Rashmi bookmarks “Confessions of a Crap Artist”

On the surface, Philip K. Dick’s books can come across as anything from slightly odd to very weird! (“Ubik”, a happy medium, continues to be my favourite). However, scratch the surface, and you will discover a world of novel ideas and a mirror of naked reality.

Unlike most of Dick’s works, Confessions of a Crap Artist is not science fiction, but a slice of life set in 1950’s California. It is the story of Jack Isidore, his sister Fay Hume, her husband Charley Hume, and the young couple Nathan and Gwen Anteil. So far, so normal. But as I got deeper into the book, I discovered a very weird, even twisted world.

Ostensibly the title refers to Jack Isidore, so called because of his obsession for things that other people consider junk - cataloguing old science magazines, collecting worthless objects, and for his ideas that others consider rubbish - notions that the Earth is hollow or that sunlight has weight. But once he moves in with his sister and brother-in-law, and we are introduced to the manipulative Fay Hume, the boorish Charley Hume, the philandering Nat Anteil, and the fanatic Claudia Hambro, we begin to realize that Jack may in fact be the only non ‘crap’ character.

I think the narrative style - switching the voice from character to character - enforces that belief. Jack may have accepted this title, but as every character speaks within this title, every character in essence confesses to being a crap artist. Jack may genuinely believe that the world will end on April 23, 1959, but Charley thinks it is acceptable to beat his wife brutally if she asks him to pick up tampons from the store; Nat reasons “on and on” in order to justify an extra marital affair with a woman whose husband lies in hospital, while his own wife waits at home; Fay thinks it is all right to control people and dictate relations through spreading misery; Nat and Fay see nothing wrong in coming together to fabricate an entire story attacking Gwen in court to obtain a divorce decree.

It was also interesting reading about certain interactions, which the characters took in the greatest earnestness, but which were in fact quite comical! Nat Anteil’s lengthy ruminations as he tried to rationalize his affair with Fay; Claudia Hambro’s “hypnosis” session to pick one among the “SEB”s to announce the last day of Earth; and most of all, Jack’s theatrical reporting to Charley about his wife’s affair, are striking examples!

This book was weird, not in terms of scientific fantasy or futuristic imagination but more a weirdness of characters, or relations, of motivations in this life. The shocking event that took place upon Charley’s return from the hospital was the last layer that the story descended to, with Jack’s final decision to seek psychiatric help effectively cordoning off this weird world with its crap artists.

I will end with this lament by Jack Isidore; “The irony of a slob like that… who never got through high school, calling me a “crap artist” lingered in my mind… I can just see all the Charley Humes in the world… that slack, vacant expression on their fat red faces… and it’s slobs like that who’re running… everything… A man like that in a position to blow his nose on the rest of us, on anybody who has sensitivity or talent.”