Refinished Fr 12/13/24
This was one of my ancient trade paperbacks that I first finished on Tu 3/14/95. I also finished the book at Midway airport in Chicago when I went to Las Vegas in December of 2003.
Pot healer is a person who repairs and refurbishes cermanics.
A pot healer is contacted by an entity (god?) who wants to raise an ancient city on a planet far away. He is gathering beings from all over the galaxy to help with this massive undertaking.
It was odd & confusing and I'm not sure how to take the book.
'ELMO PLASSKET SINKS GIANTS': One of the games that the protagonist plays was to locate crazy newspaper headlines and that was one of them. I checked and Elmo Plassket was a real major league baseball player and he played catcher, outfield, and third base for the Pittsburg Pirates.
From an internet post by Jason Koornick:
"Galactic Pot-Healer tells the story of Joe Fernwright, a low level bureaucrat who lives in an overcrowded dystopia and whose life has no real purpose. Trained in the art of pot healing, Fernwright is a restorer of old ceramics but in his time all the pots have been fixed and he spends his days in a cubicle waiting for any random assignment that might come his way. He passes the hours by playing a meaningless word game with his co-workers.
Joe’s life takes a turn when he receives intergalactic communication from an unknown entity through various channels. First, a message comes to him in his mail tube, next he finds a note floating in the bowl of his toilet. Not sure what to make of all it, Joe discovers that he is being contacted by a force called the Glimmung who is trying to enlist his pot healing services to restore an ancient cathedral on a distant planet.
We join Fernwright as he journeys across the universe on a perilous mission which confounds and astonishes him. We meet bizarre aliens and wise-cracking robots as Joe tries to discover the true nature of his mission and the intention of his flawed but omniscient host, the Glimmung. Appearing to the group of intergalactic workers in many various forms, the Glimmung is a being with a purpose and determination which goes back through the ages and needs the help of the otherwise useless workers in his efforts to restore what can be seen as balance and harmony on the alien planet of Plowman’s Planet.
Sprinkled among the quick moving plot and reckless abandon of this novel, one finds bits and pieces of the irony and humor for which Dick is known. Joe Fernwright is the perfect PKD character even if his story is vague and unclear.
Just like Joe, the reader is often confused and baffled by the events which transpire in Galactic Pot-Healer. This is not a book for the faint of heart or those looking for clear cut answers. The symbolism and message of this novel are buried under layers of false suggestion and distorted truths. Only by reading between the lines is a reader likely to walk away from Galactic Pot-Healer understanding Dick’s intentions with this book."
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