The Man in the High Castle
by Philip K Dick.
There were very varied reactions to this book.
Just about everybody found it hard to read and confusing.
Some couldn’t get into it and didn’t enjoy it all.
For others it was well worth the effort and they ended up loving it.
Love it or loathe it the book certainly provided plenty of food for thought.
Dick’s work in creating his alternative reality – a world in which the Nazis and their Japanese allies won the Second World War – is meticulous and his research and knowledge of even fairly minor historical figures is impressive.
The “science” element of Dick’s science fiction is, perhaps, less impressive and this was a problem for some.
But ultimately he is concerned with the world of ideas, the exploration of consciousness and what it is to be human.
Dick’s reality is multi-dimensional and other worlds can be glimpsed.
As Wegener muses, “there must be world after world unseen by us in some region or dimension that we simply do not perceive”.
At the heart of this alternative reality is another fictional alternative alternative reality, “The Grasshopper Lies Heavy” which the I Ching reveals is “true”.
NS
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