The Great National Disaster

The Destruction of Imperial America in Philip K. Dick's “The Simulacra”

Abstract

My article aims at reading a well-known SF novel by Philip K. Dick, The Simulacra (1964), as a disaster novel. While SF literature usually depicts natural disasters, be they abrupt climate change that may lead to floods or desertification, or the fall of meteorites, or earthquakes, etc., Dick's novel is closer to the subgenre of Nuclear Holocaust SF,in that the disaster he stages in his novel is not caused by natural phenomenons, but by a series of deliberate political decisions that lead to the destruction of the USEA, a SFnal version of the USA. What is particularly interesting is that the issue of destruction is tightly interwoven with the question ofa postmodern society where politics is radically spectacularized, and where mass-mediatic manipulation ofminds has transformed entertainment in a powerful tool of consensus-making. Thus the character of Nicole Thibodeaux - a SFnal First Lady who is also aTV celebrity and the real ruler ofthe USEA - arguably foreshadows contemporary political figures - both in the USA and in Italy - that derive their prestige more from their massmediatic appeal than from any traditional political legitimation.