When I first started reading Man In The High Castle, I had a hard time adjusting to the idea of World War II turning out differently. I guess this based on the actual events. Whatever the reason, I couldn't get caught up in the story, for once in my life. The one thing that did catch my eye was Juliana's acceptance of herself as a fictitious character. It is this part that makes the book even harder to understand. How can a character in the novel realize she is a fictional character? It just doesn't make sense to me. Philip K. Dick has made it almost impossible for me to ever understand this novel by adding this little twist to the story. However, Juliana's acceptance is an admirable quality to have compared to the qualities of the other characters. She can look past the fact that her life is made-up, whereas the others are still convinced their lives are real. Had they picked up Juliana's outlook, their lives would have been different.
All in all, I don't recommend writing books while on acid. The result is often a work of literature that causes mass confusion.
I'm not entirely convinced that Juliana did accept that she was a fictional character. "She walked on without looking again at the Abendsen house and, as she walked, searching up and down the streets for a cab or a car, moving and bright and living, to take her back to her motel." (last page, in mine 123)
ReplyDeleteIf Juliana had accepted that her world was a fiction, a lie, a shadow world why would the cab/car be described as "moving and bright and living"? I think Juliana simply accepts that there are things she doesn't understand and then she moves back into her world as she knows it.
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ReplyDeleteI think it's possible that Juliana was not only prepared to accept that she's a fictional character, but relieved. She lives in this twisted, dreadful version of reality and there's nothing she can do to fix it. She's on the edge of suicide when she's presented with another explanation. And it's easier to accept than the idea of life really being that bad.
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ReplyDeleteIn chapter 12 is where Fink is being talked to by the cops and thy are telling him to go back to Germany. I feel like the same thing is happening with the not accepting the fact he is "an american character". Just as Juliana is a fictional charactr in a fiction novel.
ReplyDeleteI don't necessarily think Juliana accepted that she was a fictitious character throughout the novel, but I definitely believe she had an idea that something was up. She was more tuned into the world around her and seemed to have a different understanding of her world.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do agree with your appreciation for the character. I'm always a fan of a female character who is a little smarter than the rest.
Well Michelle I'm going to have to stop you right there. Juliana wasn't necessarily smarter than the rest. That's a little bold. As a matter of fact she may have been the dumbest of them all, or at least equally as ignorant. Every single person in the story for the first however many years in their lives, up until this point (for some of them), believed in a reality that didn't exist. Even Abendsen didn't believe his own story. They were all ignorant to the 'capital R' Reality. And I don't think Juliana knew she was fictional. And she wasn't actually fictional. She was a real person in the story, but the story itself was fictional. All of the characters were very much real, just living in a reality that didn't exist.
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