Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Pan Book Ltd. (1972), Paperback
Description
The Glimmung wants Joe Fernwright. Fernwright is a pot-healer - a repairer of ceramics - in a drably utilitarian future where such skills have little value. The Glimmung is a being that looks something like a gyroscope, something like a teenaged girl, and something like the contents of an ocean. What's more, it may be divine. And, like certain gods of old Earth, it has a bad temper. What could an omnipresent and seemingly omnipotent entity want with a humble pot-healer? Or with the dozens of other odd creatures it has lured to Plowman's Planet? And if the Glimmung is a god, are its ends positive or malign? Combining quixotic adventure, spine-chilling horror, and deliriously paranoid theology, Galactic Pot-Healer is a uniquely Dickian voyage to alternate worlds of the imagination.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member meta87
A story about a depressed aging man in a future where one lives off the government and cannot find anything beneficial to add to society. This man spends the days wasting away waiting for anyone to need his services as a ceramic pot-healer. He man have found such a need when an alien lifeform needs
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his help on a far away planet. This story is a mind trip like many of Dick's stories with interesting metaphysical ideas. An interesting and worthwhile read. Show Less
LibraryThing member CliffBurns
Interesting but not PKD at his best. The central character is well-rendered but the novel sputters along, weird and tangential.
LibraryThing member jimroberts
I think Galactic Pot-Healer is one of Dick's best works. Much of the story concerns doubt, despair, defeat, degeneration, death and dissolution, but it is an optimistic book.
Our protagonist, Joe Fernwright, lives in Cleveland in 2046. There has been a war and the postwar world is ruled by a single
One day he receives a cryptic message: “Pot-healer, I need you. And I will pay.” Further messages turn up mysteriously at his home and workplace. Helpful friends and his and their scanty access to government information sources — trustworthy? — suggest that the messages come from a godlike, but senile, entity called Glimmung, principally associated with Sirius Five, Plowman's planet. Glimmung is powerful, but his power is apparently limited by the prophecies of a mysterious book.
Suspicious behaviour, namely spontaneous acts of generosity to people even poorer and more hopeless than him, provoke Fernwright's arrest, but soon he is somehow removed from custody and experiences a bizarre manifestation, apparently of Glimmung. Glimmung claims to be even now engaged in recruiting a large team of specialists from earth and many other planets to join in a great undertaking, and urges Fernwright to go straight to Cleveland Spaceport and take the next flight to Plowman's planet. Glimmung's petulant reaction to Fernwright's humorously sceptical response sufficiently convinces Fernwright of Glimmung's authenticity, and his easy escape from Earth confirms Glimmung's power.
But doubts remain. What are Glimmung's true aims? Can he fulfil his promises? Does he even want to?
At Plowman's planet, which is a very dreary place, everybody gets a copy of the book of prophecy. It turns out that the book continually updates itself with new prophecies. Fernwright wonders whether the general belief in the book's accuracy is justified: can he make a prophecy fail? Is the Glimmung's enterprise doomed to failure? And if so, should a noble aim be abandoned when it is unachievable?
Typically for Dick, the book is somewhat marred by careless minor inconsistencies, but it is still well worth reading.
Our protagonist, Joe Fernwright, lives in Cleveland in 2046. There has been a war and the postwar world is ruled by a single
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government which, as we expect from PKD, is extremely intrusive and repressive. Pots damaged in the war provided him for a time with plenty of congenial work as a pot-healer, but now work is rare, he lives mainly from a government hand-out and feels that his life is futile.One day he receives a cryptic message: “Pot-healer, I need you. And I will pay.” Further messages turn up mysteriously at his home and workplace. Helpful friends and his and their scanty access to government information sources — trustworthy? — suggest that the messages come from a godlike, but senile, entity called Glimmung, principally associated with Sirius Five, Plowman's planet. Glimmung is powerful, but his power is apparently limited by the prophecies of a mysterious book.
Suspicious behaviour, namely spontaneous acts of generosity to people even poorer and more hopeless than him, provoke Fernwright's arrest, but soon he is somehow removed from custody and experiences a bizarre manifestation, apparently of Glimmung. Glimmung claims to be even now engaged in recruiting a large team of specialists from earth and many other planets to join in a great undertaking, and urges Fernwright to go straight to Cleveland Spaceport and take the next flight to Plowman's planet. Glimmung's petulant reaction to Fernwright's humorously sceptical response sufficiently convinces Fernwright of Glimmung's authenticity, and his easy escape from Earth confirms Glimmung's power.
But doubts remain. What are Glimmung's true aims? Can he fulfil his promises? Does he even want to?
At Plowman's planet, which is a very dreary place, everybody gets a copy of the book of prophecy. It turns out that the book continually updates itself with new prophecies. Fernwright wonders whether the general belief in the book's accuracy is justified: can he make a prophecy fail? Is the Glimmung's enterprise doomed to failure? And if so, should a noble aim be abandoned when it is unachievable?
Typically for Dick, the book is somewhat marred by careless minor inconsistencies, but it is still well worth reading.
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LibraryThing member scottcholstad
Not a great book. Definitely not one of PKD's better books. It's about a man named Joe Fernwright, a "pot healer" of increasingly rare ceramic pots in a dystopian future earth who plays computerized games with people all over the world to keep from going batty. (This was written in the '60s.) A
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giant omniscient alien named Glimmung picks him up, along with possibly thousands of other human and alien "specialists," to go to a distant planet thought to be deserted to raise a cathedral dedicated to a couple of gods from the ocean for no apparent reason. The plot is iffy, the dialogue terrible, the character development non-existent, and it's just not a very good book. As a big PKD fan, I find myself disappointed. Recommended only for PKD fans. Show Less
LibraryThing member cblaker
This is a wacked-out, trippy Philip K Dick book with a philosophical heart. A man in a obsolete job in a US run by an overbearing socialist government is offered a job by a mysterious alien. Before I continue with the plot, let me interject that the protagonist plays this funny game with his
Anyway, the main character catches a flight to the alien's home planet. The protagonist is hired to repair an enormous pot from a sunken city. It's impossible to condense the reasons why he has to fix the pot and why the city must be raised from the ocean. The book is really a meditation on free-will versus predestination. Do we choose what we do or is everything preordained and if things are preordained, should one sink into fatalism. As with most of Philip Dicks' books the ending is not dramatic. With many of his book, you get the Dick would have these great ideas and then get bored with them in the last third of the book. Despite my reservation about the end, I highly recommend this story and if you have not read his work, it's a good one to start with.
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friends to kill time. One fellow thinks of a book title, calls an English to Japanese translation service, has it translated to Japanese and then back into English. The second fellow has to guess the book title from the garbled translation ie Large Exhalation Flying Insect= The Great Gatsby. Anyway, the main character catches a flight to the alien's home planet. The protagonist is hired to repair an enormous pot from a sunken city. It's impossible to condense the reasons why he has to fix the pot and why the city must be raised from the ocean. The book is really a meditation on free-will versus predestination. Do we choose what we do or is everything preordained and if things are preordained, should one sink into fatalism. As with most of Philip Dicks' books the ending is not dramatic. With many of his book, you get the Dick would have these great ideas and then get bored with them in the last third of the book. Despite my reservation about the end, I highly recommend this story and if you have not read his work, it's a good one to start with.
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LibraryThing member bibleblaster
A very good (but not quite Ubik-great) Philip Dick novel. A classic Dick future is painted that seems advanced and cheap at the same time; shiny enough but with dustballs in every corner.
The characters grapple with meaninglessness, rendered at times in shockingly simple yet sincere prose:
I am
At other times, taking on a Beckett-like feel:
And prepared to wait. Until it comes, he said to himself. Unless I physically starve to death first. I will not voluntarily die, now, he thought harshly. I want to stay alive. And wait. And wait.
He waited.
The meaninglessness is escaped for a time as the characters strive to decipher the meanings of messages on notes in bottles, in self-revising books, and in dreams.
There's a bunch of ideas; it's a little sloppy; but it's Philip K. Dick: a paranoid genius in a hurry to get it all down on paper...
The characters grapple with meaninglessness, rendered at times in shockingly simple yet sincere prose:
I am
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like a gray thing, he thought. Bustling along with the currents of air that tumble me, that roll me, like a gray puff-ball, on and on.At other times, taking on a Beckett-like feel:
And prepared to wait. Until it comes, he said to himself. Unless I physically starve to death first. I will not voluntarily die, now, he thought harshly. I want to stay alive. And wait. And wait.
He waited.
The meaninglessness is escaped for a time as the characters strive to decipher the meanings of messages on notes in bottles, in self-revising books, and in dreams.
There's a bunch of ideas; it's a little sloppy; but it's Philip K. Dick: a paranoid genius in a hurry to get it all down on paper...
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LibraryThing member Cheryl_in_CC_NV
Disclaimer - I'm not much of a fan of PKD, but I love some of his lines and some of his ideas, so I keep reading despite the sexism, paranoia, etc.
Also - Spoiler Alert - some of what I say below is quite far in the book, but otoh it's not exactly spoilers to the plot, and the plot isn't much
I found this to be quite clever, but not really memorable. Most of the humor was the kind that I realize is funny only after I've turned the page, and I say to myself, oh, that was cute, eh." The robot Willis is funny in a less subtle way, as are the automatons like the reference phone services.
I never did figure out the connection (if that's even the right word for it?) between Mr. Job and real coins and suicide. If you understand, please comment.
I would have liked more about pot-healing - Joe restores artifacts, doesn't just repair them. I guess there was enough description of ordinary potter's work, and enough mumbo-jumbo about healing, but I'd love to have seen Joe in action.
I do like the various games - Translations, Headlines, and Thingisms.
A sample line. "Deities do not fall ten floors to the basement." Not much out of context, eh? Read the book yourself to appreciate it as I do.
I will read more PDK. I started with the stories upon which the movies were based, and that helped, as I had a glimmer of understanding about what was going on. Then I read some short stories, and am moving up. This, I don't think, would make a very good movie. It's a short novel."
Also - Spoiler Alert - some of what I say below is quite far in the book, but otoh it's not exactly spoilers to the plot, and the plot isn't much
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anyway... but if you're *very* sensitive you might want to stop here.I found this to be quite clever, but not really memorable. Most of the humor was the kind that I realize is funny only after I've turned the page, and I say to myself, oh, that was cute, eh." The robot Willis is funny in a less subtle way, as are the automatons like the reference phone services.
I never did figure out the connection (if that's even the right word for it?) between Mr. Job and real coins and suicide. If you understand, please comment.
I would have liked more about pot-healing - Joe restores artifacts, doesn't just repair them. I guess there was enough description of ordinary potter's work, and enough mumbo-jumbo about healing, but I'd love to have seen Joe in action.
I do like the various games - Translations, Headlines, and Thingisms.
A sample line. "Deities do not fall ten floors to the basement." Not much out of context, eh? Read the book yourself to appreciate it as I do.
I will read more PDK. I started with the stories upon which the movies were based, and that helped, as I had a glimmer of understanding about what was going on. Then I read some short stories, and am moving up. This, I don't think, would make a very good movie. It's a short novel."
Show Less
LibraryThing member DanielSTJ
This novel was a bit of a subdued, yet still wild, ride through the mind of Philip K. Dick. The premise is enticing, but there is a sense of humor and satire-- especially regarding the ending, associated with it. Overall, I felt this to be a little detached from the rest of the oeuvre that I've
3 stars.
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seen by Dick, and his style seems to be verging on experimentation and poise rather than the usual romp through science fiction that I have become associated with through reading him. Nonetheless, it was not a bad read, per se, but rather an unexpected one. Nevertheless, it was still worthwhile.3 stars.
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LibraryThing member harroldsheep
More that most of his other novels, the main character, in this case Joe Fernwright, doesn't so much exist as drifts from one scene to another. Everything he touches, he brings doom to, and though you want to grab Joe by the shoulders and try to shake him out of his fatalistic ennui, you can't help
One of my favourite Dick novels.
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but sit back and watch the train wreck of his life. Dick doesn't pull any punches and keeps his characters consistent, right to the very sardonic end.One of my favourite Dick novels.
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Subjects
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1969-06
Physical description
164 p.; 17.8 cm
ISBN
0330233378 / 9780330233378
Local notes
Omslag: Ikke angivet
Omslaget viser en bunke uhyrer med rumhjelme på, der stormer rundt udenfor noget, der ligner en katedral af jordisk tilsnit
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
PotHealer
Omslaget viser en bunke uhyrer med rumhjelme på, der stormer rundt udenfor noget, der ligner en katedral af jordisk tilsnit
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
PotHealer
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Pages
164
DDC/MDS
| 813.54 |