A review by thuismuis
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
3.0
The premise of this book is fantastically interesting, what if the Axis powers won WWII?!?
But the book itself doesn't measure up to the amazing premise at all. Spoilers(maybe?) below.
It meanders through a few character's lives, but nothing terribly consequential happens for any character in the book. And ALSO, in this book, Philip k dick has the characters talk about ANOTHER book called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. In this universe, 'Grasshopper' is the story of what if the Allies had won WWII. And since the United States at this point is divided in half by the Japanese on the pacific and the Germans on the east coast, 'Grasshopper' is banned by the Reich. But the characters mention this book ALL THE TIME. It's like Philip K Dick is being incredibly meta and making the characters talk about his OWN alternate history book, when they talk about Grasshopper Lies Heavy. The author of Grasshoper is called The Man in the High Castle, since he supposedly lives in a fortress after writing & publishing the banned book.
I know publishers more than often pick the title of a book, but c'mon. The title , and subsequent over-reference to Grasshopper Lies Heavy, makes it look like Dick thinks of himself as The Man in the High castle.
Anyway, after all this literary meta masturbation about Grasshopper, one of the characters goes to meet the author of Grasshopper and asks why did he write it?! TL;DR the I Ching wrote it, and the author just wrote the story based on what his consulting of the IChing said. And that means the book is true. WHOOP DEE FREAKIN' DOO. Like, frreal, gawd what a cheap ending.
Props to Dick for hella fleshing out the world of his Alternate history, it's pretty fantastic reading about how San Francisco is under Japan rule of The Pacific States of America. And he definitely went to a lot of trouble to put in a bunch of German titles and vocabulary, and build the creepy politics of the post WWII, Reich is supreme kind of world. I loved the world building in this book, but be prepared for nothing of consequence to happen. I understand the TV show on Amazon prime is pretty amazing at showing the world of this Alternate history, and it also goes really slowly until mid seasons. It going slow, is at least definitely true to the pacing of the book. But I hope the TV series, unlike the book, will actually go somewhere with characters I care about.
3 stars for world building and because Dick wrote a book and I have not. -2 stars because nothing happens and parts of the book read like an angry white uncle's Facebook rant against the world because they ran out of toilet paper at Walmart.
But the book itself doesn't measure up to the amazing premise at all. Spoilers(maybe?) below.
It meanders through a few character's lives, but nothing terribly consequential happens for any character in the book. And ALSO, in this book, Philip k dick has the characters talk about ANOTHER book called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. In this universe, 'Grasshopper' is the story of what if the Allies had won WWII. And since the United States at this point is divided in half by the Japanese on the pacific and the Germans on the east coast, 'Grasshopper' is banned by the Reich. But the characters mention this book ALL THE TIME. It's like Philip K Dick is being incredibly meta and making the characters talk about his OWN alternate history book, when they talk about Grasshopper Lies Heavy. The author of Grasshoper is called The Man in the High Castle, since he supposedly lives in a fortress after writing & publishing the banned book.
I know publishers more than often pick the title of a book, but c'mon. The title , and subsequent over-reference to Grasshopper Lies Heavy, makes it look like Dick thinks of himself as The Man in the High castle.
Anyway, after all this literary meta masturbation about Grasshopper, one of the characters goes to meet the author of Grasshopper and asks why did he write it?! TL;DR the I Ching wrote it, and the author just wrote the story based on what his consulting of the IChing said. And that means the book is true. WHOOP DEE FREAKIN' DOO. Like, frreal, gawd what a cheap ending.
Props to Dick for hella fleshing out the world of his Alternate history, it's pretty fantastic reading about how San Francisco is under Japan rule of The Pacific States of America. And he definitely went to a lot of trouble to put in a bunch of German titles and vocabulary, and build the creepy politics of the post WWII, Reich is supreme kind of world. I loved the world building in this book, but be prepared for nothing of consequence to happen. I understand the TV show on Amazon prime is pretty amazing at showing the world of this Alternate history, and it also goes really slowly until mid seasons. It going slow, is at least definitely true to the pacing of the book. But I hope the TV series, unlike the book, will actually go somewhere with characters I care about.
3 stars for world building and because Dick wrote a book and I have not. -2 stars because nothing happens and parts of the book read like an angry white uncle's Facebook rant against the world because they ran out of toilet paper at Walmart.