One particular section of the novel, The Man in the High Castle, that I found especially enlightening was towards the very end of the work when Julianna Frink is about to reach the writer of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. Although I have sadly forgotten the novel back at Hamilton during Fall Break, I can paraphrase one of the thoughts she has in the novel. Essentially, she mentions that it is her belief that her reading of Grasshopper is the correct reading; no one else's interpretation comes close to matching her own interpretation. I feel as if this is important to mention because of the true irony located in her thoughts at the precise moment she has them. In fact, she is on her way to visit the author of the novel. By standard thinking, we might presume that the author has the most correct interpretation of the 'correctness' of interpretations. This idea seems to represent the fact that it is nearly impossible to determine if an interpretation is correct or not; we can only rely on our own thoughts and what we make of the text.
Another question that I thought of when I finished reading the novel was how forged this fake reality of a world was. No one seems to question the influx of fake historical goods and the constant supply of these great artifacts from the past. Furthermore, Abendsen doesn't seem to be a hard figure to kill, if the Nazi's really wanted him dead. Abendsen is listed in the phonebook, I wonder why the Germans can't just bomb his location-it would hardly be the worst of anything they've done. Instead, they rely on a spy attempting to find a woman to court Abendsen-it all just feels too complicated when a bomb could easily wipe out the address. Thus, it seems that Abendsen may be in fact living between both worlds and able to save his own soul by focusing completely on the true reality, the reality of his writing. Thus, he can escape by consulting his own reality.
The Allegory of the Cave by Plato seems to illustrate this scenario that the individuals of The Man in the High Castle live in perfectly. In the Allegory of the Cave, prisoners are chained up in a cave and forced to watch shadows on a wall in front of them. This scenario is the reality for these prisoners. They have watched from birth and believe that everything that they witness is the actual world. Eventually, someone breaks free from the chains and climbs up into the world, our world. There, they can see the light and realize that all their lives they had been living in this fake reality. Abendsen, in a sense, seems to have gained this knowledge. Yet, Plato would argue that he is not doing enough to convince the people of the false reality. When the chosen philosopher-king has made his way up to gain knowledge, it is his duty to go back down into the cave and convince the rest of the prisoners that they are living in a false reality. Yet, the prisoners will not easily accept this information and will more often than not attempt to kill the bringer of true knowledge.
And finally, as Stephen Colbert assures us, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."
I love your use of the word "forged" in this post. It aptly emphasizes the factitious nature of PKD's novel, the novel w/i the novel, the I Ching w/i the novel, the jewelry, the artistic handicrafts, etc. etc. -- all the way down to the smallest fabrication, which, in turn, would lead us back out (out of the cave, perhaps) to confront the greatest fabrication of all: our notion of "reality" as a static construction! Very nice.
ReplyDeleteHaving read the Allegory of the Cave last year I'm glad that you have reminded me of its significancy, especially considering what we have read this year. It's amazing how important the idea of "what is the true reality" is to us humans, and how writers from Plato's time to the 21st century have pondered weather the one we live in is the "real" one. While it is important that we try and address these questions, there is no doubt that we should always act toward our best interest in the "reality" in which we are living in.
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