Having long heard very favourable things about Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle as a masterpiece of alternative history; I recently acquired a copy – had never hitherto read anything by this author. As things came about: the book failed initially to enthuse me, and matters got no better as I continued with it. After several days’ struggling with it – with long pauses – I made it to about halfway through. There seemed to be on the horizon, no likely improvement, and I gave up on it there.
My problems with the novel included: its having a handful of assorted viewpoint characters, none of whom I found sympathetic or could strongly identify with; and in a hundred-odd pages, the plot seemed not to be going anywhere identifiable. So much in the book seemed just abstruse and random, with “nothing to latch onto”. The “alternative-history novel within an alternative-history novel” The Grasshopper Lies Heavy – written by the eponymous MITHC and much-stressed as eagerly read in secret by the oppressed Americans, is about a World War II which the Allies won; but not one exactly following the course of WWII as in “Our (‘Real’) Time-Line”. Various factors were just plain pointlessly distracting and annoying – as, the character Childan’s use of the English language becoming in the course of his interacting with Japanese associates, “Japanese-ly telegraphic” in his speech – simplified grammar, omitting definite and indefinite articles – and his reported private thoughts coming to be, similarly, expressed in that jargon.
Petty and feeble objections, perhaps; but am trying to find “cites” re what did not appeal to me about the book – whilst overall, I simply found it dull, and was unable to care much what became of the characters. I searched back over past Dope threads, and discovered there, that others have found Dick’s work not enjoyable or fulfilling (one example of such threads, below). A poster in another thread, mentioned having trouble with the several books by Dick which he had tried: telling of his never being able to get into them – managing to get about one-tenth of the way in; but being unable to understand what was going on, and feeling thrown into a world without any background-setting, or any preparation for his mind. I find it rather consoling, that I am far from the only person not to be instantly bowled-over by their first experience of this author’s work.
Am wondering whether writing-off Philip K. Dick on the basis of experience described above, would be too hasty on my part; and whether other works by him might appeal to me more. Reading in the past threads mentioned, that readers consider TMITHC to be Dick’s * most * coherent work, would seem not to bode well for his others… However, I would be interested to hear folks’ opinions.
The Man In The High Castle is Dick’s masterpiece, but it is substantially different from the rest of his work. His short stories are great and if you want something longer, try Valis or The Unteleported Man.
The Man in the High Castle is not typical Dick by any means. Mind you, pretty much all of Dick’s work is very flawed (for one thing, he couldn’t write a decent, satisfying, ending, that ties up even a significant fraction of the loose ends, to save his life), but also original, distinctive, and brilliant. You might not like his stuff, but don’t judge him just by TMitHC.
The quality of Dick’s writing varied greatly depending on what drugs he was using at the time and, I think, the sunspot cycle might have played into it as well. I found “Valis” too abstruse but did enjoy “A Scanner Darkly”, “UBIK”, and “Now Wait for Last Year”. As always, YMMV.
In my experience, Ubik’s characters weren’t any more sympathetic or relatable, nor did the plot seem to be going somewhere identifiable, so if that’s what the OP didn’t like about TMITHC…
For what it’s worth, I liked both books but I thought they were both more unusual than entertaining.
Thanks to all, for comments. I feel ready to give a fair try to one more work by Dick. Valis is a trilogy, if I have things rightly; think that I’ll go for a stand-alone: probably Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – the title is intriguing. I learn that Dick wrote another novel titled Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said. Whatever the shortcomings of what’s actually in his books, the guy seems to have had a way with titles !
I’m an admirer of P K Dick, and my two readings of High Castle have left me unimpressed. As for what does work I can only say most of his other output in the 1960s. The novels tend to flow together for me – which is not a criticism, the last time I reread one it was a great experience, but five years later I can’t recall which one it was.
FWIW I didn’t much care for UBIK.
Anyway. Yeah, definitely try another novel or try his middle-to-late short stories. He was a fine writer of short fiction. As others have said, Dick still might not work for you, but High Castle is not his typical book.
I’d recommend Minority Report (novella) on its own, as well as having a better ending than the movie (though I enjoyed the movie adaptation). Paycheck is a pretty great short story with a weaker movie.
And finally, “We can remember it for you wholesale” as a much better story than Total Recall, clocking in at only a few pages.
I didn’t much care for TMITHC either. I generally don’t enjoy the whole “what is real and what is not” thing, and as much as I admire Dick’s work (and yes, titles), he’s just never going to be a favorite of mine.
That said, we recently read Ubik for my book club, and I liked it a lot!
*If you want to move on and read the next post, you’re going to have to give me a nickel. *
I was about to say that reading PKD in the original is like reading Ulysses in the original - difficult and appeals only to a minority. But “Total Recall” is more like “Shane” or “Old Yeller” – eminently readable as well as being a seminal classic.
i can’t see that. Most of his output is funny, fast-moving, and smoothly written. A big reason he’s had multiple stories made into films is because he’s a fun, easy read.
Since I’m having trouble sleeping, I’d like to join the OP in complaing about TMITHC. However, it’s been 25 years since I read it, so forgive me if I flub some details.
It’s got a great set-up. A “best seller” set-up. The Axis winning is good. Having the U.S. divided between Germany and Japan is better. Having those two empires not entirely thrilled with each other is realistic and good. Having a Japanese character who collects
pre-war American items is a lovely Dickian-type touch.
Having there be legends of The Man In The Castle who is still unconquered is fascinating. It’s the stuff of right-wing, nationalistic fantasy – a powerful idea, but seemingly impossible. Then there is some Dickian-style reality leakage: maybe the Axis didn’t win. And since they did actually lose, the reality leakage is interesting. Dick knows how to be subtle about such things.
So there’s enough good, fascinating stuff for a big book here, but the tale ends up focusing on the iChing??? The spirit behind the iChing has written a book describing how the Axis really lost? That’s where I get lost and generally pissed. If that idea has some elemental power, I’ve never apprehended it. I’m sorry, but I don’t accept the existence of any such spirit, and Dick doesn’t make me suspend disbelief.
This is a minor hijack, but it’s Dick related and not really worth a new thread. Last month I watched The Minority Report for the first time.
SPOILERS FOLLOW:
Tom Cruise is accused of a pre-murder, but makes a skin-of-his-teeth amazing escape. Apparently he’s in the clear, and I’m thinking that he can hide out for 24 hours, until the supposed date of the crime passes and his innocence will be proved.
Instead he decides to have his eyeballs cut out by an hostile surgeon in a shabby room, and break into an ultra-high security facility and risk immediate and permanent imprisonment. This left me yelling at the TV screen, and frowning at the screen for the next 90 minutes.
Was there a reasonable explanation that I missed? FWIW I have not read the story the film is based on.
I am a huge PKD fan; I’ve read all his works multiple times, have an extensive collection of first editions, was a member of the Philip K. Dick Society, etc., etc. BUT. I recognize that PKD is not for everyone; I have some very literate, well-read friends who don’t like his work at all.
I commend vontsira for wanting to give PKD another try. Ubik, Androids, and Flow My Tears are all good choices. However, although TMITHC is different from PKD’s usual output, it’s not that different. If you’re bugged by meandering plots, unsympathetic characters, and ontological preoccupations (to cite some of the complaints in this thread), then you’re probably never going to get into PKD.
I didn’t mind TMitHC especially, and thought Ubik and A Scanner Darkly were good, but couldn’t even make it through Valis. It was like slogging through some cult’s religious literature.