The young solder paused, looking up at Carl. His face was bland, and crafty. He watched Carl to see how he was reacting. He pushed the book around to Carl, turning the pages.
Carl laid down his manuscript and picked up the book. On the next page was a picture, a drawing in bright colors. Two men and two women, broad-faced, smiling, in native costumes. Leaning against a tractor.
The young soldier watched Carl, hopeful and alert. He smiled at Carl, pointing to the book.
Carl pushed the book back to him. “Thank you,” he murmured. “Thanks.”
He picked up his manuscript and moved toward the door. The young soldier began to fold his paper-backed book up again. Carefully, he restored it to his shirt. He was still smiling as Carl opened the door and went slowly down the steps, onto the road. Verne had brought the truck around. He waved to Carl.
“Come on! We’re going.”
Carl walked slowly toward the truck. The fog drifted and eddied around him. It had not lifted yet. The towers and buildings were vague and ghostly, lost in the gray murk. Verne snapped on the headlights of the truck as Carl came up to the door.
“Let’s go,” Verne said impatiently. He pushed the door open. Barbara moved over for Carl.
Carl got into the truck, his brown paper package gripped tightly against him.
“All right.” He leaned back, closing the door. “I’m ready to go.”
“It’s a good thing,” Barbara said. “We have a long way to go.”
“I know,” Carl said. “I know.”
AFTERWORD
WALKING IN AN AGORAPHOBIC’S WONDERLAND
WHEN WAS Gather Yourselves Together written? No one knows for sure, but two of Philip K. Dick’s biographers, Lawrence Sutin and Gregg Rickman, assert that Gather is Dick’s first surviving novel. Sutin dates it between 1949 and 1950, while Rickman’s only assertion is that Dick must have finished it before joining the Scott Meredith Agency in 1952. Andy Watson (publisher, WCS Books) and I exchanged voluminous electronic mail hashing out this question. Andy believes that Voices from the Street, a much cruder novel (and the only remaining unpublished Philip K. Dick novel manuscript), was written first; an opinion shared by Paul Williams. I’m inclined to side with Sutin and Rickman, whose circumstantial evidence for Gather being first I find more compelling. However, Andy suggests (and I’m inclined to agree) that Gather may have been polished up at some later date.
So, if we figure Gather as written between 1949 and 1951 (just to cover all the bases), what and where was Phil Dick at the time? He was living in Berkeley, working at Art Music. He had already been married (and divorced) once, and was probably seeing Kleo Apostolides, whom he wed in June of 1950. In the fall of 1949, he tried attending the University of California at Berkeley (and lasted about two months).
Gregg Rickman, in particular, details Dick’s agoraphobia at the time, something he would overcome later in life. But during this period Dick had great difficulty eating in public; he stuck to one particular table at one particular restaurant near Art Music, in an almost compulsive fashion. Since childhood he had suffered from a psychological difficulty in swallowing (Rickman refers to this as “conversion dysphagia” or “globus hysteria”). Dick was also still exploring his sexuality and his relationships with women—relationships highly colored by both the experience of his mother and the idea of his twin sister (she died only days after their shared birthday).
The China of Gather is not the “real China,” but a Disneyland for agoraphobics, an early version of the post-Apocalypse worlds of novels like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Dr. Bloodmoney. This may have been Dick’s idea of Paradise at the time; a nearly limitless world to explore, where all the creature comforts are still intact and there are “no deeds to do or promises to keep.” None, because there’s no one to answer to except one’s self (or, as Verne says, “Rules and mores don’t mean a thing anymore. There’s no one here but us”). A clean slate.
One of the more telling and touching aspects of this “paradise” is the description of the kitchen in Chapter 4. Here’s all this food, more than anyone could eat in a lifetime, and an ideal place to eat it: the “civilized” world is gone, and Carl/Dick doesn’t have to worry about his dysphagia. (Also consider Dick’s poverty during this period: a time when he and Kleo were buying and eating horsemeat from the Lucky Dog Pet Shop.)
Buried in Gather is also a Garden of Eden allusion: Barbara and Teddy are the Eves, aggressive seducers dangling the apple of their sexuality before Carl and Verne. Though Dick never clearly states it, the novel implies that Verne wound up in China, exiled from his normal life, as an escape from Teddy. And when Carl finally takes a bite of Barbara’s apple, we’ve reached the climax of the novel: after that, nothing remains but the final expulsion from the symbolic paradise.
Carl Fitter is clearly an analogue of Phil Dick (or at least the Dick of that period). There’s no room here for a detailed exploration of Phil Dick’s childhood (the interested reader should try Gregg Rickman’s To the High Castle/Philip K. Dick: A Life 1928-1962, published by Fragments West, or Lawrence Sutin’s Divine Invasions from Harmony Books), but it’s important to understand that much of Carl Fitter’s flashback (Chapters 14-16) can be read directly as autobiography: the life in the East, the relationship with his mother, the separation from his father at an early age, the brief college career.
While Carl Fitter is, without argument, Phil Dick, the case for Barbara Mahler as Kleo Apostolides is much less clear, the parallels much less explicit. I still think, though, that Barbara’s character is based heavily on Kleo—or at least, Dick’s view of Kleo at that time. Note, particularly, that Carl is constantly afraid of alienating Barbara, and how he places her on a pedestal, reads to her from his “philosophy,” and treats her as an intellectual equal: a recurring theme in Dick’s relationships.
The character of Teddy would seem to have a much more obvious basis: Dick’s imaginary friend “Teddy,” and his possible later use of “Teddy” as a pseudonym for some of his youthful writings. But it’s hard for me to imagine Dick making his imaginary friend, possibly another manifestation of his longing for his dead twin, into the psychotic Hell-bitch that the Teddy of Gather turns into. I think he may have been working out some of his feelings about his disastrous first marriage, and Teddy represents Dick’s view of his first wife—a view tinged with a great deal of bitterness, and probably not completely accurate.
Verne Tildon is very probably Dick’s first character based on his Art Music boss and long-time role model, Herb Hollis. Carl’s obvious admiration for Verne, and his final break with Verne, prefigure Dick’s admiration for, and eventual break with, Hollis. And the Hollis character template is central to some of Dick’s best work (such as the Glen Runciter in Ubik and Leo Bulero in The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch), as well as a recurring motif in his mainstream work. I think Verne Tildon is also based partially on another Art Music employee, Vince Lusby, who arranged for Dick to lose his virginity (and seems to have shared Verne’s fondness for jazz).
In the end, Gather Yourselves Together is much more successful as a historical document than as a novel. Gather shows us just how early some of Dick’s themes and tropes began to develop. Though it doesn’t come close to the tear-your-heart-out intensity of Dick’s best work, it remains, I think, a valuable addition to the man’s work, and an invaluable window into his life.
Dwight Brown
Austin, Texas
Philip K. Dick, Gather Yourselves Together
(Series: # )
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