After Class Writing: Philip K. Dick, “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale”

After today’s class, write a summary of the lecture notes on Harlan Ellison and Philip K. Dick, and our discussion of the short stories we read by them respectively. Copy-and-paste your summary (saved elsewhere) into a comment to this blog entry.

16 thoughts on “After Class Writing: Philip K. Dick, “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale”

  1. Tommy Lin

    The short story, “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” written by Philip K. Dick, is about a man named Douglas Quail, who all of a sudden wants to go to Mars no matter what. Since he can’t afford to go there, he settles on getting false memories implanted into his head to make himself think that he has been to Mars. During the procedure of the implantation at Rekal, it was discovered that Quail had already been to Mars and is actually an undercover agent. The organization that he use to work for, sends people to kill him because he’s starting to remember and he knows too much. Quail tries to reason with them and comes up with a solution of implanting a new set of memories that would be strong enough to overwhelm his urge to want to go to Mars. The new set of memories is supposed to be himself as a little kid that saves Earth by being nice to aliens. When they are ready to implant the false memory, they find out that the memory that is about to be implanted, has actually happened to him.

    In class we learned about 2 writers, Harlan Ellison, and Philip K. Dick. Ellison was born in 1934 and his work focused on ethics, and human courage. He is also the 23rd grandmaster of SFWA. He rapidly assure his rights and others, and he can be seen as rude, and mean, when cornered. Ellison sued James Cameron when his film resembled a lot like one of his works. 1967 was a big year for Ellison, he edited Dangerous Vision, published 2 successful stories, “I have no mouth, and I must scream”, and “Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes,” and his teleplay for Star Trek “City on the edge of forever.”
    Philip K. Dick was born in 1928 and died in 1982. He mostly lived in California and was married 5 times, and have 3 children. He wrote at a mad pace only to make money. He also relied on amphetamine to fuel his writing. In the 1960s, he wrote 24 novels, 5 of those novels in 1963, and 6 of those novels in 1964. Dick only gained a lot of fame after his death and he is the first SF writer to be published in Library of America. The 6 characteristics of his work are: 1. They have ontological problems, 2. Also has epistemological problem, 3. Involves entropy, 4. Empathy, 5. Religion, 6. Often about the “little man.”

  2. Gabriel Vega

    “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” by Philip K. Dick is a short story about a depressed low paid employee named Douglas Quail who dreams of visiting Mars, still in the middle of colonization, but is can’t do it all by himself so he contacts a company named Rekal, Incorporated to implant false memories in his mind fulfill his most wanted fantasy and along with a other false memory of being a undercover agent of Interplan. McClane, whose the head of Rekal, guarantees that the memories will be stronger a more intense than real memories, which will in fact will become hazy and disappear over time. The technology of making false memories shows how modern technology has become more stronger in what’s real in reality to what’s not by, delivering sensual incentives that are way farther than normal human mind or contact does give. Though before the implants are implanted in his mind the, technicians find Quail does have an implant that previously had erased his memories of really visiting Mars as an secret agent of an mistake of letting out government secrets. As he learns of his past, he on the run for his life until he is talked into surrendering by Interplan agents by contact and surrenders. Though Interplan knows of Quail’s past they still agree to give Quail a new set of memories replace the old but real memory implants he once had at Mars. Afterwards new memories are now about how Quail had stopped an alien invasion as a kid and its only is able to beat this invasion from coming into play is due to his never ending survival. Though McClane discovers this may be part of his true memories he once tried to erase and doing now. The new implants didn’t take place yet; he makes a promise to keep this secret forever hidden and then the process of new implant memories erases all that from Quali. The process and having implanted false memories turns out to be a bit less of a issue than the finding the truth behind the real memories Quail is so worried scared of keeping safely as a secret for a good reason. It turns out to be far more tough to know what is real to what is untrue due to the fact one individual meaning Quali has can only trust is truly right in his life are the distorted memories of a man who is not at all in his right mind or even completely well man; he’s a destroyed soul of a man so to speak. “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” by Philip K. Dick compared to the class notes we discussed it relaes a bit to the movie adaptation Total Recall which more plot. Philip K. Dick born in 1928 and died in 1982 lived in California most of his life He was a mad writer, he wrote in fast pace just to make money. Within the 1960s, he wrote twenty-four novels all together, five in 1963, and six more novels in 1964. Fame wasn’t noticed sadly until he died and was recognize as the first Science Fiction writer to be published in Library of America; and due to his work came six characteristics of what made his work special the first was his work had mix of ontological problems, epistemological problem, it involved entropy, empathy, religion, and lastly at times it wad about the little man.

  3. mpaar

    Mike Paar
    After Class Summery
    4/616

    “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale,” by Philip K. Dick was the short story that inspired the movie “Total Recall” and subsequent remake. There were several similarities between the two in plot up until the very end in which the story takes a drastic deviation. But like the movie, the story begins with Quail desiring to go to Mars, so much so, he enlists the services of the company Recall to implant fake memories into his brain so that he could fulfill his desires. But upon beginning the process, the technicians realize the not only had Quail already been to Mars as a secret agent, but that his memories of his experiences had been wiped. To insert new memories so similar could have drastic repercussions. So they release him with a refund, but the uncovering of his wiped memories causes problems for Quail, as he’s aware that he had been to Recall, but he’s not sure whether or not his memories are real or fake.

    Back at home, he recovers evidence of his real trip to Mars, plants and worms that he had previously forgotten about entirely. Two agents break into his home with the intent of assassinating him before he entirely recalls the specifics of his mission to Mars. Aware of his every thought due to an inserted device in Quail’s brain, they realize that Quail had remembered his mission, it was to assassinate an official on the planet, which makes him potentially very dangerous. After initially turning away the agents, Quail makes a bargain, for the agency monitoring him to re-wipe his memory again as well as his desires for traveling to Mars.

    Once again at Recall, the technicians uncover a childhood desire of Quail, to be visited by aliens and to move them so deeply that they would spare Earth its destruction as long as he were alive. They proceed with the procedure to insert those memories into Quail’s brain hoping that would overpower his desire to return to Mars. But they discover that that experience too was real. And that aliens were monitoring Quail waiting for him to die so that they can destroy the planet Earth.

    For class, we caught up with discussing the works of both Harlan Ellison and Philip K. Dick. Both unique individuals in their own right. Ellison is a writer who is very conscious of civil rights activism and creative rights for artists. Philip K. Dick though was a prolific writer, often creating some of his best work while under the influence of drugs and later in life attributed his ideas to a religious experience he refereed to as the Exegisis. Many of his works centered around nature of reality and knowledge and had a lot of focus on the individual and humanity. Though one might considered his works paranoid and maybe a bit insane, he is widely considered one of the best SF writers of all time.

  4. RaBbe AhMed

    “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” by Philip Dick is a short story, predictably a great improvement over the film, idea-filled rather than action-packed. While Douglas Quail may be a miserable little salaried employee, for the West Coast Emigration Bureau, he has one abiding dream, “Before I die I’ll see Mars.” Such a trip though would be enormously expensive and his wife constantly derides his ambition. Lucky for him, Rekal, Incorporated, can implant its customers with false memories that will make it seem as if they’ve actually experienced their fondest dreams. So Quail goes to Rekal for the Mars “extra-factual memory implant,” complete with a scenario that has him acting as an agent for Interplan. Then, as the process gets underway, an unusual thing happens; under sedation he begins to recover genuine memories of a past trip to Mars. After realizing his situation the technician of Rekal hustle him out the door and refund half his money. But now Quail starts to get fragmentary memories of a Mars trip, some from the implant and some from the real trip, so he returns to Rekal to get the matter straightened out. Meanwhile, agents from Interplan, who have been monitoring his thoughts against just such an eventuality, show up to try and kill him before he can reveal the details of his secret mission to Mars. But somehow they realize that this really happened to Quail and his mere existence really is stopping an alien invasion.
    In today’s class we talked about Harlen Ellison who was born on 1934. His writing was ethic and he mostly focuses on human courage with shot story. After that we talked about Philip K. Dick who was born in 1928 and died in 1982. He mostly lived in California and was married 5 times, and has 3 children. He mostly writes for money. In the 1960s, he wrote 24 novels, 5 of those novels in 1963, and 6 of those novels in 1964. Dick was the 1st writer whose writing was published in Library of America. The 6 characteristics of his work are: 1. they have ontological problems, 2. also has epistemological problem, 3. Involves entropy, 4. Empathy, 5. Religion, 6. often about the “little man.”(general people)

  5. Dolly

    Soshana

    This story is about a guy named Douglas Quail who makes very little and wants to go to Mars. He can’t afford such a lavish expense so he goes to a company by the name of Rekal to get memories implanted in his brain to make it seem as if he went. The technicians get him ready and find, he’s already got memories of Mars but they’ve been suppressed. He had asked for memories that have him as part of a government agent force called interplan.

    On realization that Quail has very similar memories, they give him a partial refund and make him leave because it’s dangerous to implany memories similar to one that have been removed. Quail leaves and begins getting flashes of his “implanted” trip to Mars but some of it is from the real memories he had of being an agent. He goes home and finds some things that he had forgotten about but that prove he had truly been to Mars and had truly been an agent.

    Interplan, is monitoring his thoughts, cause there are no boundaries in this time and age. So, they know, he knows, they asked him to do the thing and so of course he has to die. Interplan gets sent after Quail to kill him before he remembers all the mission stuff he did for them. Instead a deal is made to just remove the memories and the desire to return to Mars.

    Back at Rekal, the techs find another memory, where aliens told him as long as he lives they won’t attack. So now they have to make him immortal.

    In class we discussed Harlan Ellison who was very active in the civil rights movement scenes and fought for creative rights for artists. He was crowned 23rd Grandmaster of writing. He was robust at best being seen as rude and to the point. We also talked about Philip K. Dick who married 5 times, which makes me question his character. He wrote constantly. He had three children and had to buy all these women things so he had to write all the time to keep up. He wrote 24 novels in the 1960’s alone, 11 of those within 2 years. He was the first writer to be published by Library of America which is unnecessarily deceptively named seeing as it’s a publisher and not a Library.

  6. Octavio Anaya

    In class we spoke about Harlan Ellison and Philip K. Dick. Harlan Ellison (1934) focused on ethics, human courage, and cities in his stories. His specialities were screenplays and short-stories. We spoke about his character, which could be seen as negative or aggressive. But his work was phenomenal in the SF world. He wrote “Soldier”, and “Demon with a glass hand”, which became a dispute later because Ellison claimed that the Terminator movie ripped off these stories of his. He wrote “Web of the city” (1958) about inner city gangs. In 1967 he published his two most successful stories “I have no mouth and I must scream” and “Pretty Massive Money Eyes”. His teleplay for STAR Trek was broadcast, and he wrote “Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktock Man” in 1965.

    Philip K. Dick (1929-1982) was married 5 times and has 3 kids. He wrote mainstream and short/long form SF. He often wrote at a mad pace to make a lot of money: in 1960’s he wrote 24 novels. His writing was greatly appreciated after his death. 6 characteristics of his work:

    1.ontological problems

    2. Epistemological problems

    3. Involves entropy

    4. Empathy

    5. Religion

    6. Often about the little man.

    “We can Remember It For You Wholesale” (1966 Dick) is about Douglas Quail who dreams of going to Mars. Because he cannot, he has false memories planted in his head (much like Total Recall) so that he is pleased with himself thinking he’s gone to Mars in his past. But on doing this procedure, it is discovered Douglas is an undercover agent that has already been to Mars. Now, the organization he used to work for is after him because he is starting to remember he is an undercover agent. He tells them he will plant a new false memory about him as a child saving the world by being nice to aliens, and this false memory would be so powerful he would forget all other memories as him as an agent. But it is revealed that this memory actually happened as well. The aliens were waiting for Quail to die so they could destroy the Earth.

  7. John Darius

    John Darius
    ENG2420
    Chapter Summary: “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale”

    “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” is a short story written by Philip K. Dick. “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale”, is about a man named Douglas Quail who has set a goal for himself which is travel to Mars. We find out later in the story that Douglas Quail had his memories erased and that the people responsible for his memories being lost has been reading his thoughts with an implanted device. Douglas Quail later realizes that he worked for the government as an assassin. We find out at the end of the story that Douglas Quail was once visited by aliens as a child, and those same aliens postpone their invasion as long as lived. What we discussed in class was that Philip K. Dick lived from 1928 to 1982. He lived most of his life in California and also went to Vancouver. Philip Dick was married five times and had three children. He wrote both main stream novels and short and long term science fiction. In the 1960s he wrote twenty-four novels and five of the was written in 1963, while six of them was written in 1964. Six characteristics about his writing is that it has ontological problems, it has epistemological problems, his work involved entropy, his work had empathy, as well as religion and also his writing is often called “The Little Man”. His writing usually involves normal people such as technologists or repair men being put into extraordinary events.

  8. Hermann Sterling

    We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” is a short story by Phillip K. Dick, it was published in The Magazine of Science Fiction in April 1966. The story is told in the perspective of Douglas Quail. The story is about Douglas Quail a simple ordinary clerk who has big aspirations on going to mars. Knowing that he doesn’t have the money to afford a trip to mars, he decides to go to a company called Rekal Incorporated, where they will be able to artificially assimilate memories into his brain, one being a trip to mar as a secret agent. As procedure they inject him with a sedative and truth serum, during the process they learn that Douglas Quail had in fact actually gone to mars as a secret agent and that his conscious memories of the trip have been erased, but his initial desire to sign up for the trip cannot be removed. Learning what had happened ,the Rekal Staff kicks Quail out.

    Overtime Quail begins to recover his memories of his trip bit by bit, and at home he finds evidence to support his trip but also remembers that he attended REKAL. This conflict causes him to angrily return for a refund, which he is given.

    Later two police officers show up to kill him, stating that they have been reading his thoughts by means of an implanted device that was used to communicate with him during his mission on Mars. Quail confused on the situation at hand starts to regain more of his memories and he learns that he was an assassin for the government, but also remembers how to disarm the cops and escape. Quail realizes that he can’t outrun his attempted killers for long, due to the tracking device in his head, he thus makes a deal for the memory of his Mars mission to be replaced by a false memory of how aliens visited him when he was nine and were so touched by his kindness and compassion that they decided to postpone their invasion until his death. Going back to Rekal once again for the procedure they learn that the memory he wish to be implanted are in fact once again true, now the most important man alive, the government cannot kill Quail.

    In class we discussed both Harlan Ellison and Phillip K. Dick.
    We learn that Ellison work focuses on human courage and that the city played and essential part of his stories. He is characterized by being insecure and full of energy as well as very ambitious, mean and defensive. He was the 23rd grandmaster of the SF association. He was also the first SF writer published by Library of America.

    We also talk about Phillip K. Dick and the 6 characteristics in his story.
    1. Ontological problems, 2. Epistemological problem 3. Entropy 4. Empathy 5. Religion 6. The little man

  9. Darius

    Darius Freeman
    ENG2420
    Prof. Ellis

    After Class Summary “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale”

    “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” written by Philip K. Dick starts off with Douglas Quail telling his wife he dreamt of going to Mars again. His wife does not approve of this and suggests that they go on an underwater vacation instead but Douglas refuses. She gets mad at him and says he dreams too much. Later Douglas resolves to have a memory of a trip to mars implanted into his own mind at Rekal. Rekal specializes in implanted memories and for a fee they can make you remember things you’ve never don’t or cannot do, they even provide you with proof of your adventures. When sedation Quail in preparation for his new memory, they unknowingly uncover a buried memory. It turns out Quail has already been to Mars as an agent for Interplan and killed someone for them. Interplan then arranged to have his memories altered because of what he knew. However those memories came back and two Interplan agents showed up to his house because they now his every though thanks to a brain implant and they now know that he remembers who he is. Quail disarms one of them and makes a deal that instead of killing him they would change his memories again but the memories have o be exciting so he doesn’t get restless. They then decide that he would be visited as a kid by aliens and he would show them kindness as a result they won’t invade destroy Earth as long as Quail lives. While he is sedated waiting for that memory to be implanted, they find out that memory is already Quails. He wasn’t supposed to remember it and now he does. At least now Inteplan can’t kill him even if they wanted to.

    In class we discussed Philip K. Dick and how he had a rough life. In order to pay the bills he wrote a lot of novels. He took mind altering drugs to fuel his writing and as a result reality and what is real or not is often a theme of his writing.

  10. alejandra

    The story “we can remember it for you wholesale” by Philip Dickinson is about a man named Douglas Quail who desired was to go to mars, but he didn’t have the money or sources to achieve that goal all by himself . He decide to take false memories in order for him to believe he was in mars. But something really top was discovered during the process. He was an agent that was acting as undercover because the agency that he works for was looking for him having in mind that he knows a lot about so many things, and now that he started to remember all this things again he became more dangerous for them.
    During class time we learned about the author of this story Philip K. Dick he lives from 1928 to 1982, most of his live he live in California. His stories are Science fiction long and short stories and even novels. He was an ambitious writer, during the 1960s he wrote 24 books. He was the first SF writer to be published in the library of America in the late 2000. His writing was known by his peculiar characteristic 1. Ontological problem, 2. Epistemological problems, 3. Entropy, 4. Emphatically, 5. Religion and the 6. The little man.

  11. Mauricio

    We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, published in 1966, starts off with Douglas Quail awakening from a dream. Quail has aspirations of going to Mars but the trip is very expensive, as he cannot afford it. As he expresses this to his wife, she dismisses it by recommending a vacation to the bottom of the sea. Quail sets off to work as a “minor clerk” for the government. He has an appointment at Rekal, Incorporated for a consultation on altering his memory. There he meets Mr. McClane where he convinces Quail that the experience is worth the money, even on a modest salary. He chooses the secret agent going to Mars on assignment. In the process of programming this memory in his head, the analyst finds out that this memory is true and Quail had assassinated a political leader. McClane allows the memory to emerge as Interplan, a government agency, suppressed it. Quail is sent off but before he goes McClane tells him not to say anything to anyone. Quail goes home to tell his wife but in the argument he realizes that Rekal had not done anything. His wife left and Interplan agents show up to arrest him. They make a deal to see a psychiatrist to program a different memory in his head that would overlap all his memories. After the meeting with the psychiatrist, he is recommended program a memory that as a child he saved earth by making a deal with an alien. Rekal is going to program this new memory but they find out that this is also true.
    Philip K Dick had a writing style, which encompassed certain characteristics. Characteristics of work include ontological problems, epistemological problems, Entropy, Empathy, Religion, and the Little Man/the regular guy.

  12. mz0050

    “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” was written by Philip K. Dick in 1966. It has many film adaptions such as Total Recall. The story starts with a Douglas Quail who wishes to travel to Mars. However as he cannot afford to physically travel to Mars, he is forced to go to a company called Rekal. This company allows clients to believe they had done things via memory manipulations. It would also allow Quail to “travel to Mars” at a fraction of the cost. After much discussion and friction with his wife, Quail decides to go to Rekal to have his memories altered. During the memory alteration process it is revealed that Quail had been to Mars before as a secret agent. The company aborts the procedure and refunds Quail after Quail raises a fuse about being partially refunded. Quail goes home and asks his wife if he had really been to Mars before. Frustrated by Quail’s condition, the wife leaves Quail. Two policeman shows up to arrest Quail in order to protect state secrets. Quail learns that his thoughts are being monitor and escape the cops. In an effort to avoid assassination by the government, Quail makes a deal with the government to undergo memory alteration again. However this reveals that Quail is the only thing stopping an alien invasion because of the fact that Quail’s compassion had move an alien race so much that they had postpone their invasion until Quail is dead.
    Class discussion about Philip K. Dick revealed that he lived from 1928 to 1982. Dick is a prolific writer writing over ten novels in two years alone. This maybe because Dick took amphetamine to increase his productivity. Dick was also the first SF writer to have his works published in the Library of America. His works have 6 characteristics: 1. Ontological problem, 2. Epistemological problems, 3. Entropy, 4. empathy, 5. Religion 6. The little man.

  13. Vayne

    Mathew Tackett
    5/24/2016

    Philip K. Dick’s story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” is a short narrative about a man named Douglas Quail who has a severe urge to go to Mars with every bone in his body. Since he can’t afford to go he goes to REKAL a place where they implant false memories in you for a price. When they put Quail under for his memory implantation a real memory bubbles to the surface. It turns out Quail has already been to Mars as a government agent to kill someone for them. After his successful assassination, Quail had new memories implanted in him to erase the work he did for them. He flees REKAL back to his home only to have two Interplan agents show up to his house and try to kill him. He learns he has an implant in his head that tells Interplan everything that is going on up in his noggin. Quail manages to disarm one of them and makes a deal to have a new memory implanted in him instead of dying. They decide he would be visited by aliens when he was younger and he would show them kindness so they wouldn’t invade Earth as long as he lives. When they go to sedate him to implant the memory it turns out that memory is already a real one and now Interplan can’t kill him. For lecture we talked about Philip K. Dick’s life, his characteristics and his drug habits that often produced the unique literature he wrote.

  14. Peter

    Philip K. Dick (1928-1982) lived mostly in california and sometimes in Vancouver. He married 5 times and had 3 kids. He wrote a lot as money was tight. He wrote mainstream and short/long form science fiction. During the 1960’s he wrote 24 novels, 5 in 1936, 6 in 1964. Only one mainstream novel was published during his lifetime and he gained more fame after he dies. He is the first science fiction writer to have his work published by the Library of America.

    Characteristics of Philip K. Dick;s work
    Ontological problems
    Epistemological problems
    Entropy
    Empathy
    Religion – Gnosticism – hidden knowledge
    “Little Man”, the hero of the story is a normal person.

    For class we read “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” (1966). The story revolves around a man named Douglas Quail, a simple office worker who dreams about going to mars. He visits a company called REKAL to get fake memories of mars implanted. During the procedure it is discovered that he has been on Mars and he is a government assassin. He remembers more and more and people are sent to kill him. He return to REKAL to get another procedure to get memories of an alien encounter. Those also turned out to be real and that as a child he was visited by alien and because of his kindness to him they will leave the earth alone as long as he is alive. With this information this makes him the most important person in the world.

  15. Mel

    “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” was written by Philip K. Dick the story is a about a man name Douglas who wish to go to Mars but cannot afford to. Douglas decide that’s he should go to this place call recall so that’s they can implant a chip with such memories of going to mars. After a series of even he begins to dreams that’s his being to mars before and later in the story he realize his being to Mars already. Douglas finds out that’s he used to work as an undercover agent for this organization and that’s they erase his memory. Douglas realized that’s discovering his being to Mars he become a threat to other, after speaking to some agents that’s tried to kill him to change his memory he convince them to implant a chip of him saving the world from an alien, which also turn out to be a true story.

    In class we discuss 6 characteristic of Philip K. Dick Ontological problem, 2-Epistemological problems, 3- Entropy, 4-empathy, 5- Religion 6-The little man.

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