A Scanner Darkly, which became a movie starring Keanu Reaves, Robert Downey Jr. and Winona Ryder in 2006, is a science fiction novel written by the prolific and brilliant Philip K. Dick, author of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, among other science fiction classics. The book, originally published in 1977, tells the story of a dystopian 1994, Orange County California. The country is divided between dopers and "straights" - the straights, non-drug users, are regarded with a good deal of scorn by the dopers who use or deal drugs, and sometimes the law enforcement agents who are trying to track down the dopers.
The story follows Robert Arctor as he makes his way through his murky, troubled life, slowly becoming more addicted to Substance D, and Fred, who is also Robert Arctor undercover, slowly forgetting who he really is. Arctor lives in a house with two other men, both addicted to Substance D and other drugs and both falling apart in their own ways. Jim Barris is paranoid and brilliant in a disturbing way, and Arctor is convinced that Barris is attempting to kill both him and their housemate Luckman.
Arctor as Fred must watch hours and hours of surveillance tape of his own house, and he slowly becomes more detached from his own identity as the hemispheres of his brain are split apart - a common and irreversible side effect of Substance D addiction. Arctor is attempting to work his way up the supply chain of the dealers, but his addiction has become so crippling that he can no longer function. One of the most disquieting aspects of the writing is seeing Arctor's decay in the writing itself; psychologists describe the "cross-chatter" of a brain split by the use off too much Substance D, and as Arctor begins to experience it, so does the reader. Passages of the book appear in German, which Arctor does not speak, and he begins to experience a second personality not his own speaking inside his mind.
The plots and intrigues that wind around Arctor are only one aspect of this book; in addition to the sickening sense of doom that accompanies Arctor's delivery to a New Path facility, where he is little more than a burned out vegetable, Philip K. Dick has included a wealth of psychological, medical and technological information. The descriptions detailing the way the brain eventually falls apart under prolonged abuse of Substance D and the scramble suits used to so effectively disguise agents working to find the source of the drug give readers an enormous amount of information. At times the book reads more like a textbook than a science fiction novel, but the writing is never so far above a common understanding that it loses its effectiveness.
A Scanner Darkly is a fantastic, disturbing read in large part because it is such a plausible scenario: the intense schism in society created by the horribly addictive and destructive Substance D accompanied by leaps in technological surveillance is something that we could all easily imagine, and Philip K. Dick writes it into frightening reality within the book. Philip K Dick's dark vision of a not-very-distant future for him still provides a frightening glimpse of what a future could be like for us.
Perhaps the saddest part of the book does not come until after the story has finished; a note included from Philip K. Dick explains that while the story is fictional, many of the characters are based on people he knew. A good portion of the book is composed of autobiographical details, despite being placed in a dark future that could only have been imagined by someone who had firsthand experience with what can happen when any drug, not just the imaginary Substance D, takes over a life. Included with the note is a list of people to whom the book is dedicated. Many of them are deceased; those who are not have been permanently affected by their drug use.
The meaning of the book can be best expressed in Philip K. Dick's own dedication: "In Memoriam. These were comrades whom I had; there are no better. They remain in my mind, and the enemy will never be forgiven. The 'enemy' was their mistake in playing let them all play again, in some other way, and let them be happy."
To truly appreciate the heartbreak and sorrow behind those words and within the story itself, one must read A Scanner Darkly. It's a book well worth reading more than once.