If that dice has a ‘one’ face up, I thought, I’m going downstairs to rape Arlene. ‘If it’s a one, I’ll rape Arlene’ kept blinking on and off in my mind like a huge neon light and my terror increased. But when I thought if it’s not a one I’ll go to bed, the terror evaporated and excitement swept over me: a one means rape, the other numbers mean bed, the die is cast. Who am I to question the dice?
Luke Rhinehart
So Luke Rhinehart, novelist, autobiographer and bored psychiatrist, makes his first dice decision. Rape accomplished, he begins to live the dice life in earnest. With every move he makes determined by the throw of the dice, he rampages from one outrage to the next, from uninhibited promiscuity to murder…’
When I found this book sitting on the kitchen bench one morning I glanced at it curiously while I poured milk into my cereal bowl. Wondering who it belonged to I picked it up and scanned the back page. The blurb was all the incentive I needed to start feverishly reading it, and I assume many of you might have the same reaction. Through great cunning and superb interrogation ability, I later managed to solve the mystery that came to be known as ‘the-strange-unclaimed-book-on-the-kitchen-bench-mystery’: turns out the book was recommended and lent to my older brother by his psychologist, and that he was in no hurry to read it. Realising that I had happened upon (by total chance) a rare and unique book, I took it upon myself to open the first page. What followed was the turning of 430 pages in blinding speed as I sailed through its 96 exciting chapters.
At some point I also found out – through crafty research – that the copy I had read was an original 1972 paperback edition, which is quite rare as the book was banned in several countries after it was first published in 1971 due to its socially threatening themes, and morally questionable content. Subsequent publications of the book have been heavily edited as a result (roughly 100 pages are missing), so make sure you check the page count of any copy you purchase. The Dice Man became something of a cult classic following its initial release, and was even praised by Clockwork Orange’s author Anthony Burgess, who called it ‘touching, ingenious and beautifully comic’. After it was banned however, the book cowered in the shadows of both literature and psychology.
A great shame really.
I’ve had favourite books in the past, but The Dice Man has blown them all completely out of the water. I very much doubt I will read another book quite like it and I also cannot recommend anyone to read any other book, until they have first sunk their teeth into this one(nevertheless, I will still continue to review books that I have read post-Dice Man). The Dice Man (1971) is an autobiographical book written by George Lovecroft under the pen name of Luke Rhinehart; both the character in the book and the author who wrote it were eminent psychotherapists in the 1970s who dictated their life through the throwing of dice, that is, they left everything to chance.
The reasoning behind his ‘dice theory’, as he explains to a board of psychiatrists in the book, is to release the ‘negroes of our personality’ which have been locked up and neglected by society for too long. Human personality is formed during a young age through to early adulthood as a result of our realisation of ego boundaries, these boundaries (what you can, and cannot do or accomplish) shape the adult we will become and form what psychologists call the ‘ego’ or self. Therefore our sense of identity is largely formed by who we aren’t as opposed to who we are. Most of these boundaries are shaped by society, and by our parents (products of society) who enforce them, so in effect a lot of desires we may have never become fulfilled and only exist in the field of thoughts and fantasies.
Dr Luke Rhinehart argues that man is naturally multiple, and because of society’s refusal to nurture this, man is faced with internal conflict which ultimately results in neurosis and sometimes even mental breakdown. The role of the psychologist then is to help the neurotic accept their limitations and continue to exist as a functioning member of society. Dr Rhinehart views this as a situation similar to a dog chasing its tail, and so it becomes his motivation for shaking the very foundations of psychology as he and his colleagues know it. A dice is rolled and The Dice Man is born. By following the dice religiously he allows selves that have long been suppressed come outside to play, and he begins to discovers aspects of his personality that he never knew existed. Luke starts to view everyone as actors, lying to themselves and to others while wearing a mask created by social conditioning, the only difference is The Dice Man can play many roles without any guilt, while the average person struggles to play a single consistent role.
It sounds crazy, and in a way it really is. By living through the dice you essentially become schizophrenic, which seems fitting considering we live in an erratic and thousand-faced world (schizophrenic), but it is still difficult to live the dice life when you are surrounded by people who live within boundaries. It reminds me a little of the episode of Seinfeld when Kramer adopts Leonoardo Da Vinci’s sleeping pattern (20 minute nap every 3 hours) and wakes up Jerry at 4 in the morning to get a coffee, which he obviously refuses to do and goes back to bed. It is almost impossible, or at least very hard to try to live outside the square in this day and age, and so you can no doubt foresee that the ‘dice life’ lands Luke Rhinehart in a lot of trouble.
The way I see it, is that at the very least, living by the dice would be a very efficient way of ‘killing the ego’, which is a mandatory first step for those wishing to pursue the path of enlightenment. This makes some sense in the context of the book as Luke Rhinehart spends his pre-dice life meditating, doing yoga and following the teachings of Zen Buddhism; he is influenced by the Eastern mentality that one has to destroy the self (the dominant personality) which is viewed as a barrier to spiritual evolution. In light of this theory, it is no coincidence that the tool Luke uses for killing the ego is a die. By living a life completely dictated by chance, Luke Rhinehart manages to destroy his socially trained self, but in doing so he creates an entirely new ego for himself, which is the ‘Dice Man’ ego; this is a paradox that is also purposeful considering Luke begins as a student of Zen, a spiritual school that utilises Koans (paradoxical riddles) to achieve satori (enlightenment). The only problem with dice theory is that, even though Luke’s self becomes multiple (which means it is finally fulfilling itself by his beliefs), he doesn’t advance as a human being as a result, and if anything only regresses. Another plausible theory for dice living is that is an alternative to physical suicide of the body – the protagonist contemplates suicide on page 2 or something – as it is essentially social suicide. Killing the ego could become a very exciting last hurrah before you check out, and you may even find – as Luke Rhinehart did – that depression and suicidal feelings dissipate very early on in the journey: life saved, you become reborn.
The book also makes a lot of subtle hints that dice living is comparable to a world religion, as Rhinehart views the dice’s decisions as being divine or from above. Every time the dice makes a decision for him, he says ‘Not my will, O Die, but Thy will be done’, which becomes his sort of mantra throughout the novel. There are also numerous passages from a fictitious ‘Book of the Die’ scattered throughout the novel, one such passage, found before the preface, states ‘In the beginning was Chance, and Chance was with God and Chance was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Chance and without him not anything made that was made. In Chance was life and the life was the light of men‘ This is suspiciously reminiscent of text from the Old Testament of The Holy Bible, and also the word chance being capitalised suggests that it is of religious sentiment, and is even said to be God. This suggests that the author believes religion to be chaotic, in the sense that God is chance, and chance is chaos – there is no order in chance. This is not a blasphemous conclusion to make by any means, and the book never attempts to act seriously in its critique of religion. The Dice Man is largely a satirical novel, and everything is written behind a cheeky grin.
Despite all of the book’s philosophical nature which poses some alarmingly fascinating questions about the self and human identity, it is more than just a book that will make you think. The book is overflowing with interesting and memorable characters, such as the Freudian Dr. Mann, the calculating yet loveable Dr. Jacob Ecstein, his wife, the big-titted Arlene Ecstein, the old Dr. Moon, the chicken loving Dr. Krum, a slew of mental patients such as Arturo and Eric, the crazy child rapist Frank Osterflood, Luke’s placid wife Lil, and of course, the shape shifting, hundred faced Dr. Luke Rhinehart. Considering the book, at its core, is about human personality, and is written by a psychiatrist who knows a thing or two about that, it is no surprise that the book is full of colourful and believable personalities that seem so real they come close to jumping out of the book’s pages.
I have so many thoughts and opinions on this book that I could probably rattle on for pages and pages, but considering you – the reader of this blog – have probably not read this book yet, I’ll let you come to your own conclusions. I will conclude by saying that not only is this the most interesting and unique book I have ever read, it is also the most exciting, well paced and certainly one of the best written books I have witnessed. The prose is mind melting, the author creates such powerful imagery with his words that I sometimes wonder if he has a team of writers chained up in a room somewhere in his house. He also has the ability to switch up genres at the drop of a hat and write within their ‘boundaries’ very, very well. The book, he explains, was written with the help of the dice and couldn’t have come to fruition without them. Did I mention the book is fucking hilarious? It’s got it all, baby!
A Taste of the Book
‘You’re dreaming. You expect too much. A human being, a human personality is the total pattern of the accumulated limitations and potentials of an individual. You take away all his habits, compulsions and channeled drives, and you take away him.’
‘Then perhaps, perhaps, we ought to do away with “him”‘.
He paused as if trying to absorb what I’d said and when I turned to face him, he surprised me by booming two quick cannon shots of smoke out of the side of his mouth.
‘Oh Luke you’re nibbling on that Goddam Eastern mysticism again. If I weren’t a consistent self, a glutton at the table, sloppy in dress, bland in speech and rigidly devoted to psychoanalysis, to success, to publication – and all of these things consistently – I’d never get anything done, and what would I be?’
I didn’t answer.
‘If I sometimes smoked one way,’ he went on, ‘sometimes another, sometimes not at all, varied the way I dressed, was nervous, serene, ambitious, lazy, lecherous, gluttonous, ascetic – where would my “self” be? What would I achieve? It’s the way a man chooses to limit himself that determines his character. A man without habits, consistency, redundancy – and hence boredom – is not human. He’s insane.’
With a satisfied and relaxed grunt he placed his pipe down again and smiled pleasantly at me. For some reason I hated him.
‘And accepting these self-defeating limitations is mental health?’ I said.
‘Mmmmm.’
I stood facing him and felt a strange rush of rage surge through me. I wanted to crush Dr. Mann with a ten-ton block of concrete. I spat out my next words:
‘We must be wrong. All psychotherapy is a tedious disaster. We must be making some fundamental, rock bottom error that poisons all our thinking. Years from now men will look upon our therapeutic theories and our techniques as we do upon nineteenth century bloodletting.’
‘You’re sick, Luke,’ he said quietly.
‘You and Jake are among the best and as humans you’re both nothing.’ He was sitting erect in his chair.
‘You’re sick,’ he said. ‘And don’t feed me any more bull about Zen. I’ve been watching you for months now. You’re not relaxed. Half the time you seem like a giggly schoolboy and the other half like a pompous ass.’
‘I’m a therapist and it’s clear, I, as a human, am a disaster. Physician heal thyself.’
‘You’ve lost faith in the most important profession in the world because of an idealized expectation which even Zen says is unrealistic. You’ve gotten bored with the day-to-day miracles of making people slightly better. I don’t see where letting them get slightly worse is much to be proud of.’
‘I’m not proud of -‘
‘Yes you are. You think you’ve got absolute truth or at least that you alone are seeking it. You’re the classic case of Horney’s: the man who comforts himself not with what he achieves but with what he dreams of achieving.’
‘I am.’ I stated it flatly: it happened to be true. ‘But you, Tim, are a classic case of the normal human being, and I’m not impressed.’
He stared at me not puffing, his face flushed, and then abruptly, like a big balloon bouncing, arose from his chair with a grunt.
‘I’m sorry you feel that way,’ he said and chugged toward the door.
‘There must be a method to change men more radically than we’ve discovered -‘
‘Let me know when you find it’, he said.
He stopped at the door and we looked at each other, two alien worlds. His face showed contempt.
‘I will,’ I said. (p. 52-53)
The above exchange, which happens before Luke’s discovery of the Dice, reminds me of an argument I imagine Sigmund Freud had With Carl Jung over at one stage, over Jung’s interest in Eastern mysticism, and Freud’s firm belief that he should remain grounded in psychoanalysis.
★★★★★ 5 stars