The Man in the High Castle in On Paths Unknown

May 22, 2017 Michael Finocchiaro rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, american-20th-c, listened-as-audiobook, fiction, made-into-movie, dystopian, novels, hugo-awards-winner

Philip K Dick was certainly a brilliant man and a gifted writer. His imagined dystopia of a world split between the victorious Reich and Imperial Japan is chilling and realistic. Ok, perhaps colonisation of Mars in 1962 is a bit of a stretch, but the depiction of San Francisco under the Japanese administration was excellent. His characters were vivid and lifelike. His villain was somewhat predicable, but still a fascinating one.
The dystopia he describes - particularly the horrors of unbridled f Philip K Dick was certainly a brilliant man and a gifted writer. His imagined dystopia of a world split between the victorious Reich and Imperial Japan is chilling and realistic. Ok, perhaps colonisation of Mars in 1962 is a bit of a stretch, but the depiction of San Francisco under the Japanese administration was excellent. His characters were vivid and lifelike. His villain was somewhat predicable, but still a fascinating one.
The dystopia he describes - particularly the horrors of unbridled fascism in Africa, etc - is terrifying. I enjoyed the internal monologues and the dialogs very much. Perhaps, Haruki Murakami was somewhat inspired by Philip K Dick to leave the story with lots of questions unanswered. That being said, there is a humanity to the characters and I became attached to several of them.

One thing I found a bit incoherent albeit a key to the plot, was the obsession with I Ching. I know lots of Japanese people and have been to Japan a dozen times, and it seems to me highly improbable that the Japanese would turn so obsessively to Taoism and superstition because Shintoism and Buddhism are so ingrained in their culture which - to my understanding- is nearly the polar opposite of Tao. That being said, it allowed PDK to make his typical forays into the psyche of his characters. I wondered also if the Man in the High Castle was not a self-portrait.

Also, the idea of a book of alternate reality (The Grasshopper Lies Heavy) inside this book of alternate reality was a nice touch. PDK was great with these Russian doll moves in his books (reminds me a bit of the recent SNL sketches :-)

I listened to this as an audiobook on Audible and found it pretty good although "Joe"'s accent at times sounded more Russian than Italian. I have not watched the TV show derived from this classic scifi novel but can say that it stands very solidly on its own and is up there with the other novels of PDK that I have read. Highly recommended. Will stick around in your brain for a while after reading it. ...more

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Dec 23, 2017 P.E. rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: vivid-dream, favorites, science-fiction, uchronie

I have read this one eight years before, and had quite a different recollection of it.
For starters, the layout of events comes out smooth, intricate, aptly wrought together. Much more than in my recollection.
Then, it is a novel of characters equally of importance, as long as they stand on the scene. Dialogue is edgy and sauntering. A jigsaw puzzle of a dialogue, yet littered with savory insight!
The closure is not as outstanding as the remnant of the novel. Yet if it has been carried out by din ...more

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Mar 08, 2016 Duncan Smith rated it liked it

This book is very well done, subtle and clever, yet it didn't grab me. I know writing styles have changed since the 1960s but I found this pretty slow. An admirable creation, even so. ...more

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