The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

 I’ve never read a novel by Philip K. Dick before, despite having knowingly seen at least three films based on his work. This is a highly impressive introduction to his work, a novel as thoughtful as it is imaginative.

The fact that one should not perhaps look to closely at the realism of the alternative history presented here in no way harms the nov: sleight of hand is an honourable technique. And the world presented here, where the Axis won the war and split the former USA between them, is compelling and three dimensional.

Germany and Japan are slowly slipping into a rivalry, inevitable with the Nazis’ fundamental and horrifying racism, with the Holocaust having been extended to an African genocide, with others implied. The Japanese are presented sympathetically, despite the awkwardly contemporary hints that they merely imitate others’ cultural products, rather than create. They have culture, feeling, and that nebulous thing called creativity. The Nazis, by contrast, are a society with no culture or humanity whatsoever, a dark and empty dead end. They have put a man on Mars, joylessly, yet television is only now being rolled out. And now, it is implied, they are slowly gaining the upper hand which may result in nuclear Holocaust of Japan.

Yet this is told through real, human characters such as a Jewish craftsman, a German spy and a Japanese businessmen, with an oddly fascinating sting subplot about the forgery of antiques. There is a lot of thoughtful musing on the nature of art and morality through the medium of Eastern religious philosophy, most of which is lost on this godless reader. But the novel is full of wonderful little touches, with the mental universe of this world feeling thoroughly thought through.

Best of all is Dick’s nicely self-abnegating articulation of the death of the author, as his counterpart within the novel, the creator of the novel within the novel, explains that he was simply the medium for a novel that wrote itself. It’s a clever, challenging, perfect ending to a novel which deliberately resists the concept of arbitrary endings. A superb novel.