The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. DickMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I recently read Phillip K Dick's novel The Man in the High Castle . Re-read, technically, though the first time was more than twenty years ago, so my recollection was hazy at best.
I'm writing here about the novel, not the video series on Amazon Video. That's a good show, but it doesn't actually have a lot in common with the novel. It borrows the name of the novel and high-level world-building concept (the Axis powers won World War II), but little else. Character names, locations, and various plot elements from the book are present in the show, but almost none of them are used in the same way. The show uses much more of the world, has a much wider cast of characters, and describes a more detailed narrative than the book.
That world-building concept is the main draw of The Man in the High Castle. The author works in a good number of details about the alternate history of the world. Germany ended up with the hydrogen bomb, not the United States. Great Britain is portrayed as a major villain, the source of war criminals that committed atrocities in Africa during the conflict. Germany and Japan have divided the USA between them with a narrow buffer state in the Rocky Mountains. The inferiority of non-Aryan, non-Japanese races is accepted by the public at large, and Jews in particular live in fear. It's certainly the picture of a dystopia, but close enough to our own world's history that it's easy to picture as a possibility.
What the book doesn't do particularly well, at least in my opinion, is deliver a consistent and interesting narrative. The characters tend to sort of wander around aimlessly much of the time, with no real connection between them. There's a lot of reference to the I Ching , a Chinese divination text used as an oracle by most of the characters, which it seems to me was largely a crutch they used to deal with their lack of control over their own lives. There are a few major threads, following characters like Mr Tagomi, Juliana, and Frank, but all that really ties them together is a few chance encounters. I think that may have been part of the point, that people and events are influenced by seemingly inconsequential meetings, but in my mind it didn't make for a particularly compelling plot.
That's all right, though, since as far as I'm concerned the real point of the book is the world-building and exploration of how people live in that world. The German empire has expanded and made scientific advances that are the envy of the world, and undertaken great public works projects, including a Mars space program. Japan is the world's other great power, but clearly an underdog in any conflict. Both great empires are harshly oppressive by the standards of our world. Conflict between the two is looming. It's a detailed and coherent picture of the alternate world, though not a particularly bright one.
One major thing that sets The Man in the High Castle apart from many alternate history stories is the presence of "The Grasshopper Lies Heavy", a book that describes a world where the Allies won the war. Most of the characters encounter the book and largely dismiss it as fantasy, which makes perfect sense as that's exactly what the reader is doing with The Man in the High Castle. Mr Tagomi actually has an experience in an alternate world, but his mental state is precarious at best. In any event, the idea of an alternate world has little material impact, but it certainly affects the thoughts and actions of several of the main characters.
I really enjoyed the concepts set forth in The Man in the High Castle, with the alternate end to the war and the world that results. The actual writing wasn't really to my liking, but the ideas came through clearly enough and that makes it a fine read.
