I just finished Philip K. Dick’s novel “The Man in the High Castle.” I’ve never read Dick before and I don’t usually read sci fi or books about alternative realities, although this book is not sci fi. It is a very good novel and Dick is an unusual writer. He has an adequate prose style, his characters are complex and do unexpected things and have lots on the line, and Dick really can write a scene, can get every ounce of tension out of it.
So, I liked this book very much. I don’t understand the very ending. Can anyone out there explain the ending to me? I’d be much in your debt.
Phil Brown
I haven’t read it in a long time but Dick was always concerned with reality and the perception of reality with We Can Remember It For You Wholesale-the source for Total Recall-being the signature work.
It takes a lot of work to separate real from false in Dick story.
September 6th, 2012 9:21 am
Phil Brown
This may help as well;
In a 1976 interview, Dick said he planned to write a sequel novel to The Man in the High Castle: “And so there’s no real ending on it. I like to regard it as an open ending. It will segue into a sequel sometime.”
September 6th, 2012 9:26 am
CohnZohn
Phil Brown, thanks so much for helping me with The Man in the High Castle. I simply loved the book but was puzzled by the ending. Now I understand better.
September 6th, 2012 10:05 am
Phil Brown
You’re welcome.
It occurs to me you may have known my mother, Ida May Brown.
September 6th, 2012 10:14 am
CohnZohn
Phil, Where would I have known your mom? I often forget names. Please help me here.
September 6th, 2012 11:28 am
Kommon Senze
It’s been a long time since I read the book, too, but I remember reading that Dick had structured the book based on the ‘I Ching,’ and actually used some of the ‘divination’ practices described in the ‘I Ching’ to interpret the alternate universe that the story inhabits. The fact that the ‘I Ching’ plays such a key role in the book, especially in Tagomi’s storyline, was supposed to somewhat reflect some of Dick’s own relationship with the material (i.e., he abhorred the Nazis, and talked about how difficult it was for him to read the ‘source’ material for his story, but, like Tagomi, he was drawn further and further into it until he had no choice but to take action).
Dick did apparently start the sequel to this book, which he had titled ‘Radio Free Albemuth,’ but he abandoned it. It was reconstructed and released posthumously. In this book, he also writes an alternate universe story, but, instead of the ‘I Ching’ he uses Christian Gnosticism as a plot device.
Generally speaking, I think it’s difficult to try and engage this story as a linear narrative. If you look at it more as a ‘concept’ piece, I think the lack of a truly coherent ending becomes less of an issue.
September 6th, 2012 12:37 pm
CohnZohn
Thanks, Kommon Senze.
September 6th, 2012 12:46 pm