Philip K. Dick is not known for writing novels which portray women in a positive light. This is not because he was anti-women, but rather reflects on his own troubled experiences with them. He had several failed marriages, and I am sure, he would be the first to point out it was in part his own foibles which led to his divorces. The life he had lived (such as a high level of drug abuse early in life), and the kinds of other-worldly experiences he would face (which would haunt him to the end of his life), combined with constant material poverty he faced daily, certainly would make any relationship difficult at best. Nonetheless, his bright, far-reaching mind, and his innate kindness attracted many women to him, and brought to him many long-lasting friendships. The conversations we have recorded with some of his women friends/companions show his true love and respect for women. He just found it difficult to relate to them, and therefore, to write on them. But, as Mary and the Giant shows, he was not entirely clueless; he could write about women protagonists, and when he did, he had a prescient sense of the difficulties women were to face because of the sexual revolution.
Mary and the Giant, like many of Dick’s books, is both easy and difficult to read. He wrote with such a simple style, one can easily read one of his novels in a day or two during one’s free time. But, as many of his novels show, he dealt with tough situations and topics, with the kind of people he knew and associated with, letting out their mannerism, even when it is vulgar. Because it feels right, and not just put there for shock value, his vulgarity, when it is in a story is one which contributes to the story. Mary and the Giant has this with spades.
The story is about a young woman in the 1950s trying to find her way in life; she has been abused in the past (from her father, no less), and it has affected her ability to deal with others. She is at once scared and attracted to men who look to her sexually. Clearly, her father’s treatment of her led to this dual relationship with men. She is hurt, and it is only in the end, when she finds true love – and has a child of her own – that she gets a sense of peace. But the path between is a difficult path.
She is indecisive and fickle. She is into the music scene in a small California town, causing scandal because of her relationships all while she struggles to find herself and where she really belongs. Some men she wants to be with and have little interest in her, some want her, even when they should leave her alone. All in this, she is strong and yet afraid. She does not know what to do and she does what she thinks she must to survive, sometimes changing her opinion quickly as situations change. She gives herself to others, in part because of desire, in part because of fear. Here, as with many of Dick’s novels, the sex shows the bestial, abusive side which was to come out of the sexual revolution. We see someone hurt from it: free love, even though it is based upon passionate desires, is shown for the kind of personal degradation it brings.
Style wise, this book is a bit simpler, cruder than many of Dick’s works, in part because of how early it was written. It was not published in his lifetime, and yet, I think it is more pertinent now than it would have been when it was originally written. One must go in knowing it is going to be crude and vulgar. One must also know that it does have elements of the age in which it was written, and yet there is something which transcends that age here. It provides a real, telling story of a woman in trouble. It is not for everyone. It’s not one of his science-fiction novels. But it is one of his more interesting and compelling fictional stories, if nothing else, because its theme was one which he would not do exactly the same ever again.
3 ½ /5 stars.
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