American Superrealism: Nathanael West and the Politics of Representation in the 1930s Book

THE SHORT NOT-SO-HAPPY LIFE OF THE LITTLE PKD BOOK

I'm an unashamed Dickhead and have read all his novels and short stories as well as many books about him and his works. I have all the available movie adaptations on DVD and most of the documentaries in one format or another. I don't claim to be an authority but I do know PKD pretty well. So I bought this little book out of curiosity, not expecting to learn anything new but hoping it might prove interesting in it's analysis of his work. I was right: I didn't learn anything new, but neither was I very impressed by Butler's analyses. The brief synopses of the novels in particular are of dubious use. I know from personal experience that it's nigh on impossible to produce a meaningful synopsis of a complex novel in one paragraph and the attempts here bear this out. Many of them are incoherent and would baffle anyone not already familiar with the work. I do, however, give Butler credit for trying. It's not clear who this book is really aimed at. The PKD aficionado will gain little from it, and I'm not sure that casual readers bother with books of this sort. That said, the serious reader who has just discovered PKD and wants to read more might find something of use in this book. And it has the attraction of a reasonably modest price.