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Weesam
Posted 2015-05-28 5:24 PM (#10648 - in reply to #10640)
Subject: Re: The Definitive 1950s Reading Challenge		Quote Reply



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jwharris28 - 2015-05-29 12:54 AM

That's two people who said they might have been too young to enjoy PKD. That's interesting. One criticism of science fiction from the outside world is it's too much for young adults. So maybe PDK is atypical because he's more mature. A lot of science fiction has young people as protagonists, and often PKD had men that were older, often divorced, sometimes with a kid. They were regular guys, struggling with their jobs, dealing with bosses and wives. I can see where that wouldn't appeal to younger readers. PKD was known as a druggie writer, but often his science fictional drugs were just substitutes for mental illness. There's a lot of mental illness is his stories. I can see where that would be a turn off for young people too



I don't know if it is necessarily just age, after all I was 24 when I read it, not a teenager. But I was a very sheltered 24, with no real experience of a big bad world, and therefore there was nothing in PKD that spoke to me, and little understanding from me of issues such as mental illness. You also mention that it is a world that people of the 1950's would understand, and there again, I didn't really start picking up what would be my culture until the 1980's, which was when I was a teenager.

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