The Man in the High Castle

A boring story with no closing.. the book just ended.. no plot, theme or conflict clearly defined.

Philip K. Dick will stretch your imagination and give you an alternative history and look at the world, if the Allies had lost WWII. You meet individuals of all nationalities and walks of life and how they attempt to survive the division of the U.S., political and upheavals. Progress in space exploration, but laws slipping into the past. This book will make you happy the war ended as it did.

This is the perfect example of how watching the filmed version of a book before reading it can sometimes spoil any hope of an objective opinion. The two versions are dramatically different in just about every way, but because the series was so long and required an evolving relationship with the characters, the book was a letdown. It is very well-written and compulsively readable, but if you came for a printed version of the TV show, you won't find it. If you haven't seen the show yet, by all means read this.

Philip K. Dick's masterpiece is one of the classics of the alternative history genre. This was my first Philip K.Dick novel and it's so good that I want to light up a Land-o-Smiles and read everything he's ever written. The characters seem like real people. The story is told through interleaved overlapping stories that revolve around the Nazi and Japanese domination of America after America and the British lost WWII in 1947. It's 1962 and the United States has been divided between the Nazis in the East and the Japanese in the West. America has become a third world country controlled and exploited by the victors. The Japanese are better masters than the Germans. The Germans have turned their part of the world into a living nightmare and are plotting to start a war with the Japanese. The Japanese are quiet and philosophical. The scenes of life in Japanese dominated San Francisco are oddly familiar. Dick has transposed the usual circumstance a visiting American finds in third world countries friendly to the United States: Wealthy foreigners living in exclusive enclaves, fawning local businessmen eager to get the foreign visitor's business, local police dominated and loosely controlled by the foreigners. The I Ching is central to the story, guiding the action of many of the protagonists. In all an imaginative take on what life could have been like, uniquely flavored by the influence of Eastern Philosophy.

OK, first let's get one thing out of the way - this is a great book, and it's absolutely irrelevant if you label it "science fiction," "alternative history," or whatever. Except for the purposes of book marketing, who cares anyway? The bottom line is that Philip K. Dick was too complex and intelligent a man for his work to be pinned down into any one genre. And who would want it to be?!? On one level, or course, "The Man in the High Castle" is - at least on the surface and on the jacket cover - about an alternative time line in which America loses World War II (with the Nazis taking over East of the Mississippi, the Japanese West of the Rockies, and the middle being a kind of backwater/no-man's land). But what is this book really about? My conclusion after reading the book, as well as many of the reviews here and out there on the web, as well as some stuff about Philip K. Dick, as well as talking to a really smart friend of mine who has read the book many times, is that this book is about several main themes, and can be read on several different levels (as most great works of fiction can be). Thus, in my opinion "The Man in the High Castle" is about, among other things (in no particular order): 1) the lives of Americans under Japanese occupation; 2) the lives of the Japanese occupiers, and especially their interaction with various Americans - white, black, Jewish; 3) the Japanese-German relationship, and the difference in Japanese and German culture; 4) what is the nature of "reality"?; 5) what is "authentic" and what is "fake"?; 6) what constitutes a moral life?; 7) culture and national identity; 8) how does one remain true to one's self/ideals, especially when it isn't easy to do so; 9) what is sane and what is crazy, especially in a highly confusing world without clear black-and-white moral choices (in other words, OUR world!)?; 10) the concept that there is some fascist within all of us, and how easy it is for fascism to settle in comfortably to "middle America"; 11) the place of the artist, artistic freedom, and artistic courage; 12) the connection between art and the "real world"; and 13) a relatively deterministic (i.e., Hegelian, the I Ching) view of the way history works (in which humans are essentially pawns) vs. one in which things are NOT preordained and in which actions (or lack thereof) by individuals can play huge roles. Whew! That's more to think about in one book than you'll get in several books of popular fiction put together!The bottom line: Philip K. Dick is a genius, and this is possibly his greatest book (although another one of his books is better known because it was made into the movie "Blade Runner"). Read it now...you won't soon forget it! (PS The complaints about the ending not tying things up neatly totally miss the point of the book - see #4, #5, #8, #11, and #12 above!).

The Man in the High Castle is Dick's masterpiece. Along with VALIS and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, it completes the trilogy of the author's essential works. A must read for Dickheads or for anyone who considers himself a serious fan of science fiction. Dick was clearly influenced by two earlier works of alternative history, Sarban's The Sound of His Horn and C. M. 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. Don't expect any slam-bang pyrotechnic action here, despite the novel's provocative premise. It's more a slice of life tale, showing that 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 an aside, it is pointed out that after the Nazi pograms, the only surviving prewar comedian is Bob Hope, and even he has to broadcast out of Canada. Also, an 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 actually being even-handed towards 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 brief instance when Juliana Frink reminiscences about conditions in San Francisco immediately after the occupation is their wartime rapacity even hinted at. Several other reviewers here appear to be put off that the novel didn't live up to the action and dramatic tension hinted at in the synopsis above or the 1964 Popular Library cover with 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, an 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 back drop for Dick's real theme: how can we be sure of what is real? Thus the seemingly minor scene involving two Zippo lighters is actu

Alternate history...Philip K. Dick style. What does that mean? Well, basically, if you think that the characters in this book seem a little out of place, keep reading, and you may find YOURSELF out of place. On the surface, it is the usual time-shifting novel...FDR was assasinated in 1936, and as a result, the United States lost WW II. Twenty years in the future, when the novel takes place, Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire have occupied the United States and imposed their brand of culture on their respective halves of the American populace. But this book really isn't about alternate time lines...its about alternate realities. Things are not as they seem...characters' true identities are hidden, and their moralities are tested. It's about the nature of the true state of the universe, Eastern religion, and the I-Ching. When Philip K. Dick is at his best, his characters question their own existence, and it soon follows that the readers do the same. So when you come to the end of the book, hopefully, a number of things will happen: Number 1: You'll instantly re-read the ending. Number 2: You'll throw the book against the wall and exclaim "that's it?" Number 3: You'll probably re-read the ending again. Number 4: You'll swear that you'll never read another Philip K. Dick novel. Number 5: Later, you'll think a bit about the book, and realize that the novel wasn't really about what you thought it was. Number 6: You'll read it again. And again... This isn't your typical sci-fi novel. The story doesn't wrap-up into a neat little package. Like Eastern religions, time is not linear, it is circular, and that is the reality of the book. Alternate histories are so commonplace in sci-fi today, that it is important to look at this book as the one that really started it all. A completely original masterpiece...even the followers can't keep up.