keep feeling like you're slipping through the cracks in the universe all the time?

[Matthew Gilman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A deep look into the mind of a struggling individual.

[Karl Kindt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful expansion of Paul Williams great interview with PKD in 1974. I have read much about PKD, but this book had enough unique insights to make it worth the read.

[Jake · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some nice insight into PKD.

[Drjon · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://drjon.livejournal.com/1119581....