The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

Hello, Stranger.

Let's talk about Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle.

The Short of It

Plot: Turns out it'd be bad if the Axis had won.

Page Count: 249

Award: 1963 Hugo

Worth a read: No, but it hurts to say it
Primary Driver: (Plot, World, or Character)
Bechdel Test: Fail
Technobabble: Minimal
Review: I wanted to like this more. Some details are excellent, like people constantly consulting the Tao Te Ching. But the MacGuffin of an in-universe alternate history book seems self-serving, and the actual alt history is not that interesting. The big twist is also a surprise to characters in-universe, but not to us as readers, which has it fall a bit flat.

The Medium of It

Spoiler Free!

I went into this book with high expectations; I am a big fan of both Philip K. Dick and alternate history. Perhaps if my expectations were lower I would have enjoyed the book more. Characters here are both abundant and uninteresting; they each bring little or nothing to the table, and seem to be present for a specific story beat or interaction to occur. They spend most of their time as written puttering about and filling time - they are basically twiddling their thumbs until curtain call. 

The depiction of the alternate world is completely devoid of subtlety. Alternate histories tend to shine when they show insidious and quiet impacts on people's lives. What difference does the lord make for a peasant, after all? It is good to see the peasants flourish or falter. Most nuance is pitched straight out the window, and characters explain explicitly what went on in their version of history. This creates awkward and stilted interactions and dialogue, further stripping any humanity from the players in the story.

Pacing is slow; the purpose of this book is to showcase an alternate world, so plot is certainly secondary. The world itself, however, is pretty vanilla. 

Nonetheless, it's interesting to read what must be one of the first modern alternate histories. I would say not to waste your time on this, but it is fine. You won't regret reading it, but there are far better things to read.

If you do decide to read it, please use the link below! It'll help me stay tethered to this reality by helping me buy more books, at no cost to you.

It is I! The link!

The Long of It

Spoilers Ahead!

This book is fine. It's not great, it's not bad, it's just... there.  But there are a number of issues with it.

First, the MacGguffin (an object that drives the story) is an in-universe alternate history that depicts the victory of the Allies. People discuss at length how brilliant the author must be for coming up with such clever and insightful glimpses of an alternate world.  It feel like Dick is just patting himself on the back.

The contrast with our reality is generally well done.  The details of custom and behavior, tensions over who is civilizing whom, and low level interactions are nicely executed.  The emphasis on pedicabs as transport is meant to highlight how fundamental the differences are. Consider also the ever-present nature of the Tao Te Ching - which is used for excellent characterization and world-building.

Then there's the stuff that's just crammed in. There's a space program so we have Nazis on Mars, apparently, which is a thing that is just mentioned in passing a few times. Space Nazis. Not worth exploring more, it seems.

Broader world building is done through awkward speeches, out of place musing, or improbable conversations.  For example:

Later, as they drove through the nocturnal traffic in Wyndam-Matson's Mercedes-Benz, she resumed. "Abendsen's theory is that Roosevelt would have been a terribly strong President. As strong as Lincoln. He showed it in the year he was President, all those measures he introduced. The book is fiction. I mean, it's in novel form. Roosevelt isn't assassinated in Miami; he goes on and is reelected in 1936, so he's President until 1940, until during the war. Don't you see? He's still President when Germany attacks England and France and Poland. And he sees all that. He makes America strong. Garner was a really awful President. A lot of what happened was his fault. And then in 1940, instead of Bricker, a Democrat would have been elected — "

You know, how humans speak to each other, where they monologue about both historical facts and the books they are reading.  Like a human do.  Or my personal favorite line:

Wyndam-Matson said, "Listen. What does he say about Pearl Harbor?"

I'm just saying that none of the characters in this book could check the box for "I am not a robot."

The world Dick depicts is built as a mirror-reality of ours, which is where some other problems emerge.  Most notably, his treatment of African Americans.  In short, slavery is back and better than ever.  Dick is clear about this - it is because of the Americans losing that there is a lack of integration. The issue is not the inclusion of slavery itself; though we're already using Nazis, so making them slavers is really just putting a hat on a hat. They're already maxing out the Evil-o-tron. The issue is that these are all meant to be in contrast to our better real world, which suggests that Dick basically thinks that we solved racism. Perhaps I'm reading too far, but that is how these reversals seem to work between his world and ours.

A smaller issue but a pet peeve: there are a pair of jewelers who make abstract jewelry, the likes of which no one has ever seen. This is touted as truly American; a reflection of us as a society, a point of pride. Here's the thing - abstract art is both not an American invention and predates the divergence of our two worlds. A bit of quick research pulls up sources discussing Kandinsky (Russian) and Delaunay (French). Kandinsky wrote a manifesto where he claims to be the first abstract artist; seems to be up for debate. More relevant, however, is the fact that Japanese is a language of pictographs - the concept of a simple symbol representing a concept is straight up the alphabet. Including some that are truly abstractions - pulling from the Wikipedia article on Abstract Art, "In Tokugawa Japan, some Zen monk-painters created Enso, a circle who represents the absolute enlightenment. Usually made in one spontaneous brush stroke, it became the paradigm of the minimalist aesthetic that guided part of the Zen painting."

The other big issue is the twist ending, that the Allies actually won, and this is an alternate world.

Raising his head, Hawthorne scrutinized her. He had now an almost savage expression. "It means, does it, that my book is true?'"

"Yes," she said. 

With anger he said, "Germany and Japan lost the war?"

"Yes."

Well these characters are surprised. We sure are not. Surprise, reality! What a wet blanket of an ending. A decent bit of buildup, and for what? To find out that we live in the real world? I expected better of you, Philip K. Dick.

It's a pleasure sharing this reality with you, Stranger.

And don't forget to read a book!