Manden i den store fæstning (1962)

I wanted to read this book before I watched the Amazon pilot of “Man in a High Castle.”

Written in 1962 this is Philip K. Dick’s impressive imagining of a world after the Nazi and the Japanese have defeated the Allies.

Dick creates a plausible explanation for how the Axis wins the war, which starts with having FDR assassinated in 1933 just before his inauguration. (This was the attempt on his life where the major of Chicago is killed).

I think there is a tendency to believe that history is predestined. That the Allies (the forces of good) would inevitably triumph over the Axis (the forces of evil). But that’s not true. One of the messages of the book is that if you don’t resist evil, it can triumph.

The world described in High Castle is a nightmare. A mundane, banal nightmare which has us rooting for the Japanese as the less awful of the two conquerors.

As much as I was impressed with all of the interesting details of this world that Dick creates I found the actual novel somewhat less than impressive. The characters are not well developed and while he has several storylines developed, none of them is given enough attention. We are sort of dropped into this world for a brief visit and then the story ends.

I think he could have made a much longer novel – although I’m not sure I wanted to live that world any longer than I did.
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If I could, I would give the book 3.5 stars. The concept and overall story is very interesting. I couldn't help but think about Blonde Roots by Bernardine Evaristo several times while reading this book because both gave me pause to think about how what any of us consider to be 'our culture' is shaped and affected by what has happened in the past.

Through a lot of the book I was drawn in, wanting to know what would happen next and how all the different characters and smaller plot points would be connected together. However, on multiple occasions I just could not grasp the motivations and actions of many of the characters. I did, though, enjoy that my view of many of the key characters was changed over time as I saw them in different circumstances.

Dick's particular grammar and use of words was very unique and even by the end I sometimes could not be sure what happened, even after rereading a sentence or paragraph 2 or 3 times. I think part of it is that he often seems to omit particles and subjects from sentences. And another part of it was it was hard to know when he switched from narration to individual character's inner monologue/thoughts. Also, I'm not sure how well I could have followed the parts of the story around the I Ching if I hadn't studied about it and other aspects of ancient Chinese culture in university.

Content Warning: Most of the characters have racist thoughts about other groups and racial slurs are used by those characters. ( )

Much better than I remember, although I still think the ending kind of falls apart beyond a certain point. ( )

I finally started the show and now I'm annoyed I haven't read this one yet. Moving it up my reading list.

I could not get into this alternative history story. The language was strange, the characters 2-dimensional, and the story line difficult to follow. ( )