I finally finished A Scanner Darkly a couple of days ago. For such a short book, it took me a surprisingly long time to finish, largely because it freaked me out so much. I've seen the movie with Keanu Reeves, and that was a little disturbing, but the book? Much more so. Books are very personal for me. There's something about holding a book in my hands, reading, that makes it much more real for me than watching a movie, even on my laptop. Something about the distance between the screen and my mind creates a slight disconnect that makes it easier for me to walk away from a movie than from a book. I can think of a dozen movies I've started and never finished, or not finished for a long time (I started watching "Paris When it Sizzles" on my next to last day at school, and it's still in my laptop, unfinished and ignored), but I can't even think of a single book that I started without finishing it.

So for me to read ASD so slowly is unusual. It usually takes me maybe 2, 3 days tops to finish a book (unless it's something absurdly long, like the Fountainhead). ASD took me around 4 or 5 days to read. Dick's writing is not challenging to read -I suppose it could be if you're not used to reading sci-fi or really good literature, but it's nothing overly intellectual -but it's so plausible as a story that it's an intense read. At the end, when you find out that the story is largely based on autobiographical fact, the entire experiences takes on a much deeper level. The book is wonderful and sad and well-worth the read, no matter how long it takes.

I'll have a review up sometime today or tomorrow, so keep an eye out for a link to it.