Time Out of Joint

timeoutofjointcover2

Time Out of Joint
by Philip K. Dick

Ragle Gumm wins a newspaper contest everyday and he makes a living off the prize money so it becomes his sole job in his small town in 1959. Then he starts to notice things are a bit off when he finds a magazine in a neighbor’s house that talks about a famous celebrity, Marilyn Monroe, that he has never heard about, or when he tries to get a soft drink from a soft drink stand in a park, it disappears into thin air and is replaced by a small slip of paper on the ground that says, “Soft Drink Stand.” When he tries to get out of town to figure out what is going on, something is always stopping his journey.

I found this book fascinating since it transitions to what some thing are the “good ole days” of the 1950s and then reading about what Philip K. Dick viewed about what was oppressive and stifling about that decade. The book was written around the time that it was set, but there are also parts that are set in the future of 1997. It was very amusing to read what Dick would imagine the world would be like in that year.

The ending seemed a bit rushed and I would have liked more time spent on what was actually going on once Gumm completely figured it out. Overall, this would make one crazy, entertaining movie.

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