Giraut Posted 17 years ago
Linguistics Studies
How do you understand "A Scanner Darkly"?
Hello all,
Not sure this is the right forum for this question, but...
I've always wondered what the title of Philip K. Dick's excellent novel "A Scanner Darkly" means: do you have an idea?
I thought it might read "a scanner[,] darkly", "a scanner darkly [sees]", or "[seen through] a scanner darkly", or perhaps it's a collage of words that happen to be relevant to the novel, arranged so as to make the title intriguing, but none of these explanations satisfy me. How do you understand it?
EDIT: the word dick seems to fall prey to an overzealous obscenity filter here. Silly, it's a word that exists in the english language and doesn't necessarily refer to you-know-what, as Richards the world over know. And even if it was the obscene sense, it's still english...
Not sure this is the right forum for this question, but...
I've always wondered what the title of Philip K. Dick's excellent novel "A Scanner Darkly" means: do you have an idea?
I thought it might read "a scanner[,] darkly", "a scanner darkly [sees]", or "[seen through] a scanner darkly", or perhaps it's a collage of words that happen to be relevant to the novel, arranged so as to make the title intriguing, but none of these explanations satisfy me. How do you understand it?
EDIT: the word dick seems to fall prey to an overzealous obscenity filter here. Silly, it's a word that exists in the english language and doesn't necessarily refer to you-know-what, as Richards the world over know. And even if it was the obscene sense, it's still english...
Top answer
The correlation I thought of is a quote from the letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians. org/wiki/Through_a_Glass_Darkly "11When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
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The correlation I thought of is a quote from the letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians. Wiki also makes the connection in this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Through_a_Glass_Darkly
"11When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a
"11When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a
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I see now. Indeed the book's title refers to a well-known passage in the scriptures, something a native english speaker would understand immediately. In the french translation of the letters, which I am more familiar with, the mirror metaphor is rendered much more directly - something like "Now we see in a mirror, in an obscure/confusing way" - which is why ****'s title didn't ring a bell.
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if you read the book or watched the movie you would know.
Why wouldn't that make sense? Oh, the book/movie wouldn't tell me, so ask the internet.
it's a little harder to explain, but if you have an understanding for what is going on in the movie then you will simply know by the end of the movie that he was A Scanner Darkly.
Why wouldn't that make sense? Oh, the book/movie wouldn't tell me, so ask the internet.
it's a little harder to explain, but if you have an understanding for what is going on in the movie then you will simply know by the end of the movie that he was A Scanner Darkly.
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I just recently watched the movie again recently. I have been a fan of many stories by Phil for quite some time. When Bob Arctor in the story is narrating and asks this, it has me thinking of the title. As it was meant to do. What does a Scanner see? Into the head, down into the heart? Does it see into me, Into to us? Clearly or Darkly? I hope it sees clearly because I can't any longer see into
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