A Scanner Darkly is a tremendous book, and I highly recommend it. Even if you’re not interested in how the drug culture is affecting our society, it says a lot about people who live passively (the paradox it is…). I’ve been generally pleased with what I’ve been reading from him, but in with a postmodern frame of mind these themes really touched me.
“What does a scanner see? he asked himself. I mean, really see? Into the head? Down into the heart? Does a passive infrared scanner like they used to use or a cube-type holo-scanner like they use these days, the latest thing, see into me – into us – clearly or darkly? I hope it does, he thought, see clearly, because I can’t any longer these days see into myself. I see only murk. Murk outside; murk inside. I hope, for everyone’s sake, the scanners do better. Because, he thought, if the scanner sees only darkly, the way I myself do, then we are cursed, cursed again and like we have been continually, and we’ll wind up dead this way, knowing very little and getting that little fragment wrong too.”
I made the mistake of seeing the movie first, but right now I’m ten pages into Fight Club and looking for somewhere to submit my nonfiction piece “The Trash Picker’s Requiem.” Anybody have any suggestions? I’m currently looking at some smaller literary publications, but I haven’t really found something that would be a good fit.
Soon I’ll be back in Customer Service.
Stage Fright 