Books like this worry me. There is a fine line between being a disturbing warning about the dangers of racism, discrimination, slavery, and fascism, and normalizing it. The Man In The High Castle is frightening in it’s banality. It is a book I found worth reading as a writer. Philip K. Dick was an expert in his craft, and there are some positively brilliant moments that made me stop and reread them. On the flip side, there were several moments that made me roll my eyes from the clear lack of understanding (and perhaps even empathy) of a woman’s psyche.
The Man In The High Castle is an extremely meta bit of world building. The characters are extremely flat, tools for Dick to use to showcase the rest of the world. They’re not memorable, but the world itself is. Dick posits “What if the Axis won WWII?” and extrapolates upon that quite believably.
““There is evil! It’s actual, like cement.
I can’t believe it. I can’t stand it.
Evil is not a view ... it’s an ingredient in us. In the world. Poured over us, filtering into our bodies, minds, hearts, into the pavement itself.” ”
SPOILERS AHEAD
In the book, the United States has been divided by the Japanese and Nazi Germany. The book follows Americans in both the German and Japanese sides of the U.S, with loose connections between each character. One of those connections is a book called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, a fictional novel where the Axis lost WWII. It is a book widely read within the Japanese Pacific, but banned in the German states. The other primary connection is a book called the I Ching, a prophetic book consulted periodically by all characters. It aids in the complex world Dick created, one just a shade different than our own.
The believability of the world makes The Man In The High Castle disturbing. It is easy to be sucked into this world of a San Francisco where slaves pull rickshaws, white people are second class citizens, and Nazis are looking to purge the world of anyone not Aryan. It is a book that requires critical thinking on behalf of the reader, and I believe it should be a book discussed in schools.
With the state of the U.S today, with white supremacists emboldened, I worry about this book in the wrong hands. I worry about a book like this finding sympathetic minds unable (or unwilling) to understand how wrong the racism is on a whole — not just the racism directed towards the white second class citizens. It should be a lesson on empathy. But I fear it would stoke the smoldering resentments in those already minded towards discrimination.
Over all, I believe this is a book that should be read. It should be discussed. And then at the end of the day, the message that should ring out loud and clear: discrimination is wrong. The world we live in is better off without Nazis.
3/5 stars
-LJ
