SOURCE: Bertrand, Frank C. “Something Rich and Strange: P. K. Dick's ‘Beyond Lies the Wub.’” philipkdick.com,http://philipkdick.com/frank/wub1.htm (2002).

In the following essay, Bertrand examines the role Jungian concepts of individuation, projection, and the unconscious have upon Dick's first published short story “Beyond Lies the Wub.”

Sartre has written that “A fictional technique always relates back to the novelist's metaphysics. The critic's task is to define the latter before evaluating the former.” (Literary and Philosophical Essays. NY: Collier Books, 1962, p. 84) But, as A. W. Levi aptly points out, “The metaphysics cannot be defined before the technique is evaluated, because for the novel the definition of the metaphysics can be only an inference from the technique.” (Literature Philosophy & The Imagination. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1962, p. 167)

The verity of this proposition is exemplified by the stories and novels of Philip K. Dick. Norman Spinrad has stated...