- Dick, Philip K.
The Man in the High Castle.
New York: Mariner Books, [1962] 2011.
ISBN 978-0-547-57248-2.
-
The year is 1962. Following the victory of Nazi Germany
and Imperial Japan in World War II, North America is divided
into spheres of influence by the victors, with the west
coast Pacific States of America controlled by Japan,
the territory east of the Mississippi split north and
south between what is still called the United States of
America and the South, where slavery has been
re-instituted, both puppet states of Germany. In between
are the Rocky Mountain states, a buffer zone between
the Japanese and German sectors with somewhat more
freedom from domination by them.
The point of departure where this alternative history
diverges from our timeline is in 1934, when Franklin
D. Roosevelt is assassinated in Miami, Florida. (In
our history, Roosevelt was uninjured in an
assassination
attempt in Miami in 1933 that killed the mayor of
Chicago, Anton Cermak.) Roosevelt's vice president,
John Nance Garner,
succeeds to the presidency and
is re-elected in 1936. In 1940, the Republican party
retakes the White House, with
John W. Bricker
elected president. Garner and Bricker pursue a policy of strict
neutrality and isolation, which allows Germany, Japan, and Italy
to divide up the most of the world and coerce other nations into
becoming satellites or client states. Then, Japan and Germany
mount simultaneous invasions of the east and west coasts of the
U.S., resulting in a surrender in 1947 and the present division
of the continent.
By 1962, the victors are secure in their domination of the
territories they have subdued. Germany has raced ahead
economically and in technology, draining the Mediterranean to
create new farmland, landing on the Moon and Mars, and
establishing high-speed suborbital rocket transportation service
throughout their far-flung territories. There is no serious
resistance to the occupation in the former United States: its
residents seem to be more or less resigned to second-class
status under their German or Japanese overlords.
In the Pacific States the Japanese occupiers have settled in
to a comfortable superiority over the vanquished, and
many have become collectors of artefacts of the vanished
authentic America. Robert Childan runs a shop in San Francisco
catering to this clientèle, and is contacted by an official
of the Japanese Trade Mission, seeking a gift to impress a
visiting Swedish industrialist. This leads into a maze of
complexity and nothing being as it seems as only
Philip K.
Dick (PKD) can craft. Is the Swede really a Swede or a German,
and is he a Nazi agent or something else? Who is the mysterious
Japanese visitor he has come to San Francisco to meet? Is
Childan a supplier of rare artefacts or a swindler exploiting
gullible Japanese rubes with fakes?
Many characters in the book are reading a novel called
The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, banned in areas
under German occupation but available in the Pacific States
and other territories, which is an alternative history tale
written by an elusive author named Hawthorne Abendsen, about
a world in which the Allies defeated Germany and Japan in
World War II and ushered in a golden age of peace, prosperity,
and freedom. Abendsen is said to have retreated to a
survivalist compound called the High Castle in the Rocky
Mountain states. Characters we meet become obsessed with
tracking down and meeting Abendsen. Who are they, and what
are their motives? Keep reminding yourself, this is a PKD
novel! We're already dealing with a fictional mysterious
author of an alternative history of World War II within
an alternative history novel of World War II by an author who
is himself a grand illusionist.
It seems like everybody in the Pacific States, regardless of
ethnicity or nationality, is obsessed with the
I Ching.
They are constantly consulting “the oracle” and
basing their decisions upon it. Not just the westerners
but even the Japanese are a little embarrassed by this, as
the latter are aware that is it an invention of the Chinese,
who they view as inferior, yet they rely upon it none the less.
Again, the PKD shimmering reality distortion
field comes into play as the author says that he consulted the
I Ching to make decisions while plotting the
novel, as does Hawthorne Abendsen in writing the novel within
the novel.
This is quintessential PKD: the story is not so much about what
happens (indeed, there is little resolution of any of the
obvious conflicts in the circumstances of the plot) but
rather instilling in the reader a sense that nothing is
what it appears to be and, at the meta (or meta meta) level,
that our history and destiny are ruled as much by chance
(exemplified here by the I Ching) as by our
intentions, will, and actions. At the end of the story, little
or nothing has been resolved, and we are left only with
questions and uncertainty. (PKD said that he intended a
sequel, but despite efforts in that direction, never completed
one.)
I understand that some kind of
television
adaptation loosely based upon the novel has been produced by
one of those streaming services which are only available to
people who live in continental-scale, railroad-era, legacy
empires. I have not seen it, and have no interest in doing so.
PKD is notoriously difficult to adapt to visual media, and
today's Hollywood is, shall we say, not strong on nuance and
ambiguity, which is what his fiction is all about.
Nuance and ambiguity…. Here's the funny thing. When I
finished this novel, I was unimpressed and disappointed. I
expected it to be great: I have enjoyed the fiction of PKD since
I started to read his stories in the 1960s, and this novel won
the
Hugo Award
for Best Novel in 1963, then the highest honour in science
fiction. But the story struck me as only an exploration of a
tiny corner of this rich alternative history. Little of what
happens affects events in the large and, if it did, only long
after the story ends. It was only while writing
this that I appreciated that this may have been precisely what
PKD was trying to achieve: that this is all about the
contingency of history—that random chance matters much
more than what we, or “great figures” do, and that
the best we can hope for is to try to do what we believe is
right when presented with the circumstances and events that
confront us as we live our lives. I have no idea if you'll like
this. I thought I would, and then I didn't, and now I, in
retrospect, I do. Welcome to the fiction of Philip K. Dick.
July 2019 