Book Review Luke Rhinehart The Dice Man

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Spoiler alerts. 1971 Harper Collins How do you decide what book you would like to buy or read? If you are like me it will be because; 1/. You read other work by the author 2/. You liked the cover 3/. Someone recommended it to you. 4/. You just thought you’d try it because it was there. 5/. Because a stranger, inspired by the book, kissed you in a crowded pub. I’m betting the last option here I more unique to me. The book inspired a lot of students to play dare games based on chance. Six different dares would be jotted on a note pad, and the dice (die in singular) would be thrown and the person that got that number had to perform that challenge or forfeit. One lucky lady was fortunate in getting the task of kissing a total stranger in a crowded bar and she picked me. She was pleasant and even apologetic about it and she explained to me that the game was inspired by the Rhinehart book, which I later found and read. I could just as easily ended up kissed by one of her male friends had he got the right number and one of her previous dice-dictated quests had been to run in MacDonald’s yelling Meat Is Murder. The book is great though I never felt an urge to follow its premise myelf. I like order rather than chaos. Unusually for an obviously fictional novel like this, Rhinehart uses his own name and a first person point of view narration, which gives the book a documentary-autobiographical feel. At least that is the impression he would like to give. In fact, Rhinehart was a pseudonym for George Cockcroft. In the book, Rhinehart decides to randomize his life by making every moral and social decision on the throw of a dice. He even makes references to the god of Wim and chance. The dice begin to dictate every decision in his life from what to eat, who to date, whether or not to commit rape (he does) and whether or not to commit murder. (He does). As a psychiatrist, Rhinehart begins to use the dice in his decisions for his patients, and openly encourages them to use dice in their own decision making processes, which creates a craze and a cult for dice-teachings, and causes great offence to the school of Psycho-therapy in which Rhinehart works. There are moments of great humour, such as the parties at which Rhinehart disrupts through his constantly contrary and eccentric behaviour dictated by chance. At one point the dice tell him to be Jesus for the day. To many, he has simply lost his mind. Perhaps he has. Perhaps he is the sanest man left in America. Rhinehart himself becomes uncontrollably addicted to his dice, just as a gambler would, and effectively ruins his material life, his job, income, etc., but he finds the randomizing chaotic process liberating. He is seen at the end of the story being pursued by the authorities for his crimes but somehow happier than he has ever been before in his life. The book is a savage satire on the American obsession with psychotherapy and religion, and a material world in which few would dare to take chances, and decisions just for the sheer hell of it. This reads as a subversive and often extremely funny book, and it is extremely tempting to get a set of dice out and try some of the games for yourself. A timeless classic in the Joseph Heller tradition. Three sequels followed. Arthur Chappell Youtube – ABBA – Take A Chance On Me