Who is the real Dice Man? The elusive writer behind a cult novel
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Re: Who is the real Dice Man? The elusive writer behind a cult novel
#2I found this book at the back of my parents shelf when I was much younger and found it fascinating. I still think of it sometimes even today, and flip coins rather than roll a dice when I'm indecisive. I'm surprised that the author is so wholesome.
Brilliant book, and it's a shame the film adaptation has fallen through. I guess it's a bit hard to adapt as a lot of it's exposition is inside the main characters head?
Re: Who is the real Dice Man? The elusive writer behind a cult novel
#3I found this book at the back of my parents shelf when I was much younger and found it fascinating. I still think of it sometimes even today, and flip coins rather than roll a dice when I'm indecisive. I'm surprised that the author is so wholesome. Brilliant book, and it's a shame the film adaptation has fallen through. I guess it's a bit hard to adapt as a lot of it's exposition is inside the main characters head?
That didn't stop Fight Club. You're right it's a shame it hasn't happened, though.
Re: Who is the real Dice Man? The elusive writer behind a cult novel
#4I found this book at the back of my parents shelf when I was much younger and found it fascinating. I still think of it sometimes even today, and flip coins rather than roll a dice when I'm indecisive. I'm surprised that the author is so wholesome. Brilliant book, and it's a shame the film adaptation has fallen through. I guess it's a bit hard to adapt as a lot of it's exposition is inside the main characters head?
That didn't stop Fight Club. You're right it's a shame it hasn't happened, though.
Fight Club is a little more "interesting" though, split personalties, plot twists and of course fighting is always more adaptable to screen than a man rolling a dice.
I think if they did it it may be pretty different from the book.
Re: Who is the real Dice Man? The elusive writer behind a cult novel
#5> … a dice … a dice … a dice
It’s a die! I guess I shouldn't be stunned that the Grauniad makes this sort of error, but … sheesh.
Re: Who is the real Dice Man? The elusive writer behind a cult novel
#6I had not heard about this, but the title reminded me of a 90s UK travel show based on a similar concept, "The Dice Man" [0]. The host asks strangers for alternatives and throws the dice to decide what to do / where to go
Re: Who is the real Dice Man? The elusive writer behind a cult novel
#7It's interesting to compare "Dice Man"[0] with "Yes Man"[1] (the book, not the Jim Carrey film adaptation).
Both books are about people putting their decision making to an external force (Dice man with a die, Yes Man by accepting any offer or invitation that he was given). Dice Man embraces randomness which ultimately leads to Chaos and self destruction. Yes Man embraces positivity and most of the outcomes are positive and constrictive.
One of the main issues I had with Dice Man when I read it was that you were kind of limited in a way because you were making a discreet set of decisions and it seems like the book was encouraging you to always include destructive options, which would occur (intrinsically) with a probability of some multiple of 1/6. To abuse the gamblers ruin, this basically means that if you're including destructive options, then you're almost certain to do damage to yourself eventually.
To that end, it didn't really seem that useful to me as a philosophy or as a tool. Not in any meaningful way. Yes Man, on the other hand, feels like it has greatly changed my life for the better. Your flatmate comes home from work and says to you "I've just had someone pull out of a gig. Want to come? I'm leaving in half an hour". You go, putting aside the fact that you're tired and were looking forward to some quiet TV. You meet someone who you end up dating for a few years. Or how a friend at college invited me to a talk given by local companies in the area offering industrial placements (year long internships taken as part of the degree). It was in 5 minutes time and I wasn't on the 4 year course that the placement was a part of. I had a free period so I went. Off the back of that I changed my course to the 4 year, applied to one of the companies that presented. I got the placement and off the back of that learned basically all the technical skills that got me my first job out of college. So on and etc.
I can't see the dice really allowing for that kind of flow, unless you use a d20 and heavily stack all of the options with positive, enriching and life affirming options. Which, really, isn't what the Dice Man book encourages at all.
Re: Who is the real Dice Man? The elusive writer behind a cult novel
#8I cant say I've ever read the novel, but I do know there was a song based on it created by legendary post-punk group The Fall:
Re: Who is the real Dice Man? The elusive writer behind a cult novel
#9> … a dice … a dice … a dice It’s a die ! I guess I shouldn't be stunned that the Grauniad makes this sort of error, but … sheesh.
To be fair, the title of the novel in question gets it wrong as well.
Re: Who is the real Dice Man? The elusive writer behind a cult novel
#10I had not heard about this, but the title reminded me of a 90s UK travel show based on a similar concept, "The Dice Man" [0]. The host asks strangers for alternatives and throws the dice to decide what to do / where to go [0] https://diceman.co.uk/
Based on the same novel as specifically stated on the site.