My friend (hi Dave) randomly (as far as I know) asked me the other day if I had read "Roog" and I said I hadn't even heard of it. I then googled it and confessed I had not read anything by Philip K. Dick, period, although I really enjoyed Blade Runner and other things inspired by his work.
Dave told me it was Dick's first published work and sent me a link, and upon seeing it was all of four pages, I dove right in. (But not before saying "roogh!", my mind making an association with this amusing poem.)
I told Dave I thought the story was a "weird little bugger," a take which I will elaborate on here! I think the story distills and effectively captures a couple of important and universal themes, which per Dave are central to Dick's work.
First, it conveys the inner perspective of a character—in this case a dog, Boris, who feels a strong duty to protect his owners from the "Roogs" he perceives as regularly stealing food his owners have carefully secured and left out (for safekeeping I guess). In actuality (or not? more on this later!) the Roogs are simply garbagemen making their rounds and collections. But based on Dick's description of how Boris perceives the Roogs, they have an alien, menacing quality, and one even at one point samples a bite of an eggshell he picks out of a trash bag.
We also learn that Boris's owners are becoming increasingly exasperated at his barking ("roog!") efforts to warn and protect them, oblivious to the desperation and duty that are motivating him.
Second, there is the question of whose perception is accurate. There is an obvious reading where this is the story of how a dog can see things in an alien manner, blinded by his loyalty and sense of duty, detecting danger and otherness when it isn't really there.
On the other hand, we are presented with no information suggesting that Boris is anything but a loyal canine—and we know dogs have heightened senses in important respects—so perhaps we ought to put some trust in his sense of what the Roogs are like and what they are up to!
> My friend (hi Dave) randomly (as far as I know) asked me the other day if I had read "Roog"
ReplyDeleteYou had just said "Roogh!"
Lol, I see now that I did a week before (when I was expressing my disappointment at never having encountered a dog named Barkley)
DeleteALL HE KNOWS
ReplyDeleteMy dog knows the garbagemen,
Those ruffians out in the alley
In their noisy, enormous truck,
And what they are up to:
They are stealing our garbage.
He’s furious about it.
This has got to stop, he seems to say.
Twice a week they come and just
Take it away and you do nothing.
Yes. He makes sense in his way.
The way sense does. He does not know
Where it is going, some deep hole
Into the west county, gehenna, a place
Of permanent burning. All he knows
Is what he sees, how all day she
And I carefully feed into the special box
In the special corner all manner
Of deliciousness, spilling nothing; then
In a procession of one as if it were precious
She or I every day
Carry it out to the great
Cans where we store it–
Our effects, the proof of the pudding, the eating.
All he knows is,
Everything ends up there. And gets taken away.
John Morris
! Roogh! (Postdates the story I see...)
Delete