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Lady Fancifull

~ adventures in a mainly literary obsession

Lady Fancifull

Tag Archives: Science fiction

Philip K Dick – The Man In The High Castle

09 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by Lady Fancifull in Classic writers and their works, Fiction, Reading, SF

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Alternative History, Book Review, Philip K. Dick, Science fiction, The Man In The High Castle

Conceptually interesting, never quite engaging the heart

The Man In The High CastlePhilip K Dick’s alternative view of the outcome of the Second World War has been an interesting reading and reviewing experience.

I was absorbed by the reading, but, unlike my best reads where reflecting on the experience, in order to review it, brings increased enjoyment, as complexities, nuances and depth in understanding why the writing worked so well, arise, my reflection rather lessened my assessment of this book.

The Man In The High Castle reflects of course the time it was written in (1962) and has possibly dated. I think it has to be considered also in the light of other writing at that time, particularly writing arising out of the SF genre, which is primarily where Dick’s writing came from

The book is set in America, fifteen years after the Second World War was won, in 1947, by the Axis Powers. Imperial Japan has control over the Pacific States of America (the Western States) Nazi Germany controls the Eastern States, and there is a area of neutrality between the two occupying forces, in the Rockies. A terrible, not quite spelt out, but easy to imagine devastating ‘experiment’ has been carried out by the Nazis in Africa.

In this version, the Japanese conquerors are seen as a far greater force for civilisation, far more cultured, far more enlightened. There are pretty well no moderate Germans. Martin Boorman is Chancellor, and Hitler, still alive, but elderly and ravaged by syphilis is out of power. However the succession to Boorman is hotting up, and factions within Germany are splitting and plotting to take control (none of which depart from fascist ideology)

Map of world in Man In The High Castle, Wiki Commons

Map of world in Man In The High Castle, Wiki Commons

Set in San Francisco, Japanese controlled San Francisco, one of the ‘civilising’ influences is seen to be the Chinese Book of Changes, the I Ching, an ancient text which had a major influence on the counter-culture of the ‘real’ 1960s. Dick himself used the I Ching in order to write this book. Carl-Gustave Jung examined, at depth, the philosophies and world view of this text. Indeed, Jung wrote the foreword to the translated edition which first appeared in English in 1951. The Book of Changes was less ‘divination’ (though it was certainly used that way in the West), and more meditation, leading to indication of possibilities and reflection about possibilities from taking (or not taking) particular courses of action. It is a poetic, metaphor rich text, needing to be understood in the culture of its creation.

Using the Yarrow Stalks Flicr Commons Hella Delicious photostream

Using the Yarrow Stalks Flicr Commons Hella Delicious photostream

Several of the central characters in Dick’s book seek guidance on the correct choices to be made ‘the way of the superior man’ which the book suggests should be followed.

Robert Childan is an American who has capitalised on the Japanese interest in ‘Americana’ by running a high end ‘antiques and genuine American heritage’ business – some of which, is in fact high end forgery. So, as well as alternative history around the Second World War, there is also a fake, or alternative, creation of American culture. For example, in the book, Roosevelt was assassinated. What is the special potency, magic or energy associated with a ‘this is the precise weapon’ or a fake version of something? There is a subtext around the real and the fake, genuine art and forgery.

iching-bookOne of the most sophisticated and nuanced characters is Nobusuke Tagomi, a high ranking Japanese businessman, and one of Childan’s major customers. Tagomi is one of the most subtle and developed characters in the book, one who is willing to take responsibility for his own actions. I wondered how much Dick’s own interest in psychology, philosophy and psychology had gone into the greater humanity and authenticity of Tagomi, than I found in any other character in the book. Tagomi, to this reader, was the most ‘truly human’ precisely because he was most complex, and most reflective on his human nature – which is to be conflicted within itself.

And yet, nothing to see: nothing for body to do. Run? All in preparation for panic flight. But where to and why? Mr Tagomi asked himself. No clue. Therefore impossible. Dilemma of civilized man; body mobilized, but danger obscure.

Two other central characters are Frank Frink, a craftsman – who is Jewish, and of course absolutely has to keep his ancestry hidden, and his estranged wife Juliana, a judo instructor.

There are also characters in the book who are absolutely not who they seem to be. The two Axis superpowers are also squaring up for a conflict between themselves. Germany is well ahead. It has the hydrogen bomb, and has already begun to colonise space.

A major focus of the book is something which has become almost literary mainstream now – a book within the book. There is a book, banned by the Axis Powers, which presents an ‘alternative history’ – a history in which the Allied Powers won the war. This book, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, has become a hidden, furtive, cult classic, which inspires its subversive readers to believe that another kind of history might have been possible – or could cohere and rally people behind a symbol, a way of thinking, which might change the future.

It was easy to tell which were the Germans. They had that healthy, clean energetic, assured look. The Americans on the other hand – they just looked like people. They could have been anybody

With the central focus of the alternative history within the alternative history, Dick is playing very interesting mind games with his readers about the nature of reality, creating a feeling of dislocation, ideas about bifurcating, endlessly splitting reality

At the time of the writing, this must have been quite startlingly interesting and challenging, particularly coming from a writer whose background was populist rather than academic and lit ficcy

I thoroughly enjoyed the shifting, teasing thought provoking aspects of the book, but where I foundered was where I have often foundered in the past in ‘traditional science fiction’ where the writers are more skilled at concept and the ideas behind the science, and the fiction around the possibilities of that science, but are, it seems, less interested and skilled in the narrative which arises from within an empathic inhabitation of character.

This does not mean that character must be loveable, by any means, but it does mean that all characters have to make sense to themselves, have an understandable authenticity, be fully rounded, fleshed out, and not merely vehicles to carry plot and idea forward.

We do not have the ideal world, such as we would like, where morality is easy because cognition is easy. Where one can do right with no effort because he can detect the obvious

So, on reflection, I cannot say I loved this book because I only engaged intellectually, in the interesting ideas, and in the outside observation of page turning plot. But I cannot say that I really found myself involved with, or engaged by any of the characters.

What I did find myself wishing for, was that Dick had written another book, called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, with a further book perhaps within it.

I know that on the back of the TV adaptation someone has of course jumped on the marketing possibilities of this and written his own book with this title. Not, by all accounts, very good, and I’m not at all drawn to its perusal.

Although this is less ‘science fiction’ and more ‘an alternative view of history and an examination of ‘reality’ itself’ it did remind me that my own greater willingness to immerse in SF came from writers who wrote within the genre, but were/are also more obviously writers who create subtler, more believable individual humanity.

There is a very interesting foreword to the ebook by Eric Brown – which I read AFTERWARDS – and PhilipDickam very glad I did so, as it spells out the plot . Small gripe – why oh why are so many forewords prone to spoil, not enlighten, the reading experience? Is it the ego of a foreword writer, which demands foreword, why can’t the foreword be placed as it clearly so often should be – as an afterword? Unless a foreword were perhaps to restrict itself to something more modest.

My after-reading of the foreword was interesting, in that many of the ideas I was forming about the writer himself and his personality (which of course gives rise to the book a writer will write, both its strength and its weaknesses) were borne out. I shall not detail them here, as curiously, I think the biography itself might predict and predispose the reader.

I did strongly like the book – a very clear four star, but it is as much in the context (and the limitations) of its own time. And, for many reasons, the authorial voice is not a voice which absolutely resonates with me.

The Man In The High Castle Amazon UK
The Man In The High Castle Amazon USA

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The Prescient View of Science Fiction writers

12 Thursday Sep 2013

Posted by Lady Fancifull in Fiction, Philosophical Soapbox, Reading, SF, Shouting From The Soapbox

≈ 21 Comments

Tags

Book Review, Dystopia, Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury, Science fiction, SF, Soapbox

Ray Bradbury –  Fahrenheit 451

Back whenever, Science Fiction was a genre I never thought about, convinced that such writers were (sorry, this is about my previous prejudices, and may not reflect reality about the genre, then or now AT ALL) geeky guys without social skills stuck in a 7 year old comic book fantasy of space-ships, ray-guns, stun-guns, giant robotic females with mammaries the size of whoopee cushions, who happened to be coloured green or red and had just dropped in from Venus or Mars.

It took me some time to realise that some writers whom I thought of as pretty thoughtful and thought provoking – H.G.Wells, George Orwell. (I liked their politics too) John Wyndham, even Aldous Huxley (Brave New World) were also writing in this genre. Science Fiction in the hands of these writers had far less to do with ray guns (or even Ray-Bans) and had everything to do with a device for looking at our society.

Then no less an admired writer (by me) than Doris Lessing began to write the stuff in the Canopus In Argos series, and moreover began banging the SF drum, saying that some of the most exciting writing was happening in the genre, as it was a perfect medium for Society to examine itself. Big ethical and philosophical ideas of now and the future could be teased out and examined, and moreover, of course, SF was a way of looking at what both a Utopia and a Dystopia might look like – or even whether Utopia itself was in fact really achievable, or just another Dystopia.

Added to my roster of other writers to admire (and I liked their politics!) were of course Lessing herself, Ursula K Le Guin and Sheri Tepper – not to mention Margaret Atwood and even Marge Piercy in Woman On The Edge Of Time. Suddenly it seemed as if there were a whole raft of feminist writers – fine writers, feminists, turning to this genre as a way of exploring gender politics, socialism – and I realised, hey, you know what, I LIKE SF!

Fahrenheit 451Anyway, this preamble has brought me to re-reading some earlier SF classics, – most recently, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.

Now Bradbury in this book may not be writing such well crafted complex characters as some of those writers I have mentioned, and the plot itself may even be a bit sparse or creaky, but my goodness, I am shocked and chilled and awed by how much of today’s culture he was predicting 60 years ago

Reality TV where we all become content not only to ap820201044watch others living, rather than living ourselves, but, no doubt, the next step arriving very soon where our TV becomes interactive and we ourselves get inserted as bit players in the soaps we watch, or software that inserts our names into live TV, so that the TV talks directly to us, with announcers addressing us directly. Then we can live even less.

He seems to have mainlined into the fact that we have dumbed culture down, his description of the way people talk to each other so that actually they are not talking about anything at all seems unnervingly like the “and then he said, he was like, it was, you know, like, it was, yeah, no, know what I mean?” babble.  You hear these conversations all around, more and more being said without any meaning:

 People don’t talk about anything’…’They name a lot of cars or clothes or swimming pools and say how swell! But they all say the same things and nobody says anything different from anyone else

cloned

He predicts also the worst excesses of PC speak, and puts his finger neatly on the button of our expectation of happiness as a right, our inability to come to terms with the fact that pain and suffering are a real part of embodiment, of living in a world of matter. The best, the justest, the fairest society will not be able to end our personal suffering

 Ask yourself, what do we want in this country, above all? People want to be happy, isn’t that right? Haven’t you heard it all your life? I want to be happy, people say. Well, aren’t they? Don’t we keep them moving, don’t we give them fun? That’s all we live for, isn’t it? For pleasure, for titillation? And you must admit our culture provides plenty of these

I was shaking my head in amazement at the accurate identification of our can’t be still, can’t reflect society which settles for circuses (never mind the bread) and drinks, drugs, medicates, and buys its way out of having to acknowledge that pain is an unavoidable part of life itself – we will grow old (if we are that lucky); we will have to manage the loss, at some point, of those we love, and we too will die.

There is more – a society which cannot deal with complexity, with the fact there may not always be an obvious right and an obvious wrong, and this too, we cannot bear. One of the great challenges are situations where whatever action is taken, it will not be without some great cost, and yet we have to take some action, as the not taking an action is of course itself an act. Events in Syria are so much illustrative of this. I am minded of W.B. Yeats’ poem The Second Coming:

The best lack all conviction, whilst the worst
Are full of Passionate intensity

How do we live having let go of  the comfortable and childish security of a world which is black OR white, and let ourselves inhabit that more confusing  challenging world filled with ever more subtle complexities of paradoxes, conflicts and oppositions coexisting together into and and, rather than either or?

 If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none.

And, seeing ahead to the vapid game show, where factual knowledge gives us the illusion we have intelligence and wisdom

 Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so full of facts they feel stuffed, but absolutely brilliant with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving

He talks also about our inability to bear silence – everyone cushioned from the world by their own blare of noise wall to wall music piped into our heads, children plonked in front of the pabulum TV, learning early to be passive not interactive, – even the fashion for elective caesarians on non-medical grounds.

bookburning

What makes this book so powerful still is the fact that so much of its dystopian vision is the way our lives actually are; not in fact so much ‘science fiction’ after all, rather a sociological analysis

We don’t need giant invaders from other galaxies with super powerful rare weapons to destroy us, and our world. We are ourselves those violent, aggressive, alien invaders

Fahrenheit 451 Amazon UK
Fahrenheit 451 Amazon UK

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