Who is the real Dice Man? The elusive writer behind the disturbing cult novel

[svenrus]

"A search for the mysterious author of a counterculture classic led to someone else entirely. Or did it? By Emmanuel Carrère "

Thu 7 Nov 2019 06.00 GMT


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[my_key]

Read " The Dice Man" a few years ago. Nice to have an insight onto the alter-ego of the alter-ego of Luke Rhinehart.
Cult status for a book extolling the virtues (and otherwise) of allowing symbolic representations of life choices to influence your life. Whatever next?

 

[Piasa]

each time I met someone who had read it (almost always a pothead, and often a follower of the I Ching)

Well, I'm not and never was a pothead, but I really enjoyed that book in my 20s. I found it at the perfect time to get something useful from it. I still use his trick of pretending I'm Jesus (actually, I pretend to be a saint) to get through the day sometimes.

Thank you for sharing the article, @surnevs

 

[my_key]

Yes, Piasa I do think, too, that books like this come to each of us at some 'perfect time; to give necessary insights. You certainly don't have to be a pothead to get something out of or find meaning in the narrative.

 

[surnevs]

It was years ago that I read it. I wonder what the author's purpose was in writing it. Was it a warning? Blindly obeying an interpretation of an outcome caused by a medium like the dice? Or did it have nothing to do with such intentions at all?
Frankly, I can't remember details in this novel, as mentioned, many years ago I read it (and I have no interest in reading it once again)

 

[Trojina]

I think I have tried to read it twice (the Diceman that is, not the article) and just couldn't because of the descriptions of violence to a female child and women. As I recall I found it incredibly sexist and not at all relevant to the I Ching anyway. It's probably very much a book of it's time (1960s or 70s ?) with the view of the narrator being the male who objectifies all female characters and the normalisation of violence to women/objectification of girls and women.

Now I realise this may be a bias view as I can't actually bear to fully read the book I can't say I know fully what is in it, it's likely there was valuable stuff beyond and above that that sort of justifies it all but each time I have tried to read it (2 or 3 times) it has revolted me to the point where I can't go on with it. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone and I don't know what the hype is with it in regard to Yi it didn't seem to really have any connection to the I Ching as I know it. I didn't like the character of the main protagonist and I felt it was quite an evil book actually. It's very dark anyway and every time I try to read it it makes me want to even get it out of my flat which is odd.

In any case it isn't a novel about the I Ching really though it's come to be seen as that which is a pity. I think it's just a horrible book. You might say 'well you missed the point...' and that may well be true but it just wasn't a book to persist in reading for me. I think I must have bought it and given it away again about 3 times in my life. I would have bought it from charity shops thinking there has to be something in it for it to be so famous and am always left wondering why on earth it ever was.

Edit...just checked out the article Sernevs posted reminded me more clearly of the cause of my revulsion....from the article

If a patient who still had not lost his virginity was plagued by sadistic impulses and said on Rhinehart’s couch that he would like to rape and kill a little girl, his professional ethics obliged him to repeat with a calm voice: “You’d like to rape and kill a little girl?” No judgment. But what he wanted to say was: “Well, go ahead, then! If what really turns you on is raping and killing a little girl, then stop boring me with this fantasy. Do it!”

That's the child rape and murder I recall in the book and I find even playing with such ideas, even philosophically, just not something I can see any justification for at all. That was the part where I stopped reading, where the fantasy of raping and killing a little girl was entertained. I did feel little girls became objects for such actions by the way it was written, as if they didn't matter other than as fodder for sexual fantasy. The whole tone of it sort of made girls nothing more than that, that's how it came over to me. Even just reading that I still cannot see how that warrants being a 'cult classic' on the I Ching.

It could be that part just stopped me going any further and the actual point was how far can divination take one ? Would one commit any act of atrocity if an oracle said so? Maybe that was the whole point of the book, the question it raised, but for me I just honestly could not go on with it. I thought it was badly written also, it didn't draw me in in any way. As I recall, my impression anyway, was that the bits about divination though were way off, they weren't really real readings or did he make readings mean things they didn't mean at all? I can't actually remember what readings there were in the book ?

 

[my_key]

I think Trojina is right: there is a marmite element to the book.

I believe it's narrative is designed to shock. It is random and challenges many societal norms especially those around the nature of free will. It upsets the expectations of the reader even down to the way it is written. It made me feel awkward and uncomfortable and once fully engaged with it forced me to question my identity and beliefs. This is where the value of the book lies for me.

Equally, there is much we can learn about our identity and our beliefs if we find that the book does not resonate with us in any positive way.

While the book is about so much more, I can see that there is an undoubted theme relating to divination practices. The act of rolling the dice can equate to turning a tarot card over or even the act of causing cracks in turtle shells: all produce random outcomes that are open to interpretations of meaning.The 'hero' gives his life over to this divination through the process of rolling 2 dice at key moments in his life. Each life scenario he casts about he has 12 pre-prepared actions that he has concocted and will follow. 1 and 12 are extreme and shocking and the actions become more normal - morally and socially acceptable - as the sum of the dice approach 7.

The process he uses relies on random synchronous happenings and so can be likened to divination in general. His use of a received text (his prepared list of options) and these 12 lines of 'what to do' does, to my mind, draw strong parallels with I Ching practice.

I don't think it was ever a cult classic on the I Ching, but it did, and probably still does, carry an essence of being a cult classic.

If you haven't read it. I would recommend it to you.

 

[surnevs]

In general, the hero practices Divination (throwing dice, coins or manipulating stalks of yarrow), but the difference between his consultations and consultations with the I Ching is that the twelve rules he follows are made solely by himself, with all of the crazy consequences that come with it.
(And it's a very old discussion - maybe not quite solved - whether the "rules" given in the I Ching, or better expressed, guidelines, came from a higher consciousness: the received text handed down from gods, having an insight foreign to us today... Far out, I know, I tend to believe in this.)
But the hero in the novel follows his own rules and thus ends up wrong.

 

[surnevs]

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I asked Microsoft Copilot about him:

 

[my_key]

In general, the hero practices Divination (throwing dice, coins or manipulating stalks of yarrow), but the difference between his consultations and consultations with the I Ching is that the twelve rules he follows are made solely by himself, with all of the crazy consequences that come with it.
(And it's a very old discussion - maybe not quite solved - whether the "rules" given in the I Ching, or better expressed, guidelines, came from a higher consciousness: the received text handed down from gods, having an insight foreign to us today... Far out, I know, I tend to believe in this.)
But the hero in the novel follows his own rules and thus ends up wrong.

As this is purely a work of fiction there is no harm in postulating that the 12 rules he follows could equally emanate from 'the gods' and are not just made up solely by himself. Perhaps, even, there is a higher purpose, way beyond his or our ken, embedded in the shocking acts and the crazy consequences that transpire.

I know from my own life experience that some of the 'shocking' or 'crazy' things I have chosen to do, even when more balanced acts were advocated by wiser people I knew or even suggested in I Ching casts, have at times ended up with a silver lining that I could never have imagined in the first instance. Where I thought, initially, I had ended up wrong turned out eventually to the process concluding with me residing at a place of unexpected rightness.

This is perhaps why I saw the book as being a study in free will and what that really is or means.

 

[surnevs]

As this is purely a work of fiction there is no harm in postulating that the 12 rules he follows could equally emanate from 'the gods' and are not just made up solely by himself. Perhaps, even, there is a higher purpose, way beyond his or our ken, embedded in the shocking acts and the crazy consequences that transpire.

I know from my own life experience that some of the 'shocking' or 'crazy' things I have chosen to do, even when more balanced acts were advocated by wiser people I knew or even suggested in I Ching casts, have at times ended up with a silver lining that I could never have imagined in the first instance. Where I thought, initially, I had ended up wrong turned out eventually to the process concluding with me residing at a place of unexpected rightness.

This is perhaps why I saw the book as being a study in free will and what that really is or means.

I can only agree. And I think that whatever Direction we choose in our lives, it will bring good as well as bad experiences with it. I also agree with Trojina in that the direction the hero follows has nothing to do with what the I Ching guides the inquirer to follow. That the morality of the I Ching is on a level far more based in Wisdom than what we or our hero can create rules/guidelines for. But as long as we do not know for sure from where the I Ching arose originally, tradition is what we must lean on until then, ie that it arose with King Wen, then we also can not know about this morality.
It seems, as I vaguely remember the novel, the morality of our hero was missing a lot.