Rating: 
Summary: On the track of the I Ching.
Review: This book earned 1963 Hugo Prize and well deserved. PKD shows his master writing craft depicting an alternate world in which Allied has lost the war. The USA is dismembered into three different countries: one under the influence of the Germans, one under Japanese influence and the third one in the middle of the other two.
The plot follows different threads showing how life is in this barren new world. Germans had expanded over Africa and carried there their "final solution" schema. In contrast the Japanese show a more humanistic and restrained politic, but falling back in technological aspects, they are menaced with extinction.
Two books inside this book pick up the center of the show: the Chinese book of Changes (I Ching) and the fictional "The Locust is Down" describing an alternate world more near to ours but NOT the same. This last twist is a provoking "what if " inside another one.
PKD describes his characters with a firm hand, giving them deep human traits. They strive to survive against dangerous odds. At the same time they try to discover the ultimate sense of life.
As I've seen in some other great sci-fi books, behind the surface of the current action lie powerful moral and ethic questions.
The end of the novel satisfactorily closes all threads.
When I first read this book in the early '60s, I was puzzled by the I Ching and started studying it and finally consulting it. A great experience to be sure.
A real Classic with capital letter. Enjoy!
Reviewed by Max Yofre.
Rating:
Summary: The best of PK Dick
Review: I doubt there are many writers as wildly inconsistent as Dick. He can be vapid and very bad--stylistically and materially--or knock-your-socks-off intelligent and excellent. This book is ranked among the latter. The book's main theme is the one that Dick excels at developing in challenging, complicated, and provocative narrative situations--the theme of the nature of reality. A recent bio-novel about Dick by Emmanuel Carrere makes the point that novels such as The Man in the High Castle are very likely pretty accurate reflections of Dick's mind and often unsettled mental state; that is, he often doubted what was real in his own life timeline. Many of my friends are disappointed with the conclusion of the novel, but I think Juliana Frink had it right at the end--while the novel describes an alternate timeline, it is really about our very own timeline. If you've ever speculated about historical turning points--what if an event had or hadn't taken place--you will really enjoy this novel.
Rating:
Summary: Classic novel
Review: The Man in the High Castle is considered Dick's masterpiece, a tale of a world where the Axis won World War II and the United States has been partitioned among the winners. It's a plot that has been done in different ways, with a variation on the theme done as recently as Philip Roth's Plot Against America, but Dick was one of the first to explore the idea, and he does it in his own special way. Especially amusing is his book within the book, a novel written by the title character which speculates on a world where the Axis lost the war. It is not the "real" world, but rather the reflection of a reflection through a warped mirror: things may be facing the right direction, but they are a bit distorted at the same time.
As is typically the case in a Dick story, it is the characters that are important more than the plot. Dick is not interested in adventure or suspense, but rather in showing how people react in extraordinary situations. There are few good guys or bad guys, although it is clear that certain institutions - particularly the Nazi government - are evil.
Dick also explores one of his two great themes: "What is reality?" (The other is "What is Human?"). There are little glimpses here and there that the universe in this story is not the "real" one. In fact, artificiality is pervasive in the novel: people make fake art, assume fake names and pursue fake agendas.
This is a great novel, filled with interesting insights and sly humor. If you're looking for whiz-bang space opera, this may not be a good science fiction novel for you; on the other hand, if you want a thoughtful and entertaining book, this is highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: The Original Alternative History Sci-Fi Novel
Review: The Man in the High Castle is the Hugo award winning, now modern classic book, by Philip K. Dick, a relatively unknown 50s sci-fi writer who peaked early with this 60s novel, bringing him critical acclaim, launching sci-fi as real life drama, only to vanish for 20 years as he churned out what was considered pulp sci-fi for small circulars, only to have Hollywood turn his book - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, into a failed movie called Blade Runner, that is now a cult classic in the 21st century, help putting Philip K. Dick back on the map again with more movie adaptations (Total Recall, Minority Report) long after his death, the result of health complications (reoccurring heart disease and insanity), just before the release of Blade Runner. It has taken nearly 50 years for this writer to actually gain public attention... which in many ways has stiffed the guy of funds he should have had to work with, but then again maybe his profession as a sci-fi writer on the poverty-line is somewhat rewarding in that he has left us heaps of literature to enjoy, the true chronicles of a determined writer.
TMITHC is written in the same vein as 1984, Animal Farm and Brave New World, penned with the same urgent worldly paranoia coupled with philosophical genius. This archetype manuscript, the first to actually use alternative history as a theme, concerns a substitute present where WWII has been won by the Germans and the Japanese who control America, now suppressing whites and Jews, who run small businesses in order to earn a living, like Mr. Childen who operates a rare American memorabilia antique store, a speciality retailer for the rich Japanese ambassadors and military officials like Mr. Tagomi, only for Childen to find that some anonymous Jew (Frank Frink) is making fake items to earn a living and so Mr. Childen sets off to find out who is putting his job at risk while the Japanese build the new world infrastructure using the religious oracle, I Ching, as their guiding light only to discover that a mysterious man in a high castle, Hawthorne Abendsen, has written a book, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, where America wins the war and so censor the book, while the Reich is in turmoil because the Chancellor is dead and needs to be replaced, Hitler lies in a sanatorium incapacitated and driven insane from syphilis. Juliana, the ex-wife of the Jewish artefact fabricator Fink, goes on the run across America with a mysterious Italian named Joe who may be a spy, while looking for the man in the high castle, discovers something startling about how the banned book was written that surprises the reader as a final twist to these series of events that help support the background psychological alternative world that the author creates without directly implying it much.
Avoiding any sort of descriptive sci-fi world Philip K. Dick sticks heavy to describing psychosomatic thoughts and dialogue, exploring the clash of cultures from the perspective of an American who is no longer understood as a person with identity but a sideshow salesman for the Japs. There are lots of events which cross the story, penetrating the characters and changing them, all based on the book of changes, the I Ching... the oracle that they all used to guide them through whatever life they live. The Man in the High Castle is a book about illusion and change.
This book is for seasoned readers of modern classics and fans of Philip K Dick. It is less sci-fi than you may anticipate as this is his early stuff so it is more psychologically analytical and less descriptive on environments, also the dialogue is not as perfect as his later works, but it is all there in the making. This book is what you should go on to after reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, a good starting point, which is midway in his sci-fi development (more descriptions, more dialogue, better editing and stronger plots) the end of his career was out-there stuff that generated his own private genre - metaphysical fiction. Philip K. Dick eventually believed that he was been contacted by an entity called VALIS that appeared to him in a beam of light. He wrote a book about it. He also wrote a private, couple of thousand paged novel, called Exegesis, describing his visitations. This Hugo Winning book created a whole new realm for other writers to explore. It was the author who actually took that flame and ran with it but was never noticed during his extensive self investment into his original creations. Philip K Dick is probably the most important sci-fi writer of our time not to mention prophetic, whose books make more sense now than they did then. Read him.
Rating:
Summary: The world in a mirror
Review: I really find it pointless to argue whether this is Dick's best novel or not, or even whether it is a good novel or a bad one...I would define it as an important book. Important books do not feed you with ultimate solutions (because their authors realize that there is no such thing). They ask questions. They upset you. They make you think intensively about two things: the world and yourself. And the combination of the two: your place in the world.
For me, the focal point of the novel is the Grasshopper-book. Let me tell you why. "The Man in the High Castle" is a strongly self-reflective novel: you (i.e., the reader) are reading a story set in an alternative reality where people are reading a story set in an alternative reality which for you is fairly (though not absolutely) close to the reality you're living in. In fact, at the very end of the novel, the characters shamelessly remind you, warn you that what you are reading is fiction and it is the Grasshopper-book that is true. Which means: Berlin is bombed down. The world is shared between the U.S.A. and Russia. One half is ruled by Communism, the other one paralyzed by the so-called "Red Scare", fearing soviet spies in every corner. And, most importantly, there is the fear of the atomic bomb. Just one bad move from either side could plunge the world into a third world war, possibly much more terrible than the first and the second one together. A state of permanent insecurity. A state when there are no ultimate answers to calm you down, a state when you are full of questions, doubts and uncertainties about the past, present and future. Everything is relative. This state is depicted in the Grasshopper-book excerpts. However, this is the state in the novel itself as well. The only difference is that it is seen from a different point of view. I know that it is a very big difference from a historical aspect and also a big difference for humanity. However, this is not what Dick is interested in. That would be too simple for him. It's not a real challenge for him to imagine a terrible world based on a "what would have happened if..."-idea. Everyone can do that. That would be an entertaining but shallow anti-Utopia. He rather wants to place a mirror in front of the reader and the world and wants to provoke them to study and investigate what they see. Is that really us? What have we become? Are we satisfied with this? If not, what can we do to change? Are we strong enough to change? If not, how can we put up with all this?
Consider: the state mentioned above and described in the Grasshopper-book was what the author lived in. It was the state the world lived in when he wrote and published the book (1965). And he avoids the trap of depicting something overtly terrible as many people would expect (e.g. explicitly violent scenes, mass massacre, pogroms, racism). There is a certain feeling of being constantly threatened in the air (as it was the case in reality on both sides of the world), everyone is full of frustration, but the story is staged in peace-time when you cannot actually see people being executed, tortured and humiliated on a daily basis, you "only" hear and read about it. And, however terrible it sounds, you cannot keep on worrying about the defects of the system because you've got your daily problems, you must get by somehow, you must survive - in a totalitarian regime and under the threat of the atomic bomb as well (once again, just as it happened in reality: people are people, on 364 days of the year they do not care about democracy and dictatorship provided that their bellies are full; on the remaining one day bakers run out of bread and people consider going out to the street to make some noise - that is how revolutions start once in a decade). Dick sketches up almost all the different behaviors you could, and still can experience after the war: from resignation through compromise and skepticism to rebellion and disbelief - consider all those stupid and absurd theories about the Allies building death camps after the war just to prove how awful fascism was (and there are still people who really believe this!!!) All this on a 100% human scale: there are no heroes or idealised characters in the novel. Consequently, there are no big deeds that could decide the fate of the world. Thus, the story itself cannot be closed, there cannot be a definite ending to it. How could there be? This is the main forte of the book: the author knows that the reader wants a clear denouement, the reader is yearning for the illusion that there is order in the world, the reader desires to feel that reality is absolute and cognoscible.
It's not. Read this book and face it.
Rating:
Summary: Dick's Best?
Review: The Man In The High Castle is an amazingly subtle work and very difficult to categorize (during an extremely clever bit of self-referential dialoge, one of Dick's characters makes the following comments about the novel within the novel, "The Grasshopper Lies Heavy": "'Not a mystery,' Paul said. 'On contrary, interesting form of fiction possibly within genre of science fiction.' 'Oh no,' Betty disagreed. 'No science in it. Nor set in future. Science fiction deals with future, in particular where science has advanced over now. Book fits neither premise.'").
Although the "alternate history" story is compelling, I think the real strength in this novel is the palpability and complexity of the characters. Each of them is highly nuanced and pitch-perfect. And for those critics who have labeled Dick's characterizations as racist, I'd suggest that they re-read the pages following Tagomi's defense of Baynes and Tedeki: Tagomi's moral and philosophical struggle to justify his violence is one of the most poignent and empathetic pieces of writing that I have ever read.
Finally, in terms of the ending, two comments: (1) a book's ending doesn't necessarily occur on its last page. Each of the story lines is brought to a highly satisfactory conclusion (in my opinion anyway) when and where required by the story--again, not necessarily in the last few pages of the book, (2) the ambiguity and inscrutability of the ending is totally in keeping with Dick's notion of the nature of reality and the tone he was crafting throughout the telling of the story. Although many would disagree, I thought the ending was very uplifting, hopeful and, again, satisfying.
In all, this is a great book--regardless of genre--and may be Dick's best.
Rating: 
Summary: Average read
Review: Easy read and moderately entertaining. While not boring, this is not an action-oriented book, so if you want a lot of action, this title might not suit you.
Due to the way this book was written, it ages fairly well, because it does not rely on typical sci-fi themes of technological advancements. Having said that, what German technological space travel advancements are predicted (opposed to what the Americans had accomplished by 1962), turn out to be non-sequiters; I.e., human exploration of Venus and Mars - the former is impossible in reality, and the second is extremely far-fetched (hell, the USA didn't even get to the Moon until 1969).
Rating: 
Summary: No mas
Review: This is one of the few books that I got 1/2 way through and gave up. By the time I gave up I felt like I was walking hip deep in mud. The plot was going nowhere and not only did not not identify with the characters I actively disliked them all. And this it actually fine if they are interesting, or the plot is interesting, or SOMEthing is interesting. Reading some of the reviews I see talk of a surprise ending and if I made it through neck deep mud only to reach some "sooper kool" ambigous ending I'd probably scream.
Rating:
Summary: Reality Is Turned On Its Head
Review: There are multiple realities, or are there? What is reality? What is real? What is truth? If you believe something to be true, then is it true?
This is a mind bending book that plays with these questions and others. I really don't want to give too much away. The setting is an alternate future where Germany and Japan won WW2. But this is only the groundwork for a much larger scope.
This world is a very anxious world, and all of the characters seem to exist in a perpetual state of panic and anxiety. As if their world is upside down or spinning out of control in the wrong direction. Some scenes are truly horrific. One gets a sense that there are no clear choices to be made, because the world makes no sense.
Truly unforgettable conclusion; you will just have to read it to find out for yourself. This book is wild.
|
