re:mote voices

Title: Mary And The Giant
Author: Philip K. Dick
Publisher: Gollancz

Mary Ann Reynolds is a character. Breathless. Frustrated. On edge. Not content to stay in a job she hates, going nowhere, she feels the need to keep moving. This gives her an intensity that causes many she meets to comment. However there is also a certain fear, a naive vulnerability at her core. With the two sides of her personality struggling against each other.

Along the way she breezes through the lives of a number of people, each someone she thinks may help her achieve her uncertain goal. Gordon her dead end fiancé. Tweaney a singer in a bar. Schilling who has come to town to open a record shop and retire. From the text it isn't entirely clear who "the giant" of the title is, descriptions suggest either Tweaney or Schilling, though Schilling has the bigger narrative role. For that matter, for the most part Mary is referred to as Mary Ann, but I guess "Mary Ann And The Giant" maybe doesn't have the same ring to it?

Philip K. Dick is best known for films like Bladerunner, Minority Report and Paycheck, which were all based on his work. Over the course of his career, Dick churned out dozens of science fiction novels. Often writing while on speed, and trying to maintain a turn over just to pay the bills. Through his career he also tried to establish himself as a mainstream writer, but few of those novels were published during his life time or met with success. In fact with the success of the likes of Bladerunner, which was released to acclaim weeks after his death, it is possible that he is more successful now than he ever was while alive.

Mary And The Giant is one of the handful of mainstream novels that he wrote, and was originally published in 1987, five years after his death. When it was originally written is less clear, though it is set in 1953, capturing a strong impression of that period. On the one hand, this novel is entirely different from the other dozen or so. It is a lot less strange and reality challenging than his science fiction material. Yet, the themes are still there, the voice of Philip K. Dick is still heard within the work. Dick tended to deal with identity and reality, with this novel revolving around Mary's identity and how her view of reality differs from those around her. Particularly as Mary hits bottom in her emotional journey, there is little difference between her and say Jack Bohlen in Martian Time Slip and the experiences he undergoes as a result of schizophrenia.

While Gollancz keep a selection of Philip K. Dick's work in print as part of their Science Fiction Masterworks series, they have also just printed a new edition of Mary And The Giant. Particularly worth reading for the contrast it offers to his other work, and for the strengths of Mary as a character - wilful and determined, despite her flaws.