In High Castle, the American identity has been completely crushed. Plucky American rebels fighting their Nazi oppressors and thwarting a plot to nuke New York while chronically hamstrung by their moribund contemplation of non-existence? No thanks.īut this book is so not that book! As with other works by PKD (or at least the cinematic interpretations I've seen), the underlying horror is not about annihilation, but about anxiety over identity. Ballard's similar ruminations on mortality and atomic annihilation to be unfinishably boring, I was wary of returning to PKD (ah, much better), and the premise of a world in which the Axis powers won WWII could definitely have lead down that road. Dick (whose first name and middle initial are considerably more important in conversation than heretofore imagined) was with a collection of his short stories, which was amusing but very much in the Atomic Age sort of a vein: THE BOMB, robots, space ships, THE BOMB, etc. Let me just establish that neither the Nazi-lover nor I are, in fact, Nazi-lovers or racists (or no more racist than the average person), and that despite (or perhaps because of?) the uncomfortable conversations this book might occasion, it's a great read! My former experience with Phillip K. Suffice it to say that I am swearing off parties and returning to my safe, almost-completely-awkwardness-free hermetic lifestyle. I'm pretty sure at some point during the evening I also said, with party-speaking volume, "I think I really like Dick!" Sometimes I wish English had fewer homophones. The awkwardness of the words coming out of my mouth did not even occur to me for several sentences. Or rather speculative fiction."Īnother conversation involved me explaining to a white guy how interesting I (a half-Japanese guy) found reading about defeated white Americans kowtowing to their Japanese overlords. I don't do scifi." "But it's got Nazis!" "Oh my god I love Nazis!" Another conversation involved me explaining to a white guy how interesting I (a half-Ja On Wednesday I found myself at a party (an occurrence itself worthy of remark) at which everyone wore "I'm currently reading." stickers, so I had several opportunities to explain why I was loving The Man in the High Castle. One such conversation went like this: "So what's that about?" "Well, it's scifi. On Wednesday I found myself at a party (an occurrence itself worthy of remark) at which everyone wore "I'm currently reading." stickers, so I had several opportunities to explain why I was loving The Man in the High Castle.
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