The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

[King Bob]

I had never read this one, and I found the Library of America edition in the used bookstore. (It combines this novel with The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Ubik and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - so a good deal, and I had plenty of trade credit.)

I guess you all know the story: an alternative history where Japan and Germany won WWII. More historical now since it takes place in the 1950s. Germany controls what was the eastern US, Japan the West, and there's a bit of the US left in the middle. An author - the "Man" in the title - has written a book where the Allies won the war. Most of the book takes place in San Francisco, and the I Ching gets a lot of mentions; characters consult it and some of the hexagram texts are included.


The writing is uneven; sometimes he omits "the" or "a" from sentences so they don't read well. He does it a lot in the first couple of pages, then only occasionally, but it's annoying every time. Maybe he was really amped up at those times and never went back to edit. At first I wasn't sure where it was going, but the threads around different characters sort of come together. Unfortunately it sort of peters out. There's a big reveal of sorts at the end (I won't spoil it), but it felt somewhat unconvincing.

I'm not sure I'd recommend it unless you want to read all his work. I had wanted to re-read The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (that was my favorite) and Ubik but now I'm wondering if I'll be disappointed if I do. On the other hand, some of his short stories are great, and I highly recommend those. (Incidentally, I'd say the same thing of Van Vogt's stories and novels.)

It also reminded me that I used to enjoy the I Ching, although I never learned to do it with the sticks. I'm sure there are newer (maybe more faithful?) translations now, but the old Wilhelm-Baynes text has a lot of power to it.

[Drunk Monk]

It also reminded me that I used to enjoy the I Ching, although I never learned to do it with the sticks. I'm sure there are newer (maybe more faithful?) translations now, but the old Wilhelm-Baynes text has a lot of power to it.

I threw coins for a spell, mostly to get a sense of what it might be about. 

Honestly, I'm not sure the faithfulness of the translation helps. For one thing, it's very bound in the characters, and those being logographic, have an entirely different level of meaning that just doesn't translate into an alphabetical way of thinking. The other thing is there's so much power in the abstractness, especially with a forecasting device. When I helped translate horoscopes for the mag (20 years on task, believe it or not!) I often worked to preserve those translation ambiguities for exactly this reason. Our copy editor (cf) wasn't always keen on that and sent back the occasional 'does not grok' comments, which were totally fair, but we eventually found a happy medium. 

I watched an ep or two of the new show version of TMitHC, but it didn't grab me. After the horror clown, it became clear that even though they lost, the nazis are doing fine. I guess I see enough of that in the real world so it didn't work as escapist fare for me. 

Why don't we remake Hogan's Heroes now?

[thatguy]

When I watched TMitHC, I couldn't remember enough of the book to compare. It seemed like a decent version. 

My favorite PKD story is Martian Time-Slip, but it's been awhile since I read that, so I don't know if it holds up. It's about autism, the same scene seen from different points of view, and indigenous people (martians). 

From the short story department, there were a few that were memorable, but I don't recall the names:
- in one, PDK himself is the protagonist, attending a science fiction writer convention where he is kidnapped and held hostage by people from the future that want the sci-fi authors of today that predicted their dystopia to help prevent it
- in another, several people are on a tour of a facility with a giant radio telescope or some other apparatus that goes awry while they are near. The rest of the story the group trying to survive in the miasma of each of their psyches, one world after another. IIRC, in one, they are being eaten by a house which was particularly awesome. 

I have a pulpy I Ching that reads like a horoscope. (Bantam New Age Books). I recently wrote a python script to throw the coins for me and tell me the lower/upper trigrams, hexagram and moving lines. I don't use it much, but I got tired of trying to keep track of actual coins and it was a good scripting exercise. 

--tg

[King Bob]

I really liked "King of the Elves." It's in Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick, which is a great collection, but I can't remember any other story from it right now.

[cranefly]

I guess I'll put this anecdote here.  It concerns Lucius Shepard.  After we parted ways after sharing an apartment for a few months up in Eugene, Oregon, I moved down to Sunnyvale; and Lucius visited me a couple times, and also we met up now and then at science fiction conventions.  I don't remember whether this particular event happened in Sunnyvale or at a convention, but it was in 1981.  Lucius was relating a recent experience, but laughing so hard at its bizarreness that at first I couldn't understand what he was talking about.  Slowly it became clear.

Lucius had recently been in LA at a convention or some sort of literary event, and he had crossed paths with Phil Dick.  It makes sense they would meet.  Phil, the successful journeyman writer, Lucius, the hot up-and-comer, and both strongly anti-establishment and anti-authoritarian.

Anyhow, afterwards Phil invited Lucius to his house, and there, at a small kitchen table, they drank late into the night, all the while they (Phil mostly) ranted about the problems of the world.  This was towards the end of Phil's life (he died March 2, 1982), and in those last years he had become increasingly paranoid.  For instance, he believed that Stanislaw Lem was a fiction.  No one could be so prolific.  He was a secret committee of the FBI, or some other nefarious government agency.  He had other far stranger convictions.

Anyhow, Phil grew increasingly agitated as the night wore on.  He had pulled down something from the top of the fridge.  It was a trophy of some kind, but so banged up as to be unrecognizable (almost certainly his 1963 Hugo for The Man in the High Castle).  As he lamented the world's problems, he banged the trophy on the tabletop to emphasize his points.  It was obvious he did this a lot, from the condition of the trophy.  It was his scepter of power.  It gave his words legitimacy.

Anyway, I don't relate this to denigrate Phil Dick or his writing.  He was in his last year, and like so many others lost clarity of mind.

I think.

[Drunk Monk]

Wow - that's an intense story. I often wonder how on the edge leading writers might be.