January '10 Reading: Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?

[applepie]

Just picked my copy up, went out in the middle of the "White Death" (if you believe the local weather) just to get it Hopefully I'll start on it tonight. I may finish reading "Cujo" first, but I'll confess I'm kind of looking for a reason to put it down.

[Sancho]

Hey, I just picked up my copy. Silly me, I was looking in the fiction section. As an afterthought I wandered over to the sci-fi section. Voila! (or as we say in Georgia, viola!)

[Sancho]

I started this book on an airplane-ride yesterday, but I only read a few pages. In the seat behind me, there were two chatty-cathys who talked non-stop from takeoff to landing. Their conversation centered around a friend of theirs who, as far as I could tell, had a poor sense for fashion. They laughed and laughed. One of them sort of shrieked when she laughed and could hit a natural high-C with frightening regularity.

Anyway, I wound up reaching over my seat-back and in one swift movement I slapped both of them across the eyes with my copy of Electric Sheep. In the melee that ensued, my book was lost. If you ask me, I think one of the flight attendants got it.

Okay, okay, that last part isn’t exactly true. It could be that it was a normal flight, and maybe I was just too distracted to concentrate, and it’s more than likely that I just left my book in the seat-pocket in front of me.

Curses!

[Virgil]

I started this book on an airplane-ride yesterday, but I only read a few pages. In the seat behind me, there were two chatty-cathys who talked non-stop from takeoff to landing. Their conversation centered around a friend of theirs who, as far as I could tell, had a poor sense for fashion. They laughed and laughed. One of them sort of shrieked when she laughed and could hit a natural high-C with frightening regularity.

Anyway, I wound up reaching over my seat-back and in one swift movement I slapped both of them across the eyes with my copy of Electric Sheep. In the melee that ensued, my book was lost. If you ask me, I think one of the flight attendants got it.

Okay, okay, that last part isn’t exactly true. It could be that it was a normal flight, and maybe I was just too distracted to concentrate, and it’s more than likely that I just left my book in the seat-pocket in front of me.

Curses!

Oh Sancho. You had me there. Until I got to the "last part wasn't true" my mouth dropped in shock that anyone would do that!

[Jozanny]

I have not gotten back to it yet because I have had my nose in other things, but in as far along as I am, Dick has managed to catch me off guard, to a degree, and even though this is obviously alternate-world entertainment, he is raising serious philosophical issues about what it is to be human, or even a living thing, for that matter.

I remember a decent consumer article in Slate about robo pets for those who didn't see the beauty in being a pet parent, and the best of these things, the baby dino, which ran about 300 +, intrigued me, and of course would not defecate out of the litter box on a bad day, but even if I had to give up my cats, I would feel silly about trying to show affection for a walking computer, but if it gets better, and really simulates affectionate animal behavior?

It makes my head hurt All animals have innate templates, to a degree. Any housecat will bury food, dig in the litter, carry its prey in its jaws, and yet these are living responses, somehow personalized, because all of my cats have loved me differently.

[Sancho]

Thanks Virgil. By the way, I loved your book; that Aeneas - what a card. Also, I’ve been meaning to ask you, is there any truth to the rumor that it wasn’t really you with Dante down there in the inferno?

I picked another copy of this book today, this time at the library. I read a few chapters before checking it out and I’m looking forward to diving into it this evening. It would be really cool if a fellow lit-netter found the book I left in the seat-pocket of a Delta jet, but I'd be happy if another reader found it. I do like to set books free in airports and train stations and such, but usually I read them first.

[papayahed]

I do like to set books free in airports and train stations and such, but usually I read them first.

Are you on here?

[Sancho]

Hiya Papaya, and thanks for the link. Somebody else on here told me about book-crossing a while back and I’ve been trying to remember what it was all about. Anyway I’m not a member but I should be. Mine has been an unofficial read-and-release program.

[dfloyd]

and started reading it today. No, that's not true, but I did reserve a copy at the library via my lap top and picked it up yesterday. I've read the first three chapters or so, and I have to say I'm enjoying it immensly.

About the title, how many believe the title is from the adage that counting sheep, usually sheep jumping in single file over a fence, acts as a somniferous aid. When a child, watching the cartoon at the movies, the counting of sheep jumping a fence by bugs bunny or porky pig or some other character trying to get to sleep was omniscient. But then, since the protaginist, Rick, has an electric sheep for a pet, so we know they exist, does the title have another meaning? The author, Dick, being born in 1928, would have been familiar with the counting of sheep in trying to get to sleep from the many cartoons he probably saw. But then why isn't the book named Do Androids Count Electric Sheep?

You have to be alert to catch the allusions in the novel. When Rick is calling the pet shop to inquire about the ostrich they have in their window, he gives his name to the pet shop salesman as Frank Merriwell. If you don't understand this allusion, be sure to look it up on Wikipedia. Frank Merriwell of Yale was aired on Saturday morning in the forties. Dick would have been exposed to Merriwell through the radio, newspaper cartoons, and the Frank Merriwell Big Little Books. How many of you know what a Big Little Book was? There's a picture of one on Wikipedia. Be alert as you read.

[Scheherazade]

I'm still waiting for my copy to be delivered.

[papayahed]

Hiya Papaya, and thanks for the link. Somebody else on here told me about book-crossing a while back and I’ve been trying to remember what it was all about. Anyway I’m not a member but I should be. Mine has been an unofficial read-and-release program.

I forgot about the site myself until your "set it free" line.

[Sancho]

How-d-do dfloyd?

If the book turns out to be an allegory about what it is to be human, the title may be (as you said) a modified version of counting sheep. Whereas any android could count sheep, only a human has the ability to dream.

I liked this description of Isidore early on in the book:

He had been special now for over a year, and not merely in regard to the distorted genes which he carried. Worse still, he had failed to pass the minimum mental faculties test, which made him in popular parlance a chickenhead. Upon him the contempt of three planets descended.

By the way, I’m pretty sure I have friends who couldn’t pass the minimum mental faculties test or the empathy test.

[billl]

I bought it used a few days ago and started it tonight, stopping after Chapter 4. The issues with empathy test are much more explicitly explored in the book, than in the movie--and I don't recall the religion being part of the movie at all, but it's been a while since I've seen it. I'm also wondering if there'll be more mentions of the "void."

[applepie]

By the way, I’m pretty sure I have friends who couldn’t pass the minimum mental faculties test or the empathy test.

I'm not certain that I could pass the empathy test that they're administering

I guess I'm maybe 1/3 to 1/2 way through the book now. I'll admit that I'm loving it. It brings to light some interesting questions. I'll post more when I finish, hopefully this week if I can find the time to read.

[dfloyd]

had a false pet. It was a stuffed terrier which looked realistic. She called it Nonesuch, but I don't think it ever came to her when she called it. The moral of this story? Don't date any girls who are weirder than you are.