After many discussions about The Man in the High Castle in class, it was easy to tell that this book, for lack of a better term, really pissed people off. I have heard and read multiple times that its a fine example of why one should not write novels when on acid.
Yet, this book earned its high praise for a reason. As confusing as it was for me personally, I thoroughly enjoyed getting ridiculously frustrated with this story. For a man on acid, Philip K. Dick knew what he was doing. Even though I knew that Nazi Germany and Japan didn't really win World War II in my world, I didn't question it in this novel. In the first chapter when Dick introduces Frank Fink, he writes
"After the Japs had taken Hawaii he had been sent to the West Coast. When the war ended, there he was, on the Japanese side of the settlement line. And here he was today, fifteen years later."
I thought to myself, well... that definitely sucks. However, I didn't question it. None of us did. Philip K. Dick used his literature to convince us of a completely different world that in the end, didn't even exist in a fictional matter. Personally, I think that's brilliant. We were all completely fooled.
The only real issue I had with the novel was all the characters and keeping track of who was who and who was from where. Yet, in the end, all these characters were alike in the fact that they had fallen into the illusion that they're world was of a world of fact and truth, when it turned out to be just the opposite.
I still don't think people should do acid, but I feel as though I had this opinion before Philip K. Dick stumbled into my life. Besides, I am not going to completely credit the acid for Dick's work. I have respect for the man who got me to drop my idea of truth, only to believe a complete lie.
Michelle although you were absent in class today and subjected me to Ellyn and Jeremy's obscene disregard for scholastic nourishment, I will still reward you with a comment. I think your not questioning Germany and Japan's victory in this novel is something we all did. Once again, why would we assume an author of a fiction is lying to us within the story when he already has permission to lie to us by writing a fiction. It is a very frustrating idea, let me tell you. Even so, this trickeration has made me more aware of the fallacies that take place in a literary work, and therefore more perceptive to the events at hand.
ReplyDeletep.s. I like your pun at the end. "Besides, I am not going to completely credit the acid for Dick's work. I have respect for the man who got me to DROP my idea of truth..." Touche.