The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

“Can anyone alter fate? All of us combined... or one great figure... or someone strategically placed, who happens to be in the right spot. Chance. Accident. And our lives, our world, hanging on it.” 

 The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1963, making it the perfect choice for the "award-winning classic" category in my Back to the Classics challenge this year. The novel tells the story of an alternate history of the United States - one in which Germany and Japan won WWII. In this universe, Japan has taken possession of the west coast of the U.S., renaming it the Pacific States of America (P.S.A.), while the German Reich has established itself in the eastern part of the U.S. Between the two regions lies a neutral zone known as the Rocky Mountain States. The book begins 15 years after the end of WWII, and is set mostly in the P.S.A. This alternate country is quite different from the America we know today. In the German-held areas of the country concentration camps are still active and slavery for African Americans has been reinstated. Life in the P.S.A. is a little better, but strict control is maintained over what used to be the American people, and Jewish people are still living in fear of being found out and sent to the Reich. What America used to be like is little more than a dream, and former U.S. citizens have become resigned to their new way of life. This is not a novel about resistance fighters trying to reclaim America; this is a novel about a people who have been completely and utterly conquered.

Rather than follow one particular character, the novel focuses on several different people living and working in this alternate version of the world. Some of the main players are Frank Frink, a Jewish man struggling to conceal his ethnicity and form his own jewelry business, Juliana Frink, his estranged wife who lives in the Rocky Mountain States and teaches judo, Robert Childan, an American antiques shop owner, Nobusuke Tagomi, a Japanese trade official, and Rudolf Wegener, a German defector. The narration skips around between these characters giving bits and pieces of the larger plot. In the opening chapters of the novel their actions seem largely disconnected from each other. However, as the story continues on, their paths begin to converge. Some characters end up meeting and interacting with each other, while others are only tangentially connected through the story. In terms of plot, this is not a particularly tight novel. There's not one solid storyline that every character participates in. Instead, this is more a book of ideas and social commentary.

One such idea Dick explores here is the way people can adapt to almost anything. Formerly American characters living in the P.S.A. consult the I-Ching before making decisions, worry about honor and customs in a very Japanese manner, and even speak in broken English in their heads. This stands in such stark contrast to the typical American spirit of "rugged individualism" that it was a bit unsettling to read. Even the insidious racial ideas of the Nazis have become commonplace and acceptable in the minds of Americans. At one point, Robert Childan has an unsatisfactory business dealing with a person he later finds out is Jewish. He immediately thinks,

“We live in a society of law and order, where Jews can’t pull their subtleties on the innocent. We’re protected. I don’t know why I didn’t recognize the racial characteristics when I saw him. Evidently I’m easily deceived. . . . Without law, I’d be at their mercy. He could have convinced me of anything. It’s a form of hypnosis. They can control an entire society.”

 Childan is correct in that he is easily deceived, but by the Nazis, not Jewish people. The irony is striking and sad. Americans in this alternate world have become so used to the ideas of those that conquered them that they do not think for themselves anymore.

At the center of the book is the man in the high castle, or Hawthorne Abendsen. He is author of a book about an alternative history of  his world. His novel, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, is a story about what might have happened if the U.S.A. and Great Britain won WWII. This book is banned in the German and Japanese-held portions of the country for it's "dangerous" ideas, but everyone seems to have read it anyway. This book within a book technique is very meta, and essentially places the author right inside his own work. The version of events in Grasshopper don't match up with how WWII really ended for us either, which creates another alternate history to read about.

The Man in the High Castle is definitely a unique reading experience. It deals with very uncomfortable ideas presented in an unflinching light. The story is twisty, confusing, and not incredibly cohesive. The characters are colorful, but lacking real depth or sympathy. However, there's something so engaging and interesting in its pages that you can't help but fall into it and start thinking about a whole lot of "what ifs". I've read a few other Philip K. Dick novels in the past (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and Ubik), but I think this one is my favorite so far. It's weird, but it's also intriguing, and it most definitely deserved its Hugo Award. I'm glad I gave this novel a try.
  

Challenge Tally
Back to the Classics (an award-winning classic): 8/100
Classics Club (#49 on my list):  8/12
TBR 2017 (previously owned): 21/60