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A Scanner Darkly (1977) describes a group of drug addicts who spend their days and nights together smoking, in particular, an organic drug named Substance D. The story's protagonist is a narcotics agent named Bob Arctor who has infiltrated this group of friends in the hope of finding information about the drugs network. The story features three main groups: the first and most important are the addicts, the second are drug dealers, and the third group are police agents. But the boundary between the groups is blurred. For instance, Donna, the protagonist's beloved, is at the same time a dealer, an agent and an addict. The centrality of the motif of the blurriness of things is thus an important part of the story.
The novel begins, for example, with the frenzied and delirious character Jerry Fabin searching for endless imaginary 'aphids' in his house. The description of the bugs is so minute and detailed that, if not already familiar with the story line, one might deem the bugs real until it becomes clear that the aphids are all created in the character's mind. The deceptive and uncertain effects of drug abuse are mirrored by the role of surveillance in the following chapter when it becomes apparent that Arctor's anti-drugs speech, delivered to a police audience, is not spontaneous. The speech has already been handed out to him and if, in any way, he digresses from it, he is enjoined from doing so by his unseen supervisors.
Although it is made clear that drugs are an important issue in the novel, what is perhaps more important to note about the first two chapters is the distance between the real and the imaginary, the truth and the lie. The verisimilitude of Jerry's hallucinations demonstrates how difficult it is for him, as it is initially for the reader, to figure out that the things he sees are figments of his imagination. Arctor, meanwhile, is presented as a noble law-enforcer but he is only acting the part. His speech always begins with the same moving story about his two children, his 'little ones', and how their future is in risk from the dangers of drug addiction. When he diverts from his speech, posing a critical and thought-provoking question, 'If...