Tears of a dystopian world

Coming from the author whose works inspired the films Blade Runner, Total Recall, and Minority Report, the novel Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said follows a much more sedate path. In typical Philip K. Dick fashion, the novel centers on a futuristic world where the government is slowly inching towards unrestricted control. Some unique elements, however, save Flow My Tears from being just another of those preachy dystopian books. For the real science fiction fan, Flow My Tears provides enough suspense to make the read worthwhile. Only the few readers interested in long-winded philosophy, however, will appreciate the ending.

The story begins by introducing a bubbling and charismatic television host, Jason Taverner. Though Taverner is loved by millions of viewers, he finds himself being attacked by an angry ex-girlfriend in the opening chapter. When he wakes up, Taverner discovers that he has lost all of his identification and that no one in the world remembers who he is. The author makes this wrinkle especially interesting by establishing that the futuristic government controls practically all facets of life through intensively enforced identification cards and checkpoints. Thus, despite his good looks and charm, Taverner has instantly become among the lowest forms of life on the planet and risks being sent to a labor camp for lacking ID. As I read the novel, I couldn’t help but to think of that credit card commercial where the old lady is voiced over by some motorcycle hogs telling the story of how they swiped her VISA.

As the novel progresses, the story shifts from Taverner, who is picked up and questioned by the police, to the police chief Felix Buchmann. Dick typically includes fractured police officers as main characters in his works, and Buchmann may be the most iconic of them all. Buchmann is married to his sister Alys, a drug-using bisexual who happens to be the only person that can remember who Taverner really was.

As the novel concludes, Dick focuses more and more on Police Chief Buchmann and some of his tragic thoughts and experiences. Very ironically, drug use ends up being at the heart of the explanation for Taverner’s lost identity in a most unusual way.

The ending of the novel is quite unspectacular. Most of the plot is resolved in a few very straightforward paragraphs, but Dick leaves enough lingering details that you’ll be wondering if what you have read isn’t really a surprise ending after all. In short, for those who like futuristic literature that doesn’t try to pretend like it is epic, Flow My Tears is a great book. Those more interested in epic action or surprise endings can certainly do better with some of Philip K. Dick’s other novels.

Rating: 3/5