Customer Reviews

Confessions of a Crap Artist

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A tire-regroover named Jack Isidore is an eccentric fellow. He believes that sunlight has weight, cows have four stomachs, the earth is hollow, and by the way, the world is going to end on April 23rd. But the weirdest part of the story is this: his "normal" sister and brother-in-law and some friends of theirs are even STRANGER than he is. In this book Philip K. Dick explores what it means to be normal. Are we any different from the people in the mental institutions? Unlike some of PKD's books, this one is very consistent and keeps your attention the whole way through. I was very pleased with it. Sure, it's more fiction than science fiction, but it proves how versatile an author PKD really is. This is definitely one of his best books, and I've read about half of his novels.

Over the last two decades Philip K. Dick has slowly gained in repute as one of this centuries' most inventive and prolific authors: a sci-fi auteur who cranked out pulp masterpieces by the dozen while surviving on horsemeat and methamphetamine. There are several themes prevalent in the majority of Dick's oeuvre: paranoia, drugs, the nature of God, schizophrenic time/space variations, aliens, semi-tragic characters in often archetypical clothing. _Confessions of a Crap Artist_, however, contains almost none of these bizarre themes; as one of Dick's stabs at the mainstream, _Confessions_ is a straightforward examination of life in Southern California the 50's, with `normal' people co-existing by `wackos,' both of whom, in typical Dick fashion, change places over the course of the novel.

Jack Isodore is a crap artist, a collector of crackpot theories and useless junk, a man endlessly fascinated by the world's unexplained secrets be they legitimate or not. But he is also happy and fairly satisfied by his life, something that cannot be said for his sister-in-law Judy and her husband Charlie, painted in broad strokes as a shrew and the man she uses, respectable on the surface but narrow-minded and demented when closely examined. Their `American Dream' lifestyle, the house and the farm and the three little kids, is altered/destroyed by manipulation and dissatisfaction with said `Dream', and when set in place next to Jack's lackadaisical routines and surprisingly strong moral fiber, the line between crazy and normal blurs with rapid intensity.

Along with _The Man in the High Castle_, this is among Dick's most lucid works, and probably the place novices should start first. Though a quick read, the implications and undercurrents of _Confessions of a Crap Artist_ should resonate within the reader for some time after completion, which, in my opinion, is the truest mark of a worthwhile book. Recommended.

Those familiar with Dick's work will enjoy this. And new-comer's to Dick's style (Or Sci-Fi entirely) will become thirsty for more. Chronicalling the (supposed) social misfit, Jack Isidore, as he speaks his mind about science, life, and his family. In Berkley (where most of Dick's work takes place), California, Jack resides and lives, until he is taken in by his sibling, and brother-in -law. There, begins a story that raises intriguing questions, affairs, madness, and life as a supposed misfit. After reading this, you WILL know Jack Isidore. Warning: This book will stick with you for a long time! Also, if you get a chance, look into the movie based on this book: Barjo, the 1993 French film.NOTE:NEVER LISTEN TO THE DESCRIPTION OF PHILIP K. DICK's BOOKS, THAT ARE ON THE BACK. FOR SOME REASON, THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE STORY, ESPECIALLY "WE CAN BUILD YOU". The backs make each book sound like every other crappy second-rate sci-fi book. THEY ARE NOT.

This book, written in 1959 and finally published in 1975, was the first of Dick's mainstream novels to appear in book form. In many ways it is probably the best: its multi-focal narration offers inside glimpses into the minds of two of Dick's most fascinating characters-the "crap artist" Jack Isidore and his sister Fay Hume. The novel derives its energy from the juxtaposition of their radically different perspectives. Jack was the classic nerd in high school, who was obsessed with pseudoscience and adolescent power fantasies, which if anything have intensified as he has grown into his thirties. Faye is impulsive, uninhibited, outspoken, and aggressively sexual. But the root of her attractiveness lies in her ability to live in the moment with a seeming intensity and freedom. This combination is potent in tempting Nat Anteil, a young student, away from his wife, while driving Fay's husband Charlie to a violent end. The predictably tragic consequences of this situation put the reader in the odd position of identifying with the nerd, whose emotionally stunted state make him an ideal and acute observer of the passionate madness of the other characters.

Darkly funny, slightly sad, brutally honest, and philosophically deep, Confessions of a Crap Artist merits the distinction of being among Philip K. Dick's best novels, despite its prima facie dissimilarity to PKD's main body of work. Ostensibly a chronicle of the disintegration of a middle class family (a rather banal and hackneyed gimmick in contemporary American fiction), Confessions is at heart an inquiry into the nature of reality. PKD fans will immediately recognize this as the motivating theme of the author's career.

The protagonist is the mildly schizophrenic Jack Isidore (recognize that name from anywhere?), whose obsessions with pulp mags, pseudoscience and new age detritus render him an ineffective, if harmless excrescence on mainstream society, and enlighten the novel's title. After being arrested for shoplifting a can of chocolate covered ants, Jack is "rescued" by his sister Fay and her husband Charley Hume and brought to live with them in their ostentatious Marin County home, where Jack earns his keep by scrubbing the floors, feeding the livestock and babysitting the Humes' two daughters.

Liberated from the household and parental obligations that had theretofore been the weak glue of their relationship, the Humes' marriage promptly falls apart. Fay's overweening selfishness and Charley's pathetic ineffectiveness as a husband come to the fore, resulting in infidelity, public scandal, and death.

Meanwhile, Jack falls in with a local UFO cult peopled by Marin County housewives. (PKD devotees will recognize the cult's leader, Claudia Hambro, as an incarnation of the perennial dark-haired girl). Jack's hallucinations provide escapist counterpoint to the novel's bucolic 1950's setting, and parallel the more meaningful contrast PKD is trying to convey: that of superficial bourgeois respectability straining to conceal dysfunction, conceit and vulgarity. Thus, Confessions is not merely a family chronicle; it is social satire, an indictment of a distinctly American flavor of hypocrisy.

Placed in the broader context of PKD's oeuvre, however, satire takes a backseat to the author's overriding philosophical query: What is reality, and what is the relationship between perception and reality? Jack, whose quirky hallucinations give the novel a fantastic element, nevertheless perceives the Hume family dynamic with great clarity. And when his cult-inspired eschatology fails to materialize, he makes the ultimate confession (that he is a nut), but insists that "the blame [is] spread around fairly." That is to say, he insists that the reader recognize his nominally sane sister, her husband, and her lover Nathan Anteil as equally nutty.

The problem of perception is further illustrated by the novel's shifting narrative style. While it is nominally Jack's confession that we're reading, the point of view actually alternates among the four leading dramatis personae. Interestingly, the first person voice is used for both Jack and Fay, while Charley's and Nathan's perspectives are presented in the third person. This suggests the possibility that PKD intended Jack and Fay to be literary alter-egos.

It's a shame that Confessions is marketed as a science fiction novel, because it could and should serve as a bridge connecting readers of general fiction to an author whose talent was too big for his genre.

I tell you, this book made me sadder than I've been in so very long. It's about so many things that push my buttons that if I were a crap artist like Jack Isidore, I'd believe Mr. Dick was writing to me personally. It's hard to pick out what's the top layer of the book and what's subtext and so forth. There are definate themes, though. Jack is a crank. A real nutcase. He sees as real whatever sounds the neatest to him. Aliens and so forth. And the book is an exploration of him coming to terms with how he collects 'crap' ideas in his head. And how he realizes that the people who are 'normal' collect their own crap, but it's all emotial and motivational crap and therefor not rigorously testable like his pseudo-science crap beliefs.

It's also about a supremely selfish woman coming to terms with herself, a honest man baffled by his own reactions to the world and his wife, an intellectual knowingly watching his slide into hell and the ruination of his marriage, the duplicity of affairs and more importaintly, the self delusion often involved in precipitating affairs. The vindictiveness in people. The need to destroy out of spite, out of anger, and out of frustration as if destruction somehow brings understanding. And how sometimes it does.

It's about a house. A marvelous house that eats everything in it. It's about modern society. It's about wanting everything you don't need and needing what you don't want. It's beautiful, sad, inspiring, and woeful.

It's about a sweet woman turned bitter. About hope snuffed out and resignation kindled in its place as a pale replacement. It's about the dominoes of life, how kicks travel from one person to another. You kick me, I kick him, he kicks her, she kicks some stranger. It's about telling lies on tires, telling lies on lives, telling lies on ourselves. It's about the blowout in the tire that reveals the truth, the blowout in each and every one of us.

I kept thinking "Oh, no... oh no... " as I read this book. The ending is as unavoidable as it is predictible, and you fight against the whole way, and you're relieved when it happens, and saddened at each chance to pick another path lost.

I think this may be one of Dick's best books, up there with Adroids and his other well known books.

This was the first of Dick's mainstream novels I read, it made me wonder what kind of mainstream writer Dick would have made had he found more success in the genre (was the 50's society he wrote about too conservative to accept these novels?).
Even though this story is set in a 50's environment, it doesn't miss a beat in any regard, Confessions of a Crap Artist is as engrossing and page-turning a book as any of his science fiction novels. The way the story unfolds keeps you at the edge of your seat and you may find yourself laughing at the insanity of regular, seemingly successful people who dig themselves into giant ruts by involving themselves with people when they should know better.
If you like Phillip K. Dick's work you must read this novel, if you buy it it will take a valued place in your collection.

Readers of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" will recognize the character of Jack Isidore right off. He plays a very similar role in this book as that one; in both places he is a semi-autistic outcast who obsesses over religion (in "Androids") and the out-of-the-ordinary. The differences are:1. "Crap Artist," though not released until 1975, was written in 1959, nine years before "Androids" and 2. This is not a science fiction novel, per se.

Indeed, here we see Dick writing about the obsessions and personality disorders of the every-day man. He writes it in Faulkner-fashion; letting his characters trade off first person accounts. Jack is only one of them. The tale of spouse abuse, UFO-worshipping, deception, and modern convenience is brilliant. Had Dick refined a few of the early chapters, it would have been perfect. A dark, and overlooked treasure

There are no aliens or time travel in this novel, but that doesn't mean this book isn't without Dickian genius. In _Confessions_, Dick uses multiple POVs -- two first-person (by Jack and Fay) and two third-person narrations (in the minds of Charlie and Nate) -- and does it without even telling us (unlike Faulkner in As I Lay Dying). In the beginning it sort of comes as a shock, but you get used to it quite nicely, and Dick does a good job of sticking to the voice.

As far as the plot was concerned, it's nothing like Dick's sci-fi novels -- fairly straightforward, even simplistic, you might say: the story of Jack, the brother of Fay, who stays with Fay and Charlie and gradually learns that maybe he isn't so bad off after all compared to these "sane" people. I think the ending comes a little too quickly and easily, but overall, it's a solid effort.

After having read now about ten Dick novels, I think it can be safely said that he was no real fan of women. I believe Dick's women by and large tend to be deceptive, nasty creatures, Fay being perhaps the worst of the lot.

Jack Isadore is a social cripple, barely able to function on a day to day basis. He is the nicest and most likeable character in this story. The rest of the people in this novel are not exactly people you would like to know, but you probably already do. A powerful expose of just how hollow and craven the most "normal" of people can be, and all told in a very entertaining way. Highly recommended to anyone who wants to see just how well rounded Dick was as a writer.