Luke Rhinehart, the protagonist (and nom de plume) of the novel The Dice Man has a problem. He’s bored to death: with his personality, his choices, his professional goals and responsibilities as a psychotherapist. His dilemma is well fleshed out in chapter seven, in a discussion he has with friend and colleague Dr. Mann at the conclusion of a late night poker game.
Rhinehart: "I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm sorry but that's about it. I'm sick of lifting unhappy patients up to normal boredom, sick of trivial experiments, empty articles –"
Mann: "These are symptoms, not analysis."
Rhinehart: "To experience something for the first time: a first balloon, a visit to a foreign land. A fine fierce fornication with a new woman. The first paycheck, or the surprise of first winning big at the poker table or the racetrack. The exciting isolation of leaning against the wind on the highway hitchhiking, waiting for someone to stop and offer me a lift, perhaps to a town three miles down the road, perhaps to new friendships, perhaps to death. The rich glow I felt when I knew I'd finally written a good paper, made a brilliant analysis or hit a good backhand lob. The excitement of a new philosophy of life. Or a new home. Or my first child. These are what we want from life and now... they seem gone, and both Zen and psychoanalysis seem incapable of bringing them back."
Mann: "You sound like a disillusioned sophomore."
Rhinehart: "The same old new lands, the same old fornication, the same getting and spending, the same drugged, desperate, repetitious faces appearing in the office for analysis, the same effective, meaningless lobs. The same old new philosophies. And the thing I'd really pinned my ego to, psychoanalysis, doesn't seem to be a bit relevant to the problem."
At the conclusion of this conversation, Dr. Mann departs Rhinehart’s home, a little disgusted with what he sees as his friend’s childish attitude. Rhinehart, left alone, searches for a missing die from a pair the poker party had been using earlier. He realizes that it is sitting beneath a playing card, the queen of spades, covered but propping the card up slightly. It is at this point in the novel that the central character takes the momentous first step that is the hinge of the story.
"I stood that way for a full minute feeling a rising, incomprehensible rage: something of what Osterflood must feel, of what Lil must have been feeling during the afternoon, but directed at nothing, thoughtless, aimless rage. I vaguely remember an electric clock humming on the mantelpiece. Then a fog-horn blast groaned into the room from the East River and terror tore the arteries out of my heart and tied them in knots in my belly: if that die has a one face up, I thought, I'm going downstairs and 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 was boiled away by a pleasant excitement and my mouth swelled into a gargantuan grin: a one means rape, the other numbers mean bed, the die is cast. Who am I to question the die?"
On turning over the card, he sees “a cyclopean eye: a one.” And so Rhinehart departs his apartment to fulfill the command of the die by “raping” his friend and neighbor Arlene. When he returns, his philosophical transformation is complete. He is now a devotee of the dice, proclaiming: “I must always obey the dice. Lead where they will, I must follow. All power to the die!” From this point forward, all his decisions are made in consultation with the dice. Sometimes there are two choices and a single die is used to decide: odd or even. In other situations, six choices are presented and a die is rolled, each number representing a corresponding option. In still more complex situations, two dice are used in combination. The more various and complex the choices, the more dice and mathematical possibilities which come into play. The choices range from the most simple and banal to esoteric or immensely important. But no decision is made without the dice. They control all. And so the world of the protagonist and all those he touches is permanently altered.
At the center of Rhinehart’s philosophy is the idea of giving voice to the minority self. Each individual has a number of competing desires within their psyche. However, we generally allow the majority voice, often controlled by the precepts of society, to have the ultimate say. Thus, while ten percent of our will may desire A, twenty percent B, fifteen percent C, five percent X, twenty percent Y and thirty percent Z, the majority voice, Z, will win out a disproportionate number of times, far more than it’s thirty percent stake. And possibly, that five or ten percent desire will never win out, not even in a sample size of several thousand choice scenarios.
Allowing the dice to determine action based upon mathematical representation assures the dice user that his or her minority urges will be fairly represented in the real world. It frees the individual from the tyranny of the majority voice and the social order.
From this point, the novel goes on a number of unpredictable twists and turns. The philosophy of the dice grows and is shared with others. One character, in an attempt to cure his fear of death, rolls three dice every morning with the following oath: three ones on a single roll and he must commit suicide. His fear of death is instantly overcome.
There are some who read this book and are unimpressed with the writing style or the direction the plot takes later in the novel. These criticisms are well founded. This is not in all passages the most well written book, especially considering its significant cult following. There were moments in the plotline where I felt uninterested, detached and disillusioned at the course of events or character development. Also, there are philosophical problems and inconsistencies within the fundamental principles of dice life. However, ultimately, I couldn’t help but relate intimately to the notion of leaving fate to the caprice of chance and thereby experiencing life more freshly, fully and in the moment.
On the cover of the American-published paperback it reads, “Few Novels Can Change Your Life. This One Will.” A big claim – and one I would never want as an author if I published a book. But you know what? In the case of The Dice Man it just might be true.
Rhinehart: "I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm sorry but that's about it. I'm sick of lifting unhappy patients up to normal boredom, sick of trivial experiments, empty articles –"
Mann: "These are symptoms, not analysis."
Rhinehart: "To experience something for the first time: a first balloon, a visit to a foreign land. A fine fierce fornication with a new woman. The first paycheck, or the surprise of first winning big at the poker table or the racetrack. The exciting isolation of leaning against the wind on the highway hitchhiking, waiting for someone to stop and offer me a lift, perhaps to a town three miles down the road, perhaps to new friendships, perhaps to death. The rich glow I felt when I knew I'd finally written a good paper, made a brilliant analysis or hit a good backhand lob. The excitement of a new philosophy of life. Or a new home. Or my first child. These are what we want from life and now... they seem gone, and both Zen and psychoanalysis seem incapable of bringing them back."
Mann: "You sound like a disillusioned sophomore."
Rhinehart: "The same old new lands, the same old fornication, the same getting and spending, the same drugged, desperate, repetitious faces appearing in the office for analysis, the same effective, meaningless lobs. The same old new philosophies. And the thing I'd really pinned my ego to, psychoanalysis, doesn't seem to be a bit relevant to the problem."
At the conclusion of this conversation, Dr. Mann departs Rhinehart’s home, a little disgusted with what he sees as his friend’s childish attitude. Rhinehart, left alone, searches for a missing die from a pair the poker party had been using earlier. He realizes that it is sitting beneath a playing card, the queen of spades, covered but propping the card up slightly. It is at this point in the novel that the central character takes the momentous first step that is the hinge of the story.
"I stood that way for a full minute feeling a rising, incomprehensible rage: something of what Osterflood must feel, of what Lil must have been feeling during the afternoon, but directed at nothing, thoughtless, aimless rage. I vaguely remember an electric clock humming on the mantelpiece. Then a fog-horn blast groaned into the room from the East River and terror tore the arteries out of my heart and tied them in knots in my belly: if that die has a one face up, I thought, I'm going downstairs and 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 was boiled away by a pleasant excitement and my mouth swelled into a gargantuan grin: a one means rape, the other numbers mean bed, the die is cast. Who am I to question the die?"
On turning over the card, he sees “a cyclopean eye: a one.” And so Rhinehart departs his apartment to fulfill the command of the die by “raping” his friend and neighbor Arlene. When he returns, his philosophical transformation is complete. He is now a devotee of the dice, proclaiming: “I must always obey the dice. Lead where they will, I must follow. All power to the die!” From this point forward, all his decisions are made in consultation with the dice. Sometimes there are two choices and a single die is used to decide: odd or even. In other situations, six choices are presented and a die is rolled, each number representing a corresponding option. In still more complex situations, two dice are used in combination. The more various and complex the choices, the more dice and mathematical possibilities which come into play. The choices range from the most simple and banal to esoteric or immensely important. But no decision is made without the dice. They control all. And so the world of the protagonist and all those he touches is permanently altered.
At the center of Rhinehart’s philosophy is the idea of giving voice to the minority self. Each individual has a number of competing desires within their psyche. However, we generally allow the majority voice, often controlled by the precepts of society, to have the ultimate say. Thus, while ten percent of our will may desire A, twenty percent B, fifteen percent C, five percent X, twenty percent Y and thirty percent Z, the majority voice, Z, will win out a disproportionate number of times, far more than it’s thirty percent stake. And possibly, that five or ten percent desire will never win out, not even in a sample size of several thousand choice scenarios.
Allowing the dice to determine action based upon mathematical representation assures the dice user that his or her minority urges will be fairly represented in the real world. It frees the individual from the tyranny of the majority voice and the social order.
From this point, the novel goes on a number of unpredictable twists and turns. The philosophy of the dice grows and is shared with others. One character, in an attempt to cure his fear of death, rolls three dice every morning with the following oath: three ones on a single roll and he must commit suicide. His fear of death is instantly overcome.
There are some who read this book and are unimpressed with the writing style or the direction the plot takes later in the novel. These criticisms are well founded. This is not in all passages the most well written book, especially considering its significant cult following. There were moments in the plotline where I felt uninterested, detached and disillusioned at the course of events or character development. Also, there are philosophical problems and inconsistencies within the fundamental principles of dice life. However, ultimately, I couldn’t help but relate intimately to the notion of leaving fate to the caprice of chance and thereby experiencing life more freshly, fully and in the moment.
On the cover of the American-published paperback it reads, “Few Novels Can Change Your Life. This One Will.” A big claim – and one I would never want as an author if I published a book. But you know what? In the case of The Dice Man it just might be true.
I can never think of the dice man as any other than Andrew "Dice" Clay. I lost it when I saw his first HBO special... All those years ago!
ReplyDeleteLittle Boy Blue...he needed the money.
ReplyDelete