The Man in the High Castle Paperback – January 24, 2012

Alternate history...Philip K. Dick style.
What does that mean? Well, basically, if you think that the characters in this book seem a little out of place, keep reading, and you may find YOURSELF out of place.
On the surface, it is the usual time-shifting novel...FDR was assasinated in 1936, and as a result, the United States lost WW II. Twenty years in the future, when the novel takes place, Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire have occupied the United States and imposed their brand of culture on their respective halves of the American populace.
But this book really isn't about alternate time lines...its about alternate realities. Things are not as they seem...characters' true identities are hidden, and their moralities are tested. It's about the nature of the true state of the universe, Eastern religion, and the I-Ching. When Philip K. Dick is at his best, his characters question their own existence, and it soon follows that the readers do the same.
So when you come to the end of the book, hopefully, a number of things will happen:
Number 1: You'll instantly re-read the ending.
Number 2: You'll throw the book against the wall and exclaim "that's it?"
Number 3: You'll probably re-read the ending again.
Number 4: You'll swear that you'll never read another Philip K. Dick novel.
Number 5: Later, you'll think a bit about the book, and realize that the novel wasn't really about what you thought it was.
Number 6: You'll read it again. And again...
This isn't your typical sci-fi novel. The story doesn't wrap-up into a neat little package. Like Eastern religions, time is not linear, it is circular, and that is the reality of the book.
Alternate histories are so commonplace in sci-fi today, that it is important to look at this book as the one that really started it all. A completely original masterpiece...even the followers can't keep up.

The Man in the High Castle is Dick's masterpiece. Along with VALIS and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, it completes the trilogy of the author's essential works. A must read for Dickheads or for anyone who considers himself a serious fan of science fiction. Dick was clearly influenced by two earlier works of alternative history, Sarban's The Sound of His Horn and C. M. Kornbluth's "Two Dooms". In turn, The Man in the High Castle has influenced any number of later works, not just Norman Spinrad's The Iron Dream and the novels of Harry Turtledove, but Ursula LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven as well.
This is a very complex, suspenseful novel, consisting of four main plot lines and a host of characters whose lives sometimes interact. Don't expect any slam-bang pyrotechnic action here, despite the novel's provocative premise. It's more a slice of life tale, showing that even after a catastrophic defeat, life in America would go on. Dick is very good at detailing the nuances of life in Axis-ruled America. For example, at one point as an aside, it is pointed out that after the Nazi pograms, the only surviving prewar comedian is Bob Hope, and even he has to broadcast out of Canada. Also, an unintended irony for a novel written in 1962 is Dick's conjecture that if the United States had lost WWII, we would all be listening to Japanese audio equipment and driving German cars now. The author achieves the near impossible feat of actually being even-handed towards the Nazis without glamorizing them. He describes them at one point as Neanderthals in white lab coats, technological geniuses who have drained the Mediterranean and are conquering the Solar System, yet are morally bankrupt. Dick is much easier on the Japanese, depicting them not just as benign conquerors, but almost like a group of tourists, just off the latest JAL flight headed for the souvenir stand at Disneyland. Only in one brief instance when Juliana Frink reminiscences about conditions in San Francisco immediately after the occupation is their wartime rapacity even hinted at.
Several other reviewers here appear to be put off that the novel didn't live up to the action and dramatic tension hinted at in the synopsis above or the 1964 Popular Library cover with its map of the United States superimposed by Nazi and Imperial Japanese flags. When I first read it back in 1964 at age fourteen, I felt much the same way. On rereading it in 1988, however, I saw it for its true worth, an existential novel of the first order (ranking with the best of Camus or Sartre). It represents the fullest flowering of Dick's most consistent theme: What is reality? The provocative setting of an alternative universe where the Axis has won World War II and now occupies a defeated and humiliated America is merely a sensational back drop for Dick's real theme: how can we be sure of what is real? Thus the seemingly minor scene involving two Zippo lighters is actually the key to understanding the whole novel. One is merely a minor collectible, the other is priceless, Mr. Wyndam-Matson tells his mistress. What's the difference? The one was the actual lighter FDR was carrying when he was assassinated in 1934. But how does he know it is real? Well, he has a paper that certifies it is. But how does he know the paper is real? And so on. Likewise, the emphasis on the Japanese obsession with collecting authentic relics of America's prewar past is a symbolic of the authenticity which all the novel's characters are seeking in their own diverse ways. The anticlimactic and ambiguous ending also only serves to re-enforce what Dick was trying to say. In retrospect, he couldn't have ended it any other way. To neatly wrap things up would only subvert the novel's whole premise.

As I progress through life, and accept that I'm not young any more, I also realize that the younger generations do not ingest books the way I do. If you look at the reviews for this book, especially at the 1 and 2 star ratings, you'll find a deplorable pattern. "It was too slow." No, you're not considering what you're reading. "The author is a racist." Definitely no, he's almost drawing a caricature of them to shine a great big spotlight on facism and bigotry in order to persuade the audience of just how evil these things are. "The ending was too abrupt." or "He obviously meant to write a sequel." No and no. After many thousands of words placed in thought provoking ways, the author challenges the audience to decide what the story means. And gives us license to pick the ending that we think fits the best.

This story was written in the 60s, and is set then as well. What if the Axis won World War II is the major premise behind the setting. The conflicts highlight the extreme to which Japanese and German cultures could have gone, and the possible effects of living in a land under the control of one, and strongly influenced by the other. Imagine the Japanese concept of place, mixing with facist bigotry, overlaid on oppressed Americans living in a totalitarian world. PKD thoroughly denounces facism, bigotry and xenophobia.

But the story is more than that. The plot is hidden from the reader as we see events from several points of view. And the narration ends with barely a paragraph of denouement. If you are not driven to contemplation about the meaning of life or the nature of reality by this work, you should read it again, slowly.