quinta-feira, fevereiro 24, 2005

Darkly Dick

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In a distant future, America has lost the war on drugs.
Bob Arctor is a dealer of the lethally addictive drug Substance D.
Fred is the police agent assigned to tail and eventually bust him.
To do so, Fred takes on the identity of a drug dealer named Bob Arctor. And since Substance D--which Arctor takes in massive doses--gradually splits the user's brain into two distinct, combative entities, Fred doesn't realize he´s after himself.

This is not a typical S.F. novel. This is a story about Philip K. Dick's drug-addicted friends and their sad fates. The book consists of a series of anedotes and scenes that range from the absurdly funny to the grotesquely tragic and are too familiar if you have some experience with drug addiction.
The characters (Dick's friends) degenerate into madness because of their drug habit.
At the end of the book, there is an author's note in which Dick honors his dead friends and wants them to play again but in another way. This note is one of K. Dick's best writings and it causes quite an impression.
Just as the author´s described, the theme of this novel is not to set moral wrongs or rights of drugs and its users. It simply is to tell the consequences of drug misuse. It not only deals with the physical consequences, but also the psychological aspect, as well. To loose your own identity, unaware of the loss of one's own self.

"A Scanner darkly" is now a movie, helmed by Richard Linklater ("Waking life", "Before Sunset/Sunrise").
Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey jr., Wynona Ryder and Woody Harrelson are some of the actors who appear as cartoons, using the similar tecnique Linklater experienced on "Waking life".
Expect it to hit the screens by the end of the year.

// posted by A @ 12:24 da tarde
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