Could someone explain The Man in the High Castle to me?
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
What do you want explained?
What happens? Or why you should like it?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
What the heck happened in the end? Why didn't anything get wrapped up in most of the story lines?
Why should I like it?
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
He purposely left the ending ambiguous so that he could write a sequel one day. He stated later that every time he sat down to write it however that his researched disturbed him to the point that he did not wish to revisit the Nazis.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I constantly don't get his novels. Love the short stories though.
But it seems like there's something going on that just is out of reach. Like in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? there's the one viewpoint character who is supposed to be mentally subnormal, but his internal monologue is the most sophisticated in the book.
And there oftens seems to be points where Dick just did drugs and wrote whatever came to mind. The woman dealing with the SS officer in the hotel room of Castle comes to mind.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I didn't get the Oracle thing at the end. It was treated as of great significance, but what the heck was he saying?
That these people found out that they were characters in a alternate history novel?
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:And there oftens seems to be points where Dick just did drugs and wrote whatever came to mind. The woman dealing with the SS officer in the hotel room of Castle comes to mind.
It's no secret that Dick used drugs to fuel is writing, to what extent I cannot say, but "A Scanner Darkly" has some basis in Dick's own experiences with drugs.
Posted by Nighthawk (Member # 4176) on :
Wait 'til a movie with a completely different name comes out, then it will be all explained.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
quote:What the heck happened in the end? Why didn't anything get wrapped up in most of the story lines?
Why should I like it?
I really love Dick's stories and themes and ideas, but i think he just doesn't know how to end a book. I find myself being constantly let down by his endings.
That said, I think the point of The Man in The High Castle is about the distinction between "fake" and "real", between what we perceive as reality, and what is really real, and if there is even really a difference(i.e.-the fake antiques and replicas in the book). About how much our perception and preconceived notions determine our reality.
As for why you should like it, I think that's more a general question to do with PKD books. If you like stories that deal with concepts of reality and existence(in a really weird way fueled by PKD's drug addiction) then you'll probably like his books. If not, then you won't.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
also, remember that PKD seriously believed that we were all living in a fake reality. that it was really the time of Jesus, and reality kept looping around that same time period over and over and everything we see and perceive is a sham made to make us think we're not really in biblical times.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I thought I was the only person who felt that way about his novels, Squicky. I've read three of his novels (Androids, Scanner, High Castle), and had more or less the same reaction to all of them as you have described.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Oh, and the jewelry thing. Frink and his partner were I think supposed to be master craftsmen who made delicate jewelry. However, when the shop owner displayed them to the Japanese, they are described as flat blobs that people laughed at. I didn't get that at all.
I mean, I can understand the makers thinking that they were better than other people looking at them would, but the very physical structure of the jewelry apparently changed.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
quote:That these people found out that they were characters in a alternate history novel?
no, that the alternate history novel wasn't really alternate history, but what actually happened. And that basically mass propaganda created a false reality. If you believe it strong enough, it is.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Mass propoganda coming from who? The Americans and British who acutally won? Why would they have wanted to sell people on the idea that the Nazis won?
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
I don't know if it was propaganda in the sense that it was coming from one organization. Or just more of a mass delusion that ran away with itself.
I also only read the book once years ago, so I may not be the best at explaining the ins and outs of it. This is just what I can still recall at this point. The plot itself is real fuzzy.
edit - also, knowing Dick, there may be no rational explanation for why it happened at all.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I loved Gaiman's Dream of a Thousand Cats so it's not like I'm unsympathetic to the idea, but I just have no idea how that was what we were supposed to take away from it. How did you determine, if you can remember, that this was what was supposed to have happened?
---
As I said, I really PKD's short stories, so I'd like to be able to get his novels.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
When I read it, I didn't get even a whiff that the Allies had actually won the war in that world.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
There's a bit where Mrs. Frink is talking to the guy who wrote the Grasshopper book and about the Oracle and then somehow, the Oracle wrote the book and it's because that is what really happened. It's within the last 10 pages of the book.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
From what I remember of the ending, they finally get to the house of the man in the high castle, and they proceed to have a long conversation there, and the end result of that conversation was that they came to the realization that the Allies had really won the war and that the book wasn't a work of fiction. I also remember the japanese guy suddenly seeing a different world around him that seemed more like present day america.
Posted by Javert Hugo (Member # 3980) on :
I read The Man in the High Castle based on a reccomendation here and felt completely ripped off. The last three pages were kind of cool, but not cool enough to justify the 200 pages of boring and pointless that came before.
Posted by Qaz (Member # 10298) on :
I am not sure but I think that Dick was like Kafka: he was in love with his idea and was sure you would be too. The difference is that Dick actually had stories to tell along the way.
Posted by TL (Member # 8124) on :
The Man in the High Castle! That's the other one on my top 5 sci fi novels of all time list.
Thanks for the reminder, guys. By the way, my interpretation: 'The Grasshopper Lies Heavy' was the truth -- not necessarily in the world in which they lived -- but in some world, somewhere, just as real. And the truth of it transcended the boundaries of reality. That's why, when the people who read 'Grasshopper' read it, they became obsessed -- they sensed a meaning beyond the obvious, beyond a propagandist hope; they sensed that it was real.
And it was.
To me, High Castle has meaning of unbelievable beauty, also beyond its obvious value as the kind of brain-twisting intellectual exercise for which Dick was famous.
Truth transcends reality.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
When you explain it that way, I don't feel bad that I didn't appreciate or like it.
I do vaguely remember that it was supposedly real at the end, though. It just meant so little to me that I forgot about it.
[ July 10, 2007, 09:41 PM: Message edited by: mr_porteiro_head ]
Posted by TL (Member # 8124) on :
I hate it when people don't like the things I like. Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: I thought I was the only person who felt that way about his novels, Squicky.
Oh, me too. I read Do Androids . . . and it was -- well, not entirely horrible. And IIRC, a friend was insisting that his books were great. I tried two more (I no longer recall which ones) and didn't mange to slog through either.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
I put down High Castle half way through, and have never been tempted to pick it back up again. One of those books that I just don't get why some people think it's great. Didn't do anything for me.
Posted by Leonide (Member # 4157) on :
I liked Radio Free Albemuth I tried, and failed, to get into Ubik. Thus endeth my attempts at reading PKD. Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
Ubik was one of the wost things I have ever read.
Posted by SteveRogers (Member # 7130) on :
I've tried to read Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said quite a few times. And I have yet to finish it. The story seems interesting. But his style isn't something I take joy in reading.
I'll probably read it eventually. But right now, it's not on my priority list.
In fact, that list is dominated by the summer reading books for my Honors History class.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is the only one of his books that I've read that I liked.
Posted by plaid (Member # 2393) on :
Ubik is my fave PKD novel. As a teen I read it late one night and it was a very freaky experience.
I liked the PKD books I read in my late teens (Ubik, Flow My Tears, the Man in the High Castle), but that was enough PKD to satisfy me, and except for a few short stories I haven't needed to read any of his books since. (Which isn't to say that I don't like him, just that I don't have the urge to read more.)
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Could someone explain The Man in the High Castle to me?
Dick was allegedly known for doing a lot of psychedelic drugs. This I learned in a science fiction literature class. He also, I believe, claimed to have an incredibly active dream life.
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