Time Out of Joint
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Average rating3.9
Time Out of Joint is a dystopian novel by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in novel form in the United States in 1959. An abridged version was also serialised in the British science fiction magazine New Worlds Science Fiction in several installments from December 1959 to February 1960.
The novel epitomizes many of Dick's themes with its concerns about the nature of reality and ordinary people in ordinary lives having the world unravel around them. The title is a reference to Shakespeare's play Hamlet. The line is uttered by Hamlet to Horatio after being visited by his father's ghost and learning that his uncle Claudius murdered his father; in short, a shocking supernatural event that fundamentally alters the way Hamlet perceives the state and the universe ("The time is out of joint; O cursed spite!/That ever I was born to set it right!" [I.V.211-2]), much as do several events in the novel.
Ragle Gumm is an ordinary man leading an ordinary life, except that he makes his living by entering a newspaper contest every day -- and winning, every day. But he gradually begins to suspect that his life -- indeed his whole world -- is an illusion, constructed around him for the express purpose of keeping him docile and happy. But if that is the case, what is his real world like, and what is he actually doing every day when he thinks he is guessing 'Where Will The Little Green Man Be Next?'
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Early Philip K Dick is a world away from what his contemporaries were writing in terms of Science Fiction. While Heinlein was writing space operas in the fifties, Dick was exploring Inner Space, the realm of the mind. Time Out of Joint is another novel exploring the nature of reality.
For Ragle Gumm (Dick always gives his protagonists the most fabulous names) every day is taken up with completing a competition entry for Where in The World is The Little Green Man. And every day he wins. Nobody has ever been as successful, and this is how Gumm makes a living. He lives with his sister and her husband in a small town in 1950s middle America. Everything is perfectly average, except for his amazing winning streak.
But slowly, things start to unravel. Things disappear in front of him, just dissolve into nothingness, leaving only a strip of paper describing what was there. His sister's son build a crystal radio set and picks up conversations that appear to be about Gumm. His neighbours, Junie and Bill Black are not all they appear to be. He realises that the town has an air of fakery about it. But why? What has happened to him?
After a slow start the novel becomes more labyrinthine as Gumm and his brother-in-law, Vic, start to uncover the truth. They go on a journey out of town and reveal a conspiracy that goes to the very heart of a world at war. This is science fiction that addresses the nature of reality and, while it's a minor novel in relation to Dick's 60s and 70s output, it's still well worth a read.
