Phil Dick's Anti-Abortion Story

[Extollager]

What's the title of that story again? Thanks.

 

[Ray Pullar]

The pre-persons.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

This is "The Pre-persons."

The Pre-persons - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I read it when it was first published and thought it was, well, pretty heavy-handed in its satire. Even if you are 100% pro-life, it's hard to ignore the fact that the men in the story are universally good victims, and the women universally wicked.

 

[Ray Pullar]

Dick's third wife, Anne Williams Rubinstein, a widow, aborted his second child with him (she already had three by her deceased husband). Dick's twin sister had died shortly after their birth which he took badly in adulthood and blamed his mother Dorothy. He identified strongly witth his twin He shares her grave.. He viewed his first child with Anne as redeeming her untimely death which made the second, aborted child symbolically himself. A few years later he came to believe Anne wanted to kill him too and they divorced. Dick bought a gun and told friends he needed it as protection from Anne. His personal life informed his work more than most sf writers.

 

[picklematrix]

I enjoy a lot of PKDs work, but i havent read this one. Not one of his best i take it?

 

[Onyx]

Did Dick ever write a story about something he wasn't against?

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Did Dick ever write a story about something he wasn't against?

Well, it's hard to write fiction without having some kind of conflict, which tends to imply that there be something the author is against, even if it's just evil people, dangerous situations, suffering in general, and so on.

With that in mind, I think there are many books by PKD which aren't protesting in particular against anything. I also can't think of anything I've read by him which is as much of a polemic as "The Pre-Persons."

 

[Onyx]

I just meant PKD is largely dystopian.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I see. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[Onyx]

I see. Thanks for the clarification.

I'm sorry if I have offended. Like Crichton, PKD works strike me as of the "Beware the future!" type. In contrast to writers that derive conflict from more external phenomena. He seems utterly unlikely to write about the upside to women's rights or much else.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

No offense taken at all. I see your point.