I would bet that the majority of people that read The Man in the High Castle do not understand the ending.
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I read it sometime in my mid-teens, and must admit that I did not. Worth a read again?
I liked it, but tastes differ. My daughter understood the ending..
Wasnt it something along the lines of us living in a fake world too and we can get glimpes of the real via iching?
i read the book as a teen, been a while. also didnt the japanese guy end up in our world somehow?
The first time I read it,as a teen, I missed the fact that neither the ‘High Castle’ world, nor the I Ching world in which the Allies won the war, is even close to the world the readers have experienced…
Well, go on, tiger. What is it, then?
Yes, for those who haven’t read nor are planning to read it.
+1, for those who haven’t read it?
+1
Dick planned a sequel and so left the ending “open.”
I’ve read a handful of his novels, but I put down, about 2/3 through, a compilation of Dick’s short stories not long ago. They were making ME feel schizophrenic.
Couldn’t handle “Ubik”, huh?
No, i got through, and sort of liked “Ubik”
I still remember that, happened to be sitting in an airport waiting for a flight. I finished the book, looked around and thought “I’m real right? Right?”
The characters come to realize that they’re characters in a book. That’s a kind of reality.
I feel like there is something beyond the plots, something in the prose itself that you can pick up on.
I’ve always wondered if it was “natural” craziness or drugs, or else a combination. Maybe, Amphetamine, all by itself.
The ending? Three possibilities:
1/ Both Nazi victory timeline and the “Cold War” timeline where we, readers of the book, live are illusions, and the utopian “Grasshopper” timeline where British Empire is triumphant is true.
2/ There is no “true” reality, it is all illusion all the way down.
3/ I got it all wrong.
I hoovered up sci-fi in my teens but about the only one I can remember is Flowers for Algernon. I’m not usually sentimental but that one moved me. Blub, blub! It certainly seemed compatible with the proposition that “tragedy” means that the outcome is inevitable.
I can remember thinking Asimov overrated. But what else can be said? Sci fi is just a phase you go through, stuff to read when it’s too wet, dark, or cold to spend time outdoors.
I read FFA again recently, after it was alluded to Stephenson’s latest. My goodness, it is a tragic story. Brought me to tears. Beautifully written.
The Grasshopper Lies Heavy is an alternate history novel within a novel similar to, but different from, our world. One where Winston Churchill drives the British empire to be racist. And eventually to defeat the US to expand. So the “inner truth” from that alt history novel within a novel at the ending is that the racist empires ultimately win in all the alternate histories.
Dick was paranoid from his schizophrenia of course. So our timeline will be fine. Just fine.
Reading the wikipedia plot summary there’s one interpretation of the meaning of the ending that’s pretty obvious.
and
I got the impression that Dick used the I Ching to write the actual novel too, which exacerbated its disjointed quality.
I read it years ago. I may still have the book, if it’s in storage. And that’s ALL I remember of it.
I will never fully understand; that is the nature of such creatures. Or is this Inner Truth now, this that is happening to me? I will wait. I will see. Which it is. Perhaps it is both.
This is how my college professor explained it.
PKD writes himself into his books a lot. In this case he is the character Abendsen who is the author of the in book alternate history of the world The Grasshopper Lies Heavy in which the allied powers won WW2. In the book Abdensen reveals that he use the Y Ching to write the book, that he would get to a turning point and ask the Y Ching what happens next in the story. At the end of Man in the High Castle Juliana visits Abdensen and has him ask the Y Ching why it had him write The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. The answer it gives is because it’s the truth. This is metaphysically hard on the characters.
Up one level. In the real world PKD set out to write a book called The Man in the High Castle, an alternate history in which the Axis powers won WW2. Dick uses the Y Ching to write the book, he would get to a turning point and ask the Y Ching what happens next in the story. As he is writing the last scene in the book he asks the Y Ching why it had him write The Man in the High Castle, and the answer it gives is because it’s the truth. This is metaphysically hard on the reader.
Everett?
“Above the lake is the wind. Inner Truth.
The noble one deliberates over legal arguments and delays executions.”
I’ve actually been meaning to contact you about your Visa or Mastercard account.
I plan to read it as soon as I figure out UBIK. I will reread UBIK with your idea of the protaganists discovering they are characters in a book.
The Further Adventures Of Nick Danger
http://www.benway.com/firesign/lexicon/I.html