The book ends with some hope for peace, because the Lunar colonists are more willing to negotiate than Earth's 'One Happy World' regime has been telling its citizens. Vic rejects this belief, referring to the colonists essentially as aggressors and terrorists, and returns to the simulated town- which has lost its raison d'etre because of Gumm's escape from its environs. When Gumm finally remembers his true personal history, he decides to emigrate to the Moon after all because he feels that exploration and migration, as basic human impulses, should never be denied to people by any national or planetary government. While Gumm regressed by himself to a 1950s mindset, the rest of the town with a few exceptions like Black were all put in a similar state artificially, explaining why hardly anyone else could perceive anomalies. The fake town was thereby created within Gumm's mind to accommodate and rationalize his retreat to childhood so that he could continue predicting nuclear strikes in the guise of submitting entries to a harmless newspaper contest and without the ethical qualms involved with being on the 'wrong' side of a civil war. He was no longer able to shoulder his responsibility as Earth's lone protector from Lunar-launched nuclear offensives. But before this could happen, he began retreating into a fantasy world based largely upon the relatively idyllic surroundings of his extreme youth. Previously Gumm did this work for the military, but then he defected to the colonists' side and planned to secretly emigrate to the Moon. Gumm has a unique ability to predict where the colonists' nuclear strikes will be aimed. He learns that his idyllic town is a constructed reality designed to protect him from the frightening fact that he lives on a then-future Earth (circa 1998) that is at war against lunar colonists who are fighting for a permanent lunar settlement, politically independent from Earth. He tries a second time to escape, this time with Vic, and succeeds. He sees a magazine with himself on the cover, in a military uniform, at the factory depicted in the model. Gumm tries to escape the town and is turned back by Kafkaesque obstructions. His neighbor Bill Black knows far more about these events than he admits, and, observing this, begins worrying: 'Suppose Ragle is becoming sane again?' In fact, Gumm does become sane, and the deception surrounding him (erected to protect and exploit him) begins to unravel. He has the unshakeable feeling he's been inside that building many times before.Ĭonfusion gradually mounts for Gumm. Keitelbein, invites him to a civil defense class where he sees a model of a futuristic underground military factory.

Few other characters notice these or experience similar anomalies the sole exception is Gumm's supposed brother-in-law, Victor 'Vic' Nielson, in whom he confides. People with no apparent connection to Gumm, including military pilots using aircraft transceivers, refer to him by name. Time Out of Joint, which Dick wrote while he still had aspirations of being a literary novelist, is my favorite of his minor works. A exchanges listed and radios hidden away in someone else's house. As the novel opens, strange things begin to happen to Gumm. Gumm's 1959 has some differences from ours: the Tucker car is in production, AM/FM radios are scarce to non-existent, and Marilyn Monroe is a complete unknown. His unusual profession consists of repeatedly winning the cash prize in a local newspaper contest called 'Where Will The Little Green Man Be Next?'. The story centres on Ragle Gumm and his discovery that that the idyllic town in which he lives is actually a constructed reality designed to protect him from the frightening fact that he lives on a then-future Earth.Ragle Gumm lives in the year 1959 in a quiet American suburb. The title references the line 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.

One of Dick's earliest novels, Time Out of Joint, epitomizes the common theme concerning the nature of reality that informs Dick's overall body of work. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. Fine in a near fine dust jacket with light rubbing and a few small closed tears.

Dick’s first novel published in hardcover format. $9,800.00 Item Number: 95875įirst edition of Philip K.

Time out of joint