Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

Flow My Tears, for me, is wonderfully dated classic science fiction that incorporates what has now become a bizarre mix of still-futuristic and old-fashioned ideas. Set in the then future of 1988, people drive flying cars and live in hovering apartments, but listen to LP records and have to run to find public payphones. Dick's totalitarian state is cleverly evoked to be a menacing presence surrounding our talk show host hero and I loved that its powerful face is actually backed by inept bureaucracy. Dick has a great descriptive turn of phrase and I could easily picture the decrepit forger's lab, the clinical police academy, luxury apartments and the Buckman's museum-cluttered home.

Once we come to the characters, I am less rapturous though. For someone supposedly genetically engineered to ooze charm, I found Jason Taverner surprisingly unlikeable. The female characters are pretty well defined, especially Alys and Mary Anne, and McNulty was real to me too. I did struggle to understand the point of many of the longer rambling conversations though, particularly those where characters veered off into deep philosophical exchanges seemingly within minutes of meeting each other. There is a lot of repetition of basic facts too although, annoyingly, not when it really would have been helpful such as in explaining just what was going on! I thought I was successfully staying with the mad reality hops and even had a couple of good theories, but then the coroner started his explanation which caused my brain to overheat and quietly melt away!

I was less impressed than I had hoped I would be with Philip K Dick. I liked the scene-setting and overall idea of a famous man cast adrift as a nonentity, but there were several occasions when I felt as though I had missed his point somewhere down the line. Perhaps I should have chosen an earlier of his titles as a starter?

I'm not quite sure where I end up with this book. It started out of the gate strong, gives you a good sense of the world that the main character (Jason) inhabits and then rips him out of his place in that world. And that's hunky dory, I'm on board with that.

It at first seems like the book is going with pointing out the failures of the police when they get too much power, but at times it seems to just want to use that as a reason to keep Jason bouncing from place to place. But then it keeps stopping so that the characters can have a long discussion about the meaning or application of love. The character knows he needs to leave because the police know his location, but he decides to have a long conversation instead... it's kind of weird.

And when the reveal of what's actually occurred comes up, it doesn't really sit with what happened just before the transition and that's never brought up in the explanation. And the explanation seemed to have to many missing threads for my liking.

I don't really get what Dick was going for in this one and while it mostly moved quickly it's not a story that's going to stay with me for very long I'm afraid.

It's a decent piece of work, but far from the mindfucked glory of certain other novels of his. In some ways, I found it to be more of a social commentary than his usual psychonautic adventures. One should perhaps read it with this in mind, and knowing this, I believe I will be able to appreciate it better for what it actually is, if I ever reread it. One thing I would like to note is how the characters deviate from his usual cast of characters in a good way. There is a lot of emotion and depth to certain parts of the story.

Despite this minor detail, PKD has completely outdone himself in one particular regard, that is, naming the book. Without a doubt is this my favourite title among all of his work:

Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

FLOW MY TEARS, FALL FROM YOUR SPRINGS!
EXILED FOREVER LET ME MOURN;
WHERE NIGHT'S BLACK BIRD HER SAD INFAMY SINGS,
THERE LET ME LIVE FORLORN.