by James Wallace Harris, 1/3/24
At 72, I’m still learning how to read.
I recently finished the audiobook of The Simulacra by Philip K. Dick and started to write a review for my science fiction blog. That’s when I realized I needed to read the book with my eyes before I could write a proper review. The Simulacra was a complex novel involving several plot threads and dozens of named characters. (Read the plot summary at Wikipedia. Get the book at Amazon.)
From my audiobook experience I found the book compelling, fun, and I was always anxious to get back to listening to the story. I was never confused by what was going on, but when I tried to summarize the novel for my review, I discovered I couldn’t recall all the details I needed to make a coherent description of the story. There were just too many science-fictional concepts. Nor could I describe all the plot threads without researching them.
I won’t describe the book in detail, I’ll do that in my review, but for now, The Simulacra is about a post-apocalyptic world where China attacked America with atomic missiles in 1980, and the U.S. government and Germany combined to form a totalitarian regime called The United States of Europe and America (USEA). It appears to be run by a captivating 23-year-old first lady named Nicole Thibodeaux. However, she has been married to five presidents and always remains young. Since this book was written in the summer of 1963, I assume Dick was inspired by Jackie Kennedy because Nicole spends most of her time charming people, decorating the White House and gardens, and putting on nightly cultural events. But Nicole is also ruthless enough to have people summarily executed, evidently wielding unlimited power. She has access to time travel no less, and one subplot involves her negotiating with Nazis to change the course of WWII. Other subplots involve an insane psychic pianist Nicole wants to play at the White House, the outlawing of psychiatry pushed by the pharmaceutical industry, what happens to the last legal psychiatrist, a pair of ordinary guys who have a jug band that plays classical music who want to perform at the White House, a trio of sound engineers who are trying to chase down the psychic pianist to record, and a small company that hopes to get the contract to construct the next president. This long paragraph barely scratches the surface of the whole novel.
My failure of completely understanding the novel from listening to the audiobook was partly due to aging memory and partly due to the complexity of Dick’s prose. I could have hashed out several thousand words describing what I remembered, although it would have been a bundle of vague impressions. Summarizing what PKD was trying to do was evasive from just listening to the audiobook.
Audiobooks are bad for remembering exact details, which I knew, but was painfully revealed when I tried to read the novel and take notes. I called up The Simulacra on my PC in the Kindle app on the left side of the screen, and launched Obsidian, a note taking program on the left side of the screen. I started reading The Simulacra again, but with my eyes. After two days, getting to the 29% read position on the Kindle edition, I had twenty-eight names, twenty-six plot points, several lists of other details, and several quotes in my notes. I figure there are three to five main plot threads, each involving three or more characters.
More than that, I realized Philip K. Dick had riffed on hundreds of ideas. As I read them, I remembered them, but I realized that while listening, I had not put most of them within the context of the story. It wasn’t until my second reading that I saw all these hundreds of creative speculations as being part of one jigsaw puzzle picture. And I’m not talking about the characters and plots. I’m talking about worldbuilding.
Rereading with my eyes allowed me to stop and ponder. Rereading allowed me to remember the bigger picture. However, listening to the audiobook let me enjoy the story more. The narrator, Peter Berkrot, did voices for each of the characters, and acted out their personalities. Listening to the novel, it felt like I was listening to an old-time radio drama where many actors performed a story.
At one point I got too tired to read and went to bed. But before I fell asleep, I listened to the part I had just read. Berkrot expressed emotions I had not picked up while reading with my eyes, but recalling the scenes made me realize that Dick had put them there. In other words, Berkrot had found aspects of the text I missed and was pointing them out with sound.
Over the ten years since I’ve retired, I’ve been learning the value of rereading books. In fact, I now feel reading a story just once is unfair to the author. It takes two or more readings to see the author’s vision. Reading a work of fiction just once provides one layer of understanding. It’s when we see multiple layers within a work that we start to truly understand it.
Switching back and forth between reading with my eyes and reading with my ears reveals both methods have their advantages. If I read once with one sense organ and reread with another, the two combine to create reading synergy.
For most of my life, I’ve always been concerned with reading more books, but the wisdom I’m gaining from getting old is showing me that both speed reading and reading lots of books is a distraction from deep reading.
Right now, I’d recommend:
- Listen to an audiobook for the first reading to get the big picture.
- Reread with a physical book or ebook to get the details. Read slowly and stop often to ponder.
- Write a review to make deeper sense of a book. Putting things into words pushes us to make sense of things.
- Read reviews and scholarly articles to get other perspectives.
- Reread the book again to bring it all together.
This is what I’m working on with The Simulacra by Philip K. Dick. It’s not considered one of Dick’s better works, but I’m trying to discover if there is more to the novel than its current reputation.
JWH
Auxiliary Memory 
A thoughtful post. I’ve been thinking along the same lines lately. I am grateful for audiobooks because I no longer have the vision I once had, and cannot read in bed at night – it just kills my eyes. But I cannot listen to something that is challenging – rather, like you’ve discovered, I can’t really absorb and retain like I can with a real book. I’m also thankful for my Kindle – It is easiest on my eyes and allows me to read longer. Bottom line for me, there’s nothing like reading a book.
AND, you mention Obsidian! I just discovered this note taking application last week. I’ve used Evernote for many years, but it can be a black hole. I’m looking for a way to make connections the way my brain used to do. I’m just getting started with Obsidian, have watched a bunch of Youtube videos, but it feels very alien. By the way, you definitely have a Youtube monkey on your back (I read all your posts). I can relate. Any tips for an Obsidian newbie?
“The Simulacra” isn’t really one of his very best novels, but I think it was an experiment in structure. That’s probably why it’s so complex and comes out like it does.
I don’t have access to your SF blog. Will you post me a review?
Richard, here’s the review: https://classicsofsciencefiction.com/2024/01/05/the-simulacra-by-philip-k-dick/
I like your recommendations. I haven’t tried a full audio book – I like flipping back to pages and pausing to make notes. I’ll make notes on the author’s style as well as the story. It takes longer to get through a book, but it isn’t about speed for me.
If you fall asleep while listening, will you subconsciously interpret the book into your dreams… I’d like to think so. But I don’t recall doing it myself. Which doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened of course.
I don’t know about books, but there have been times when I listened to the radio while sleeping and songs influenced my dreams. I specifically remember “Gypsy Women” by Brian Hyland doing that. And I know books have influenced by dreams, but I don’t remember any doing it because I was listening to them when I fell asleep.
Oh boy-howdy, Jim! You hit it. I’ve been reading audio books for years now – almost 20 years – (since 2005?). and I’ve done blog reviews since 1998 (Remember GeoCities?) but with a break of about 3 or 4 years in there.
I still really enjoy the audio books for my beloved murder mysteries but they are pretty easy to read – writing reviews gets complicated because of the number of characters and plot twists but I don’t get real serious about those reviews – I don’t do spoilers!
But complex books, fiction or nonfiction, can get hairy without the physical book to go with it.
And what I really, really love to do is to do both at the same times. There have been times when I got soooo immersed in my reading – for hours!
Fwiw – I use either a blank email or a Mac thing called Notes for my notes.
I usually try the Audio alone and if I’m getting confused I start over (that offend clears things right up). If I do read a book twice I add the Kindle version if I don’t already have it. I love rereading when there’s more to a book than just “who done it.”
My first reading is for the plot and character basics. The second time it’s for understanding what the author is often/ sometimes / maybe trying to say. If there is a 3rd time for me it’s for study – like “Where all did the ball travel” in Underworld (by Don Delillo) or “Who is Hazel?” in Pale Fire (Nabokov). The are are many, many, many ways to “study” Gabriel Garcia Marquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude). or Olga Tokarczuk (The Books of Jacob) or Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian).
Right now I’ve listened to Utopia by Thomas More and have two versions in paperback. There is a LOT of history there and the ideas when all put together in one book get complicated but maybe they’re to be taken individually. ????
Thanks for posting that, Jim! The topic touches my heart. 🙂
I love reading and cannot imagine life without books. A few years ago I started listening to audio books. I wanted to keep my options open. Recently I came across Storytel app and am listening to a lot of Kannada books. We are from Karnataka and speak Kannada at home. But I learned to read Kannada later in life and my speed is slow. I feel lazy to read at such a slow speed. I know if I had continued reading, my speed would have increased:) Storytel came my way and is a blessing. My son has Retinitis Pigmentosa and has a talking software in his computer which reads out to him whatever he wants to listen to. He completed his Phd in English Literature in 2016 and is teaching in the Department of Languages of our University. Regards, Lakshmi
You mentioned “From my audiobook experience I found the book compelling, fun, and I was always anxious to get back to listening to the story.”
Absolutely! Especially when you have a very good reader – that makes a world of difference.
Good points in your recommendations, thx for another interesting read.
My wife and I just finished listing to Meryl Streep narrate Ann Patchett’s TOM LAKE. Meryl Streep is a wonderful reader and listening to the nine discs–one a day at Lunch Time–was a joy!
What an incredible reader you are, Jim! (As are some of your own readers.) and what a boon you are for writers. As a writer, I was thrilled to learn that the actors in my latest play were discovering new things in the script with each rehearsal.
I guess it’s really true in plays, because they are constantly reinterpreted.
Yes, each production changes. And week by week, the actors did deeper into the script.
If an actor goes into a different direction than what you intended, what do you do?
If I’m involved in the production I make sure the director knows my vision and my bottom line for this play. After that, the director is in charge, though I may be consulted respectfully 🙂 But for most productions, I am not involved and an lucky if I even see it. Then it’s full of surprises! I like that.
Dick also wrote the story that the movie Blade Runner was based on. “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” Great title in both the book and movie, although the Blade Runner title was more cool and dangerous, and the book title was more intellectually majesterial.
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