>What was that "Famous Philip K. Dick Letter" regarding Lem?
>On September 2, 1974 Philip K. Dick sent the following letter to the FBI (Please keep in mind Mr. Dick was most probably suffering from schizophrenia):
And Stanislaw Lem returned the complement by writing "Philip K. Dick: A Visionary Among the Charlatans" in 1975, which got him expelled from the SFWA in 1976.
>Philip Dick does not lead his critics an easy life, since he does not so much play the part of a guide through his phantasmagoric worlds as give the impression of one lost in their labyrinth. He has stood all the more in need of critical assistance, but he has not received it. A characteristic of Dick ’s work, after its ambiguity as to genre, is its tawdriness, which is reminiscent of the goods offered at country fairs by primitive craftsmen who are at once clever and naive, possessed of more talent than self-knowledge. Dick has as a rule taken over a rubble of building materials from the run-of-the-mill American professionals of SF, frequently adding a true gleam of originality to worn-out concepts, and erecting with such materials constructions truly his own. The world gone mad, with a spasmodic flow of time and a network of causes and effects which wriggles as if nauseated, the world of frenzied physics, is unquestionably his invention. If Dick’s writings are neither of uniform quality nor fully realized, still it is only by brute force that they can be jammed into that pulp of materials, destitute of intellectual value and original structure, which makes up SF. Its fans are attracted by the worst in Dick—the typical dash of American SF, reaching to the stars, and the headlong pace of action moving from one surprise to the next—but they hold it against him that, instead of unraveling puzzles, he leaves the reader at the end on the battlefield, enveloped in an aura of mystery as grotesque as it is strange. Yet his bizarre blending of hallucinogenic and palingenetic techniques have not won him many admirers outside the ghetto walls, since outsiders are repelled by the shoddiness of the props he has adopted from the inventory of SF.
>Why was Stanislaw Lem expelled from the SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America) in 1976?
>Lem has always been critical of most science fiction, which he considers ill thought out, poorly written, and interested more in adventure that ideas or new literary forms. (...) Those opinions provoked an unpleasant debate in the SFWA [the "Lem affair"]. Philip José Farmer and others were incensed by Lem's comments (...) and eventually brought about the removal of the honorary membership(...). Other members, such as Ursula K. Le Guin, then protested the removal (...) and the SFWA then offered Lem a regular membership, which he, of course, refused in 1976. Asked later about the "affair," he remarked, that his opinions of the state of science fiction were already known when he was offered an honorary membership (...). He also added he harboured no ill feelings towards the SFWA or U.S. writers in particular, "...but it would be a lie to say the whole incident has enlarged my respect for SF writers".
Very interesting, I didn't know this bit of scifi history!
I'm an absolute fan of PKD, and he was definitely at his best when exploring the surreal and unexplainable, the paradoxes, the philosophical, and also the minutiae of the "uninteresting" parts of people's lives. Like someone said in the intro of his collected stories, PKD's characters themselves are often cardboard thin, and his props likewise. Taken at face value, the "pure" scifi bits of his stories aren't particularly interesting; but it's fascinating how he cares about what a time-traveler does for a living, and when a service call from the future goes horribly wrong, it's the minutiae about the repairman's life that matters, not the "tech". When someone is stuck in a parallel universe, their possible savior might only be interested in what's in it for her as profit. When someone is stuck in a Nazi-ruled world, we still learn he sells fake antiques for a living.
If someone lives in a backwards time-travelling stream ("Your Appointment Will Be Yesterday") this is never really explained. PKD doesn't care about this, he cares about how it affects his characters. And the story is never fully resolved, not in a tidy way -- it often ends up more confusing than it started!
So I guess I find myself in agreement with Stalislaw Lem here.
>What was that "Famous Philip K. Dick Letter" regarding Lem?
>On September 2, 1974 Philip K. Dick sent the following letter to the FBI (Please keep in mind Mr. Dick was most probably suffering from schizophrenia):
And Stanislaw Lem returned the complement by writing "Philip K. Dick: A Visionary Among the Charlatans" in 1975, which got him expelled from the SFWA in 1976.
https://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/5/lem5art.htm
>ABSTRACT
>Philip Dick does not lead his critics an easy life, since he does not so much play the part of a guide through his phantasmagoric worlds as give the impression of one lost in their labyrinth. He has stood all the more in need of critical assistance, but he has not received it. A characteristic of Dick ’s work, after its ambiguity as to genre, is its tawdriness, which is reminiscent of the goods offered at country fairs by primitive craftsmen who are at once clever and naive, possessed of more talent than self-knowledge. Dick has as a rule taken over a rubble of building materials from the run-of-the-mill American professionals of SF, frequently adding a true gleam of originality to worn-out concepts, and erecting with such materials constructions truly his own. The world gone mad, with a spasmodic flow of time and a network of causes and effects which wriggles as if nauseated, the world of frenzied physics, is unquestionably his invention. If Dick’s writings are neither of uniform quality nor fully realized, still it is only by brute force that they can be jammed into that pulp of materials, destitute of intellectual value and original structure, which makes up SF. Its fans are attracted by the worst in Dick—the typical dash of American SF, reaching to the stars, and the headlong pace of action moving from one surprise to the next—but they hold it against him that, instead of unraveling puzzles, he leaves the reader at the end on the battlefield, enveloped in an aura of mystery as grotesque as it is strange. Yet his bizarre blending of hallucinogenic and palingenetic techniques have not won him many admirers outside the ghetto walls, since outsiders are repelled by the shoddiness of the props he has adopted from the inventory of SF.
Discussion:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8801011
https://english.lem.pl/index.php/faq#SWFA
>Why was Stanislaw Lem expelled from the SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America) in 1976?
>Lem has always been critical of most science fiction, which he considers ill thought out, poorly written, and interested more in adventure that ideas or new literary forms. (...) Those opinions provoked an unpleasant debate in the SFWA [the "Lem affair"]. Philip José Farmer and others were incensed by Lem's comments (...) and eventually brought about the removal of the honorary membership(...). Other members, such as Ursula K. Le Guin, then protested the removal (...) and the SFWA then offered Lem a regular membership, which he, of course, refused in 1976. Asked later about the "affair," he remarked, that his opinions of the state of science fiction were already known when he was offered an honorary membership (...). He also added he harboured no ill feelings towards the SFWA or U.S. writers in particular, "...but it would be a lie to say the whole incident has enlarged my respect for SF writers".