Rach's Reading Club

All right.

Honestly, I am not a big fan of books about crafts, so I made a somewhat eccentric choice. Namely, "The Galactic Pot-Healer", a 1969 Science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick. Like most Philip K. Dick books, it blends Dystopian predictions with Deep theological ideas and an absurd sense of humor..

The main character is a "Pot-healer", someone whose job is to restore pottery which was damaged mostly by nuclear war. Unfortunately, we are running out of pots to restore which means that the hero is unemployed. Then, he gets a job offer from a mysterious alien called a Glimmung to come to another planet and participate in the restoration of a cathedral. The Glimmung is very powerful and almost seems like a god, but he has some interestin limitations.

One way to interpret this story is to say that it looks at various things which might motivate an artist.

Should one create art for money?

Well, the hero finds out early on that that probably won't work.

Should one create art for service to one's country?

Well, given the state of the government on Earth, that seems hard to defend.

Should one do create art to glorify God (or gods)?

Expect, at the very least, to have some crazy adventures if you do that.

The very last chapter of the book suggests one other possible motivation for art. Namely creating art for one's own satisfaction. But, then we get the very last sentence of the novel--a punchline which tears down this philosophy.

I could probably say a lot more about this book, if I really thought about it. But I'll stop here. Again, I hope it's not too big a departure from the March theme.