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The Eyes Have It (1953)

by Philip K. Dick(Favorite Author)

3.57 of 5 Votes: 5

languge

English

genre

Science Fiction

publisher

TeknoBooks

review 1: When I first read this early story of Philip K. Dick I found it pretty silly, but on reflection it is a perfect illustration of the interplay of alienation and estrangement that I find interesting in much science fiction. I recently listened to an interview with PKD where he claimed that one of his books was released as a mainstream novel in hardcover, and as a science fiction novel in paperback. The duality of status confirmed the duality of language that this text already highlights.The story (text here, audio here) seems a little frivolous at first, but it is a good test case for the definition of science fiction as cognitive estrangement. Here the sense of wonder is induced in the hero as reader of what may well be an ordinary novel, but where he interprets literally c... moreertain habitually figurative expressions. Because the author is Philip K. Dick we are left with a certain doubt at the end: is the narrator just naive, perhaps even stupid, in taking words literally, at face value, or is he a step more "meta" than us, understanding what we have been trained to regard as second degree metaphorical discourse as in fact conveying literal truth?I am reminded of Zizek's analysis of John Carpenter's film THEY LIVE. A homeless tramp discovers a pair of glasses that when donned reveals a world of alien invasion hidden beneath the superficial illusion of normality. Zizek claims that the normal perception is "ideology" and that the glasses serve to remove our ideological filters. The book found on a bus (i.e.. outside the conjugal frame) and read in a garage contains no language that is not already familiar from ordinary life, yet somehow this book serves to defamiliarise the language and to reveal a "hidden" content, one that is hidden in plain sight.The unfamiliar world that the narrator is initiated into is one where the Earth has been infiltrated by aliens in human form, going about fairly ordinary human activities, These aliens differ from us in that they do not have a unified body organised hierarchically with the brain as hegemonic organ. Their organs can detach themselves and move independently, and their body may split in two (or perhaps even more) parts. He discovers that what some have considered to be the basis of modern day liberal ideology, the fixed unitary subject, is an imaginary construct, a fictional synthesis of a fragmentary body. That this discovery applies not just to the aliens of the book but to himself is signalled by the end of the book he seeks refuge from the horrible truth in a return to conjugal warmth, playing Monopoly with his wife and children in the kitchen. He tries to forget the truth glimpsed, declaring "I have no stomach for it", i.e., in effect he himself is one of the corporally fragmented aliens.
review 2: This is such a cute little story. It's all about the use of idioms in English, and although the gimmick of taking these things literally isn't drowning with originality, it makes for a good laugh, at least for someone interested in language like me. It is interesting, if rather logical, that our use of idioms is quite often related to our bodies. One thing is wondering about the effect - does it make us more disconnected and detached from our bodies? - but even more interestingly, it makes for comparison with other languages and how there might be differences in the use of idioms, and what that tells us about the particular cultural perception. This is great for that little spark to ponder amusingly over language. less

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