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Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 3, by Philip K. Dick and illustrated by Tony Parker #BookReview

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Do Androids Dream of Electric SheepWell, this is cheating… I have ticked off this book against the list of 1001 that I must read before going to The Great Library in the Sky, but I haven’t read the real book at all, this is just a graphic novel version of it, and only Part 3 of who-knows-how-many there are…

I was at the library, returning some knitting journals, and my eye spied this book and the title rang a bell.  (It is kind-of catchy, after all).  The cover referenced Blade Runner, a film I’ve of course never seen because I don’t do popular culture and especially not ‘action-packed’ films (which is Hollywood code for Lots of Killing with Lots of Big Guns).  I had no idea that there could be a connection between some murderous Hollywood movie and a book listed in 1001 and so I was intrigued…

Well, the book has enlightened me (and it mercifully only took half an hour to read because it is nearly all pictures).  If you’ve seen the film or read the book you know this already, but I didn’t.  Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is about a post-apocalyptic Earth that has been populated by androids from Mars that are so convincing that people can’t tell the difference without doing tests on them.  Rick Deckard is a bounty-hunter whose job it is to search and destroy some of these (hence the appeal to Hollywood action movie producers).

The reason why the book rates an entry in my 1001 Books is because Philip Dick explores the issue of what it means to be human.  After all, if it looks like a human, and works like a human, and gets by running a police department for years and years or sings opera divinely, why does it matter?  Somewhat obscured in the graphic novel version is the answer that they don’t have empathy, which is that feeling that makes us understand other humans and be kind to animals.  (Owning animals is a status symbol in this post-apocalyptic world because they have mostly died due to radiation poisoning.)

Spookily, some androids have been programmed with such convincing false memories that they don’t even know that they are androids.  In the episode that I read the bounty hunter meets up with another bounty hunter who helps him deal with his quest to bump off Luba Luft who is a sexy opera singer but also an android.  But the central issue is one of identity: Deckard himself is arrested as a suspicious person and taken off for questioning to a police department that exists in a parallel San Francisco.  All the usual disconcerting things happen when he tries to prove his identity.  How does he prove who he is, and how can he tell who his interrogators are?  And what do you do if you think you might be an Andy with a false memory, eh?  Do you want to find out?  Is feeding your pet squirrel enough to demonstrate empathy, eh? And if you are human, should you feel empathy for an Andy that looks and acts like a human and seems to have feelings like a human?

Today when western nations are all struggling with the refugee issue and there is a lot of angst about the Otherness of the refugees, this question seems apt.  How much, if at all, do Others need to be like The Rest of Us (the ones with the secure homes and enough to eat) for us to feel empathy for them?

The book includes a long essay by someone who is a fan of Philip K. Dick but after the first page I skipped the rest of it. I think that with this ‘lite’ version I have absorbed the central idea of the title, and am vaguely tempted to one day read the real thing – which Goodreads tells me is under 300 pages and of course ‘much better’ than any graphic novel edition.  But I quite liked this book with its jazzy artwork, and I suspect it would be a hit in secondary classrooms and would generate some stimulating philosophical discussion about the nature of humanity.  It might even persuade some reluctant readers to read the original book…

(But then if they’ve already seen the movie, it would all be a bit ho-hum, perhaps….)

(And that’s why you need real literature, because words, beautifully put together, can make old stories and hackneyed ideas seem new again, forever).

Author: Philip K. Dick
Title: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Illustrated by Tony Parker; coloured in by Blond. (Who knew? You can paid to do colouring in!)
Publisher: Boom! Studios, 2010
ISBN: 9781608865772
Source: Kingston Library

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