Dick's 'The Shock of Dysrecognition'

Philip K. Dick’s 1981 essay, My Definition of Science Fiction, sets out what he, as a science fiction writer, believes constitutes a work of science fiction and how this is different from other literary genres. Dick’s (1981) main theory of science fiction in this essay is that science fiction should produce in the reader, the ‘shock of dysrecognition’ (p.77). This effect, according to Dick (1981), can be achieved by making the world of the novel recognisable to the reader, but with one major difference that the reader could not comprehend as being a reality in their world. Dick (1981), says that ‘our society acts as a jumping off point […and is] transformed into that which it is not or not yet’ (p.76). The difference between the world that the reader is familiar with and the world in the text produces the shock of dysrecognition in the reader. That is, they recognise certain aspects of society in the text, but not others. Dick’s theory of the shock of dysrecognition, bears resemblance to Darko Suvin’s theory in his 1972 essay, On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre, in which he says the principle factor in science fiction is that of ‘cognitive estrangement’ (p.372). Suvin (1972), defines estrangement as ‘a representation […] which allows us to recognise its subject, but at the same time makes it seem unfamiliar’ (p.374). In other words, it makes sense to the reader, but, at the same time it is not the representation which they are used to. Both Dick and Suvin’s theory of science fiction say that the world in the text should resemble, but it some way differ, from the reader’s reality.

In order for Dick’s (1981) ‘shock of dysrecognition’ (p.77) to work the reader must believe in an alternate reality, albeit a constructed one. Links can be seen between this idea of a constructed reality and Baudrillard’s (1981), argument that our reality is in fact constructed. The reader of a science fiction text knows this; whereas, Baudrillard (1981), suggests that society is oblivious to the idea that their reality is constructed. This shows that one of the main postmodern preoccupations is that of reality; what is real and what is not. This question repeatedly occurs in Dick’s, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) and is one which I shall discuss in the critical essay part of this blog.

References
Baudrillard, J. (1981) Simulacrum and Simulation. In Poster, M. (eds.) (1988) Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings. Stanford University Press: Stanford.

Dick, P. K. (1968) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Orion: London.

Dick, P. K. (1981) My Definition of Science Fiction. In Sutin, L. (ed.) (1995) The Shifting Realities of P. K. Dick. Vintage Books: New York.

Suvin, D. (1972) On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre. College English. 34 (3), pp. 372 – 382 [Online]. Available from:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/54567147/Poetics-of-Sci-Fi-Suvin. [Accessed 10 January 2012].