Changing Ideas

Before todays class, I was planning on writing a blog about the book within The Man in the High Castle. I was planning on talking about how, like in the Books of Bokonon within Cats Cradle, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy seems to, in its own way, merge with the text of The Man in the High Castle. The fact that the author adds in a text of a science fiction novel that describes an alternate world due to the change in one event (the assassination of FDR), inside of a book which does this very same thing, creates an unstable ground for us readers. What is seen as fiction, within the novel, is what we know to be the actual truth (or similar to the truth in that the Allies win the war) and what we know to be fiction is the structure for the novel. I was going to describe how this, in effect, begins to play with our ideas of what is "authentic" and what is "fake." It is interesting how a text that we find to be "fake" is something that entices us to read on. Although we know its fake, it's this "fake-ness" that causes us to keep reading and that keeps causing the characters of TMHC (The Man in the High Castle if you can't figure it out) to read The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. This is then similar to how the text of Bokonon is accepted and read by the San Lorenzians despite the "harmless untruths" that fill its pages.

This was what I was going to focus on. Then, unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), through our knowledge of TMHC and the guidance of Chanelle, we were led to this very topic (I have to say, we covered much better then I would have by myself). At this point in time I was very frustrated that I could no longer write the blog that I had been thinking about all yesterday. Or could I? I knew I wouldn't, so the better question was why wouldn't I?

It's funny that as we were discussing authenticity, and nonsensical problems in which it creates, I was helplessly falling into its very trap. I was so mad that I could no longer write my post. Why? It took me a while until I realized that the reason I felt that I could no longer write this blog is that, to us within the class, my blog seemed to no longer have authenticity. I would have been writing a blog that was no longer the "original", no longer my own creation. I realized that my epiphany (which really wasn't that far fetched or mind blowing) was no longer authentic. With this realization I fell into the same trap the Childan and the rest of our society continuously falls into. It has caused me to really look at our discussion today and ask myself, is the fight for authenticity really what we make it out to be?