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MAIN CHARACTERS
He is the main character of this story. In the whole story which is around forty pages long, we never learn what his first name his. In the whole book, we just follow his life during a few days, we never follow someone else or never know anything else than he doesn't knows. In the eponymous movie inspired by this story, he his interpreted by Ben Affleck.
He's Jennings Boss. He founded the Company. If we had to compare to the last book I've read (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ?), he would be the equivalent of Eldon Rosen. Rosen was the boss of the famous "Rosen Corp" who was creating the knew androids. In a lot of Philip K. Dick's stories, the story is axed around a company that performs something special. Here, Rethrick Construction Company is the heart of the story. |
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She's the woman in charge of paying Jennings after he has accomplished his job. At the beginning of the story, we might think she'll have an insignificant role , but as the story goes on, she turns out to be the female character the most important of the book. Always to compare to the other book, I would say she's like Rachael Rosen. BRIEF SUMMARYJennings has worked for two years for the Rethrick Construction Company. But he doesn't remember anything. Where was it, what did he do ? But that's normal, it was part of the contract. He had agreed two years earlier to work for this company, and his memory to be erased. Two years of his life gone away. But not for nothing, he was going to be paid fifty thousand credits ! But when this moment finally arrived, Kelly, in charge of paying him, announces him that he had agreed, during the two years he worked for the Company, to be paid by some trinkets instead of the money. Seven little trinkets in a cloth sack. A code key, a ticket stub, a parcel receipt, a length of fine wire, half a poker chip broken across, a green strip of cloth and a bus token. Jennings was astonished. How could he have demanded this paycheck ? Two years of his life wasted for these seven insignificant trinkets. But as soon as he went outside, he realised that these items weren't that much useless. Chased by the Security Police who wants to know what he has done for the Company, he manages to flee thanks to the piece of wire and the bus token. As if he knew he would need these items. All along the story, we follow Jennings himself following the lead showed by the trinkets. THE INVENTIONS
This is the heart of the story. Rethrick Construction Company is a mystery all along the book. Even Jennings who worked for it during two years doesn't know what is this company. Imagine a company hiring people and erasing their memory. They could make you work for anything, this can be really frightening. The high salary motivates the workers, even if they have to lose part of their memory.
That's what allows this story to exist. You'll understand better if you read the whole story, but to make it simple, this invention is just an object allowing to fetch an object in a different time period. It allows you to have an access to object that don't exist yet. As the story goes on, Jennings eventually believes that he has been working on this project while he was at the Company. This is why I find this object so important. Not only for that, but I don't want to tell you the whole story...
You must think that a mirror isn't a futuristic invention, but naturally, this isn't a normal mirror. What Philip K. Dick calls a mirror in his story is an object allowing to have an overview of the future. This object goes with the time scoop and it is the thing that allowed Jennings to foresee what was going to happen to him. That's how he managed to know what he would need once his job finished. That's why I found this invention very interesting. ANALYSIS:I've read in the french version of this story, that Philip K. Dick wrote this short story around an idea he had. He thought that in life there are some times were you need something much more than any amount of money. That's what he wanted to base his story on. He combined this idea with the theme of the travel through time and obtained this really attractive short story. This is a quite well known theory. Also known under the paradox of the diamond and the desert, I've learned in economy courses about the relative utility. A diamond in a desert is far less useful than water. This principle is the base of this book, and what better illustration than this story could we think of ? What about the real / virtual theme I've told you we find in quite every story of Philip K. dick ? I think we can consider that in this story, there are different levels of reality. These are based on the time travel. In the whole book the author refers to Jennings in two different manners. As the present Jennings or the past one. The one conscious of what would happen. And then were is reality ? In the forecast of the past Jennings or in the life of the present one ? But one thing is for sure, the both Jennings would do anything to make the two reality be one. COVER EXPLANATION:As you can see on the picture on the top left corner of this page, the cover of the book I read is quite the same image as the movie poster. We see Ben Affleck (aka Jennings) running on a railway apparently followed by a train. That's part of the movie, it is not what I found interesting. What I wanted to focus on is the frame of this picture. It is composed of a jigsaw puzzle. A giant jigsaw puzzle falling apart around Jennings. I found this image perfect to sum up the whole story. It's a giant puzzle. Jennings has the trinkets, the pieces of the puzzle, he knows they are to be used in the right way at the right moment, but he doesn't know where or when until it arrives. That's the entire story... PERSONAL OPINION:The theme of time travel is a classic theme of Science Fiction, but I had never seen it treated that way. Jennings never goes in the past or in the future. He just sees the future and guides his future himself through the difficulties he'll encounter. I find it really impressive how Jennings manages to understand the whole thing just by seeing the trinkets his past himself left him. But the story is so well told that we can't do anything else than believe in it. I loved this story very much. The action starts at the first page and ends at the really last one. That's one of the best story I've read from Philip K. Dick. I've just watched the movie inspired by this story, and I'll let you know in the movie section.
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