We as readers are left to ourselves when it comes to judging the consequences of these decisions - and the book makes sure to provide us with plenty of examples to do so. Always letting the die opt for the morally or socially “worst” option would be just as contrived as letting the die always choose morally “good” options - even though a true “dice man” like Rhinehart rejects the notion of “right” or “wrong” in a moral sense altogether. After all, exclusively depicting decisions that are horrible and atrocious would not convey the feeling of utter randomness of a life lived by the die. Most would therefore agree that his death is by far less atrocious than, for example, the death of Larry, Rhinehart‘s son, who was also on the list of potential murder victims.īut maybe the author did not get cold feet but instead aimed for a “realistic” depiction of random decisions.
Osterflood is a sadist child molester, after all. By doing so, the author stops short of letting his character commit the ultimate sin of fictional murders, that is, taking the life of an *innocent* victim. Only at the very end the author appears to have gotten cold feet: The die chooses Frank Osterflood, the child raping mental patient, to be Rhinehart‘s murder victim. No sexual debauchery too depraved to be described, no stereotype too contrived to be included, no sexist behaviour too hurtful to be portrayed (even though I have the slight suspicion that a lot of these behaviours would have been considered to be “OK” by many readers back when the book was published). The book does (almost) everything to shock its readers and to undermine their expectations. “The Dice Man” is one of those books that I enjoyed reading but that make me weary to publicly admit that I enjoyed reading because I know that there are wackos out there who take its content - quite unironically - as gospel (another good example for this would be “Fight Club” - no, it does not tell you to beat up other guys and to blow up buildings). He calls this “dice therapy”, begins to treat patients by it and thereby starts a movement that turns into a full-blown religious cult with its own churches (the CETREs: Centers for Experiments in Totally Random Environments) where people blindly follow the word of the Die (with a capital D). He rapes his friend’s wife, conducts outrageous psychological experiments (mostly revolving around sex), frees patients from a mental hospital, leaves his wife and children, kills a patient - all because the die told him to do so. Psychiatrist Luke Rhinehart decides to live his life by the whims of the die. Some men just buy expensive sports cars or a motorbike when they have a midlife crisis.
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