Philip K. Dick’s The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike — a cautionary tale for American women of a certain age of ignorance.

May 16, 2012 at 8:29 pm (culture, education, entertainment, history, humor, life, random, Writing)
Tags: Book, culture, Dick, entertainment, evolution, fiction, gender studies, history, life, people, Philip K., random, reading, review, Science, science fiction, The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike, women studies, Writing

Blade Runner this ain’t. Nor is it the novel the film was based upon, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?.  This little ditty of a novel ostensibly lays claim to the science fiction genre via some questionable prehistoric humanoid remains and a mystery of water contamination.  If you include the science of human nature then the novel definitely qualifies as science fiction of a certain sort. Dick delves into the motives and minds of a few men around 1960–and if that doesn’t scare you now, it will after reading The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike because polite Ward Cleaver these dudes are not. The meat of this novel lies in the character development and portrayal of the male female relationships.  Dick does not paint an appealing portrait of the minds of the husbands. If you are a woman and you know men like these–your course of action should be very clear–RUN! RUN FAST! Realtor Leo Runcible’s wife, Janet,  is already an alcoholic mess by the time we meet her. But we get front row seats to Walt Dombrosio’s mental and physical assaults on his wife, Sherry, as he feels increasingly threatened by her entrance into the world of work outside the home.  There’s not much to love in these little ‘love nests’. Dick pulls no punches as he lays bare the nature of the war between the sexes 1960 style.  Pity that the same mentalities are alive and well in 2012.  And I will refrain from tossing out all the recent political allusions currently flooding my brainpan.  Except just this one— keep in mind– women still are not paid the same as men for doing the same job.  Maybe this should be required reading for Women’s Studies programs in order to give young American women a sense of “the good old days.”  Yeah, I know, some women do like their men cave man style. Must be a failure to evolve? At any rate, this is Philip K. Dick writing and in my opinion that makes it worth reading–as distasteful as cast of characters may be.