The Man in the High Castle by Phillip K. Dick

[dwndrgn]

You may start the discussion at any time - you might want to begin with certain questions regarding style and form before you get to discussing the 'meat' of the book.

Fire away!

 

[Brian G Turner]

In other words: what was the annoying stylistic element in the beginning, littlemiss?

 

[littlemissattitude]

In other words: what was the annoying stylistic element in the beginning, littlemiss?

Well, I have to admit that I haven't finished reading the book yet - that's my weekend project. Still, this is a question I can answer.

The thing that was annoying me at the beginning, until I got used to it, was the way Dick has some of the characters using vaguely Japanese syntax while speaking English. I don't even know that annoying is the right word, really. As I said, I know why he did it, and it was a legitimate thing for him to do (I'm not one of those people who have a problem with it when writers use dialect in their work). It was just a hard rhythm to get used to. I kept having to stop and consciously translate into English syntax until I got into that rhythm.

Not a big thing, really. I just kept thinking (quite fondly) of some of the students I used to tutor, who were from various places in Asia and who had English vocabulary figured out but hadn't quite gotten the syntax down yet. They were doing very well for having, some of them, spoken English for less than a year. Unfortunately, their English teachers - especially - at college weren't cutting them any slack when they slipped into Japanese or Chinese syntax in their written work, which was why I was tutoring them. Good memories, but they kept pulling me out of the story.

Anyway, I am enjoying the book - especially the discussions about historicity - and am looking forward to disucssing it when I do finish reading it.

 

[dwndrgn]

Well, I'm having trouble reading this one. Not only is the 'dialect' distracting, the story is putting me to sleep and I haven't even gotten a third of the way through! I'll be trying some more this evening. Hopefully I can finally get into the story and read the whole thing in one sitting so I can at least discuss it with some knowledge behind me.

 

[littlemissattitude]

Well, I'm having trouble reading this one. Not only is the 'dialect' distracting, the story is putting me to sleep and I haven't even gotten a third of the way through! I'll be trying some more this evening. Hopefully I can finally get into the story and read the whole thing in one sitting so I can at least discuss it with some knowledge behind me.

Just finished reading it a couple of hours ago. Have to think about it awhile before I can organize my thoughts to comment in any sort of organized way.

My first reaction, though, is that there is a lot to think about in this book and that it is worth reading, but that it didn't really work that well for me as a novel. I didn't get that satisfied, "that was a good read" feeling when I was finished with it. This doesn't mean that I won't have some things to say about the ideas contained in it and the implications of those ideas.

 

[zorka]

You may start the discussion at any time - you might want to begin with certain questions regarding style and form before you get to discussing the 'meat' of the book.

Fire away!

Well, after plunging through the many books I have stored in my basement, I finally found my copy of MITHC and will try to start re-reading it again - it's been years - and participate in the discussion. Lately, due to work pressures, my reading time has been limited, but I'll do what I can to catch up.

Looking forward to reading what others think.

 

[dwndrgn]

That's sort of the way I feel. I'm not finished yet but I get the feeling that it is a collection of stories to illustrate the author's thoughts and extrapolations - not necessarily a complete story. However, that might change as I continue to read.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

The story is in fact left...erm..bah. I can't talk until everyone finishes.


Oddly, I'm finding the dialect least irritating out here, and I'm the only Asian around. The weird thing is, English actually is my first language - I even think in English and barely have a third of the vocabulary in my own language. Strange.

 

[Brian G Turner]

it didn't really work that well for me as a novel. I didn't get that satisfied, "that was a good read" feeling when I was finished with it.

That was my original impression as well.

I finally found my copy of MITHC and will try to start re-reading it again - it's been years - and participate in the discussion.

It'll be good to have you aboard.

 

[dwndrgn]

Well, I finally finished the thing. I have to say that I think that was the hardest book I've ever had to read. It annoyed me, depressed me, confused me and never came to a satisfactory conclusion for me.

I suppose I'm mostly annoyed because he had good points to make but they would have gone down easier with a little more enjoyable story.

I won't go into more detail until for a while, to allow others to finish reading the book.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

I'm inclined to agree to an extent, I've always felt that many of his books would have worked better if he was a bit more focussed.

Also, I have a read an interview where Dick says that he actually used the I Ching in creating the story, much like the writer in the book, Abendson does, and it didn't give him an ending. A possible explanation or just a mystic cop-out? Hmmm...

Let me go out on a limb and tell you my own feeling about this issue. I don't think a conclusion matters in this case - actually, a lot of points are resolved a few chapters before the end, and what is left over will not be resolved. It's left to us to put the book down and not leave the story, and more importantly, the ideas in it, behind us. Instead this book is a spark-point for the reader to think about the issues inside - the chances of history, the impact of different cultures on each other, the nature of fascism and tyranny, and, as in any Dick book, the meaning of reality and individual freewill. It works very well as such, and there really aren't enough books which do that.


Pop quiz: How many versions of reality are layered into this book?

 

[zorka]

I'm inclined to agree to an extent, I've always felt that many of his books would have worked better if he was a bit more focussed.

Let me go out on a limb and tell you my own feeling about this issue. I don't think a conclusion matters in this case

Well, I finally finished my re-reading of this book. Last time I read it was in the late 80's. And as I read I began to recall various scenes from the earlier read. My immediate response is that the book is as riveting for me this go round as it was the first time.

I disagree with Knivesout above that the book was not focused. I think it was very focused though I do agree that the ending is rather bland except that as Knivesout says above, that a conclusion really didn't matter.

This was a book filled with some of the regular Dickian themes of reality and illusion, but all of the major characters were very finely drawn - something I don't always find with Mr. Dick's stories.

Like LittleMiss, I found the comments about historicity fascinating. The lengthy scene about the two Zippo lighters for example as well as the Colt .44's and what makes them authentic or valuable.

I found this to be a book I could not put down and am in the group that would recommend it highly.

 

[littlemissattitude]

Well, to begin with, in my earlier comments I was not saying that I would not recommend the book. I would, but with the caveat that the reader not expect anything like the normal conclusion to a novel.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS...IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED THE BOOK YET, YOU MIGHT NOT WANT TO READ ANY FARTHER UNTIL YOU HAVE.

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I would also like to say that, now that I have thought about the ending, I think that Dick might have been asking a very important question - or maybe making a very important statement about who did really win the war ("Germany and Japan lost the war", p. 257). Maybe that's just my reading of what he said, colored by my own particular political biases. But think about it, taking into consideration when Dick wrote the book (it was published in 1962), during what might be seen as the height of the Cold War (remember that the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred in October of 1962) and coming out of the decade of the 1950s, McCarthyism, and some serious violations of some people's civil liberties. It seems to me that Dick might have been asking, well, did the fascists really win the war, even though Germany and Japan lost, and we just didn't notice?

I don't have any idea of what his politics might have been (this is the first Philip K. Dick novel I've ever read), but that seems to me at least a logical reading of his ending of the novel. If that is indeed what he was saying, maybe the way he ended it was appropriate. Doesn't make it any more satisfying for me, but I can see the logic to it.

There are some other issues I'd like to address, but I think for simplicity's sake, I'll leave it at this for now. Have I gone completely off my rocker in this interpretation of what Dick was trying to say in his novel? Am I reading political statements or judgements into it that don't really exist? Did I miss something in the reading of the novel that negates this interpretation?

 

[zorka]

What you are suggesting LittleMiss is perhaps one layer of this book. But having read a lot of other PKD, I suggest that this layer is not (for me, at least) relevant to the whole novel.

Certainly Dick is influenced by his times - probably much more so because he lived in Berkely, which at that time was hot bed of political discussion. But I think of Dick more of a philosopher rather than a politician. Throughout this book are references that imply as if one is in a dream. Dick is struggling with what is real and unreal here. There are several references to awakening throughout the book. E.g. when Baynes is flying over to San Francisco and is on the plane with the passenger Lotze (p.37, 1988 Ace Paperback edition) he ponders "it's a psychotic world we live in. The madmen are in power." He talks about sanity vs. insanity from an awareness perspective of the cruelty of the times in which he lives - "Perhaps if you know you are insane then you are not insane. Or you are becoming sane, finally. Waking up." Later when Tagomi has left his office horrified at the events he has just participated in, he somehow transcends time and space through the jewelry and finds himself in the world of the The Grasshopper Lies Heavy when he goes into the diner expecting to be treated with respect but is not. He runs back to the park and attempts to refocus on the silver triangle: "Scrutinize it forcefully and and count. At ten, utter startling noise." And what does he utter - Erwache - German for awake.

For me this book is a struggle for what is real. Even some of the people are not who they say they are - Frink is Fink, Baynes is Wegener, Yatabe is Tedeki, Cinnadello may or may not be a war hero, the Colt .44's are not what they appear to be, etc.

This is perhaps just another layer but one I find significant to much of the PKD I have read.

 

[Brian G Turner]

PK Dick often seemed a more experimental writer than a straight story writer - certainly with his novels, anyway. The couple of short stories that I've read were very much in the storytelling vein - a great idea explained and explored.

His novel writing - from little I've read - always seemed as much concerned with different ways you could work the medium, rather than use it plainly. A sort of post-modernist in the sf genre, if you will.

That he should write something with the I, Ching as his guide was certainly a very post-modernist concept (IMO). In which case the focus isn't necessarily on the story, as much as the process of the story itself - if that makes sense.

 

[littlemissattitude]

Yes, Zorka, I caught all that - the undercurrents of waking up, of wondering what reality really is (this is done very interestingly via the discussions of historicity), and also of realizing that evil is very real and existent in the world.

You say that:

For me this book is a struggle for what is real. Even some of the people are not who they say they are - Frink is Fink, Baynes is Wegener, Yatabe is Tedeki, Cinnadello may or may not be a war hero, the Colt .44's are not what they appear to be, etc.

I don't think that is necessarily contradictory to the theme that I saw and talked about in my other post. Perhaps it is only a specific way of asking the same questions you talk about in a more general, philosophical way. Do we really (here in the States, at least) really have the form of government that we assume we have: is our reputed democracy (or republic, depending on one's political point of view), with its guaranteed freedoms, really what it is held out to be? Or have we been duped into believing that we are free do and say and believe what we wish, and are only really free so long as we don't make a point of our beliefs? Did, maybe, the fascists win even though they lost? Those could be questions that Dick might reasonably be asking at the time when he wrote the book. Certainly, I was not implying that those were the only questions he was asking, or the only theme he was pursuing. I don't even necessarily hold that he was asking these specific questions in a conscious way. I do think that, because of the story he told and the way in which he told it (the choices he - or the I Ching - made), that this theme is one specific way of seeing the general themes he approached in the story. Different people, depending on their interests and outlooks, will see different specifics within the general ideas that Dick explores. I don't think that's a bad thing. I'm not one of those who believes that there is only one "correct" way of seeing or interpreting fiction.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Oh, when I said Dick could have been more focussed, I was speaking more from a perspective that, in a genre where plot is often more important than prose or even ideas, Dick may often have been overestimating what the generic audience was ready for.

I have to agree with Brian that Dick was an SFnal postmodernist, consciously or not. Zorka and littlemiss seem to have explored many of the themes I was thinking about, so I'll leave my remarks at this, until something else strikes me.

 

[dwndrgn]

I don't know if this is a result of being personally offended or just what I feel or whatever but I didn't like his portrayal of how Americans seemed to have accepted their lot in life. The worst example of this is Childan, the shop owner who tries so hard to be a part of the Japanese society that he has to remind himself that he really isn't.

I also didn't like the fact that Frink's life was run by everyone else, his job, his friend, random luck...he seems to be completely adrift and blowing in the wind.

His wife was just odd. I couldn't understand her at all. She couldn't decide if she hated society as it was or just didn't care enough to hate it.

Cinnadelo didn't fit either of his personas, whichever was real.

Baynes also was very conflicting - one minute he's hesitant, the next he's decisive.

It felt to me like the book was written over a long period of time and Dick lost the sense of the characters and instead of re-reading what he wrote, just continued on.

Overall it was disconnected, choppy, hard to follow and just plain odd. I don't think I could discuss layers and theories because I really had a hard time just getting through it and if I were to try and analize that it would come out all garbled. I leave all of that to you guys

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

I don't know if this is a result of being personally offended or just what I feel or whatever but I didn't like his portrayal of how Americans seemed to have accepted their lot in life. The worst example of this is Childan, the shop owner who tries so hard to be a part of the Japanese society that he has to remind himself that he really isn't.

Nevertheless, that was a good representation of the colonial experience. I think the fact that Dick has showed us a reversal of the real-world Europeans-ruling-Asians scenarios is very interesting. I must confess I also enjoyed the notion in rather petty way.

You'd be surprised how much a subject people pick up on the ways of their masters. The British quit India a good half century back but their influence can still be seen in so many ways - in school uniforms, in our bureacracy, even in the fact that English is the only language I am really comfortable with. Or the fact that I use UK English spellings.

In some ways, I am like Childan, and so are many other Indians.

I realise that none of the characters fit into typical protagonist modes, but I don't think that makes them poorly depicted. I know people like Frink in real life, for instance. Life does work that way.

Still, I realise it's not a book to everyone's preference and I do respect that fact.

 

[dwndrgn]

Nevertheless, that was a good representation of the colonial experience. I think the fact that Dick has showed us a reversal of the real-world Europeans-ruling-Asians scenarios is very interesting. I must confess I also enjoyed the notion in rather petty way.

Completely understandable.

You'd be surprised how much a subject people pick up on the ways of their masters. The British quit India a good half century back but their influence can still be seen in so many ways - in school uniforms, in our bureacracy, even in the fact that English is the only language I am really comfortable with. Or the fact that I use UK English spellings.

That part I understand, I mean I can be speaking with someone who has a strong southern accent and I'll subconciously pick that up and speak that way as well. This can be very aggravating because often people feel that you are making fun of them when you don't even realize you are doing it. Perhaps that is some sort of vestigial survival thing. Who knows.

Maybe I just didn't like the way Childan worked so hard to think like the Japanese, not necessarily his picking up of their habits. Probably just me not liking being the loser, which is probably one of the ways Dick was trying to show us the other side. So basically he did what he wanted, and it ticked me off and then I just couldn't get into the thing. I suppose that just shows I'm one of those arrogant Americans .

Hopefully I'll like May's book better.