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A Scanner Darkly, published in 1977 is one of Philip K. Dick's semi-autobiographical science fiction novels. Dick set it in a dystopian Orange County, California in his own future (1994). A Scanner Darkly can be considered his master statement on drugs, in light of his works' extensive portrayals of drug culture and drug use. Readers should be prepared for a very depressing, but gripping and entertaining read.
Plot
The main character is both Bob Arctor, part of a household of hippie drug-users, and Fred, an undercover police agent assigned to spy on them. Arctor/Fred shields his true identity both from those in the drug subculture and, ironically, from the police, who apparently must be presumed to include corrupt elements and/or double agents. He takes drugs in part so he can fill his reports with satisfyingly subversive activities, but he becomes addicted to the mysterious Substance D and falls in love with Donna, a Substance D dealer through whom he once attempted to find the uppermost source of the drug. His continued use of Substance D, which eventually causes a split in its user's consciousness, leaves him unable to distinguish between his roles as a drug user and a policeman and unable to keep note of the frauds he uses to combine them. This leads to mental breakdown. He deteriorates into spying on himself and eventually enters New Path, a rehab clinic. There he takes on a third name, Bruce, and discovers that New Path grows Substance D on its farm communities and is funded through sales of the drug.
Themes
Dick twists American society into a very surreal setting, by expanding two social problems of growing interest of the 1960s, namely:
- police surveillance - in the novel, highly technologically advanced
- drug abuse - in the novel, involving widespread drug-abuse-induced mental collapse that is treated in numerous and widespread rehab clinics that amount to a nationwide, non-governmental but federal-government-entangled, institution.
In addition, Dick's standard themes appear here:
- the construction of reality in consciousness,
- an admirable, fascinating, but unattainable and marginally insane woman (Donna)
- humanity in extreme situations
Particularly relevant to the novel is the construction of reality in consciousness. The most obvious example is the dilemma of the main character who simultaneously assumes two identities and often loses track of reality. Also, many of the characters excessively taunt each other, and paranoid by drug use, understand the world through a number of conspiracy theories. Because the surreal, almost absurdist style of the novel, readers are left wondering if their perceptions reflect reality or paranoia.
Dick also used Fred/Arctor to explore the symbiotic relationship between cop and criminal, how each is defined and reliant upon the existence of the other. The New Path recovery clinic, which harvests Substance D to fund its treatment programs, also reflects this ambivalent relationship.
Autobiographical Nature
Dick, a frequent drug user and quasi hippie himself, captures the language and conversation and culture of drug users in the 1960s with a rare clarity. Those who have ever wondered what it was like in those days can gain insight by reviewing the extended conversation on "microdots" in this book.
The autobiographical nature of the novel is explained in the moving afterword, where Dick dedicates the book to those of his friends—he includes himself—who suffered debilitation and/or death as a result of their drug use. This is mirrored in the involuntary goodbyes that occur throughout the story.
He also states that the novel is about “some people who were punished entirely too much for what they did” and that “drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to move out in front of a moving car.”
Dick was himself a participant in X-Kalay, a Canadian Synanon-type recovery program at one point, as is portrayed in his 1988 book The Dark-Haired Girl. Presumably, this is a source for the vividness and accuracy with which the novelistic clinic is portrayed.
Title
The "scanner" of the title is a holographic recorder/projector on which the main character views clips of his own life but doesn't recognize them. It is also a reference to a Biblical verse in 1 Corinthians 13 that includes "we see as through a mirror darkly", and thus refers to the main character's weak grasp on reality. SD, the initials of Scanner Darkly, are presumably clipped from LSD, and are also the initials of Substance D, the drug that is one of the stars of the book.
Movie
Dick's estate has authorized the creation of a motion picture based on this book; it is scheduled for release in 2005. Keanu Reeves plays the lead role of Fred/Arctor. Other stars involved include Woody Harrelson, Robert Downey Jr., and Winona Ryder. The director is Richard Linklater. Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney are among the executive producers. The movie is to be produced using an animation technique called "rotoscoping". Used before in the Richard Linklater film Waking Life, the process involves tracing over digital video frame-by-frame using proprietary graphics editing software.
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