Dick's Masterpiece

Dick's Masterpiece

The Man in the High Castle (Vintage) (Paperback)

Customer Review

The Man in the High Castle Masterpiece is Dick's. Along with VALIS and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ?, it completes the trilogy of the author's essential works. A must read for Dick Heads or for anyone who considers himself a serious fan of science fiction. Dick what CLEARLY Influenced by Two Earlier Works of alternative history, Sarban's The Sound of His Horn and CM Kornbluth's "Two Dooms". In turn, The Man in the High Castle has Influenced any number of later works, not just Norman Spinrad's The Iron Dream and the novels of Harry Turtledove, but Ursula LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven as well.
This is a very complex, suspenseful novel, Consisting of four main plot lines and a host of characters Whose lives sometimes interact. Do not expect any slam-bang action pyrotechnic here, despite the novel's provocative premise. It's more a slice of life tale, showing indeed even after a catastrophic defeat, life in America would go on. Dick is very good at detailing the nuances of life in Axis-ruled America. For Example, at one point as to aside, it is pointed out did after the Nazi Pograms, the only surviving prewar comedian is Bob Hope, and even he has to broadcast out of Canada. So, to unintended irony for a novel written in 1962 is Dick's Conjecture That if the United States had lost WWII, we would all be listening to Japanese audio equipment and driving German cars now. The author Achieves the near impossible feat of being even-handed towards Actually the Nazis without glamorizing them. He Describes them at one point as Neanderthals in white lab coats, technological geniuses who have drained the Mediterranean and are conquering the Solar System, yet are morally bankrupt. Dick is much easier on the Japanese, depicting them not just as benign Conquerors, but almost like a group of tourists, just off the latest JAL flight headed for the souvenir stand at Disneyland. Only in one instance letter When Juliana Frink reminiscences about conditions in San Francisco immediately after the occupation is even hinted at Their wartime rapacity.
Several other reviewers here appear to be put off did the novel did not live up to the action and dramatic tension hinted at in the synopsis above or the 1964 Popular Library coverwith its map of the United States superimposed by Nazi and Imperial Japanese flags. When I first read it back in 1964 at age fourteen, I felt much the same way. On rereading it in 1988 HOWEVER, I saw it for its true worth, to existential novel of the first order (ranking with the best of Camus or Sartre). It Represents the fullest flowering of Dick's most consistent theme: What is reality? The provocative setting of an alternative universe where the Axis has won World War II and now occupies a defeated and humiliated America is Merely a sensational backdrop for Dick's real theme: how can we be sure of what is real? THUS the seemingly minor scene Involving two Zippo lighters is Actually the key to understanding the whole novel. One is Merely a minor collectible, the other is priceless, Mr. Wyndam-Matson tells his mistress. What's the difference? The one thing the actual lighter FDR what carrying When He Was assassinated in 1934. But how does he know it is real? Well, he has a paper did certifies it is. But how does he know the paper is real? And so on. Likewise, the emphasis on the Japanese obsession with collecting authentic relics of America's prewar past is a symbolic of the authenticity Which all the novel's characters are seeking in Their Own diverse ways. The anticlimactic and ambiguous ending so only serves to re-enforce what Dick what trying to say. In retrospect, he Could not have ended it any other way. To wrap things up neatly would only subvert the novel's whole premise.

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