"The book is fiction. I mean, it's
in novel form. In it Roosevelt isn't
assassinated in Miami. He is still
President when Germany attacks Poland,
France and England. He makes America
strong. Garner was an awful President. A
lot of what happened is his fault. And
then, in 1940, instead of Bricker
another Democrat would have been
elected. His theory, instead of being an
isolationist like Bricker, Rexford
Tugwell would have kept Roosevelt's
Anti-Nazi policies going. So Germany
would have been hesitant to come to
Japan's help in 1941. They would not
have honored the treaty. Don't you see?
Germany and Japan would have lost the
war!"
--
The
Grasshopper Lies Heavy
[Summation.]
The
year is 1962. In the fifteen years since
World War II ended with the defeat of the
Allies by the Axis in 1947, America has
been split up into three different zones:
The Pacific states (basically
from the Sierras west)
are under Japanese control; Germany
controls everything east of the
Mississippi; while what's left in the
middle comprise the unoccupied Rocky
Mountain States.
With
their strict code of honor, morals and
social status, the Japanese exploit the
conquered people and the nation's natural
resources. They've also developed a
voracious appetite for pre-war Americana,
so there is a ripe market for genuine
American antiques where an authentic
Mickey Mouse watch or Civil War era pistol
is invaluable. Their religion has also set
in as more and more Americans convert to
Tao and rely on the book of I
Ching
to make decisions for them: You basically
toss coins or sticks and then you take how
they fall and translate from the book as
to what your future holds or which
decision to make.
Nazi
Germany's final solution was carried out
completely in all of their controlled
territories. Make that almost completely,
as the few remaining Jews are in hiding --
mostly in plain sight. The atrocities
spilled over onto the natives of Africa as
there are several allusions to some kind
of "catastrophe." Russia has
been conquered and all Slavs are turned
into slave labor. Exploiting that source,
Nazi engineers dammed up and drained the
Mediterranean Sea for more farmland. They
didn't need it. They just wanted to show
it could be done. German rockets have also
colonized the moon and landed on Mars, but
they can't quite perfect Television. (Raising
some questions of the validity of the Mars
and moon landings. Are they just more
propaganda?)
Is
Hitler enjoying his Third Reich? No. Quite
the contrary. He's gone senile and is
confined to a sanitarium while syphilis
eats away his brain. And as with all
dictatorships, the power struggle to
replace him wasn't pretty, with plenty of
coups and assassinations. The story proper
begins with the death of the current
Reich's Chancellor and the upheaval in
Berlin grows more deadly as a new Fuhrer
tries to position himself to seize power.
In
America, things have been bad since the
Great Depression that never really ended.
FDR tried to change things but was
assassinated during his first year in
office in 1932. So by the time the Japanese
attacked Pearl Harbor, they were in no
position to retaliate. England couldn't
hold on her own and Churchill was voted
out as Prime Minister after the defeat in
North Africa. So now all that's left of
the free world is the Rocky Mountain
States and Canada.
After
Capitulation Day there was talk of
rallying and fighting to retake America. (Bob
Hope continues a guerilla and subversive
radio broadcast from Canada.) But fifteen
years later the revolution still hasn't
come and most Americans in the conquered
territories have tried to move on with
their lives and survive as best they can.
Most surviving Jews fled to the mountains
or changed their names to hide their
heritage. Germany's secret police operates
freely, even in Japanese held territories,
and the furnaces have been lit at the
first death camps built on American soil
in New York. With all this background the
story moves forward, focusing on several
characters whose lives and destinies will
intertwine over the next few crucial set
of days.
Frank
Frink is one of those Jews hiding in plain
sight in San Francisco. He's just been
fired from his manufacturing job and
decides to go into business with his
friend, Ed McCarthy. They intend to make a
new kind of jewelry. A risky venture since
all the money is basically Japanese and
they don't care about new American style,
just the old.
Juliana
Frink is Frank's ex-wife. She fled to
Colorado and has met up with a swarthy
Italian war veteran named Joe -- who seems
to know too much about some things but not
enough about others, raising our
suspicions that he is not what he appears
to be.
Robert
Childan is a wholesaler in American
antiques. He is a milksop and a suck-up to
his Japanese costumers. His world is
starting to unravel because he's
discovered that the vast majority of his
merchandise are forgeries and bootlegs.
He's also going insane because he can
never get a proper read on his Japanese
customers and must always be on his toes
not to insult them.
Mr.
Tagomi is one of Childan's infuriating
customers. The Japanese businessman is
also expecting an important guest named
Mr. Baynes. Baynes is another man who
isn't who appears to be. (To
reveal too much about him would ruin the
story.)
Let's just say the German secret police
are very interested in Baynes and are
desperately trying to find him.
Most
of these characters rely heavily on the I
Ching
a/k/a The
Book of Changes,
but another book has come into their lives
that has a profound effect on all of them.
The
Grasshopper Lies Heavy
by a man named Abendson is on Berlin's
most banned list because it postulates
what the world would have been liked if
the Allies had won the war.
Things
heat up when Frink's secret is discovered;
while the building is raided by the
Gestapo, Baynes, Togami and a mysterious
third party have their meeting to discuss
something called Operation Dandelion --
that is a lot more sinister than it
sounds; Childan gropes with his inner
turmoil as to whether to go on being
submissive or assert himself over his
tormentors; Juliana is so moved by
Abendson's book that she and Joe head up
to Denver to seek him out; it's rumored
that the author lives in a high castle
surrounded by barbed wire and large guns.
And each decision one character makes has
a resounding effect on the others. How
does it all turn out? Sorry, for that
you'll have to find out for yourselves by
reading The
Man in the High Castle.
*
* * *
Author
Philip K. Dick has been a long time
contributor to the science-fiction genre,
but he's probably best known these days
for the big screen adaptations of his
work: Do
Androids Dream of Electronic Sleep
begat Blade
Runner.
We
Can Remember it For You Wholesale
was the basis for Total
Recall.
And Minority
Report
became, obviously, Minority
Report.
I
had never read anything by Dick before and
I can honestly say I never made the
connection until I started researching the
author after reading this book. I'm a
World War II history nut and picked this
thing up at a used book store based solely
on the cover, promising an alternate
ending to the war.
I've
been told that this is Dick's easiest work
to read, but I'll still give a friendly
warning to casual readers: There's a lot
to plow through and absorb. I won't even
begin to try and explain Tao or how the I
Ching
works because I haven't a clue. But they
are both vital to the story and I have a
feeling that some comprehension of it's
intricacies with the sticks and coins
would enhance the reader's understanding.
Dick gives you enough to get by. (But
barely enough.)
There's
some serious intrigue and several puzzles
to unravel as we realize several
characters aren't who they claim to be.
Yet the story is punctuated with some very
funny laugh out loud moments as well:
"It's the fault of those
physicists and their synchronicity
theory, every particle being connected
with every other; you can't fart without
changing the balance of the
universe."
But
what I enjoyed most about the book was
when characters were reading The
Grasshopper Lies Heavy,
or when a clue was dropped about how this
alternate history came about and what's
changed. Abendson's book is not strictly
history as we know it. FDR wasn't
assassinated but only leads the country
out of the Depression. And after his
second term is up, he gives way to another
strong leader named Tugwell. He sniffs out
Pearl Harbor before it happens and the
Japanese Navy is caught in a surprise. The
Allies win the war but with the victory
comes an unofficial Cold War between the
U.S. and Britain -- the Soviets
have their own problems.
The
ending can best be described as ambiguous
-- and at worst completely retarded. And
to me, personally, it wasn't completely
satisfying and even a little
disappointing. Disappointing and annoying.
Annoying enough that when I finished it, I
flung the book across the room with a
hearty call of "oh bull crap!"
In author's defense, I have every
intention of rereading the last chapter --
when Juliana finally meets Abendson,
because I feel I either missed something
or something didn't click; it just never
really jived together for me.
More
over, less under, The
Man in the High Castle
is more a character study than history
lesson -- and all the characters go
through a massive personality change. (Childan
goes through the biggest change.) The
characters are engaging enough, but they
don't really do a whole lot until the last
few chapters. I really want to like this
book more than I do. It had me enthralled
until it totally unraveled at the very
end. So here's hoping the ending is better
the second time around.
It's
still a good read, though, and well worth
your investment if you are either a hard
core sci-fi buff or an alternative history
junkie. But if you're expecting a high
adventure story where the gist of the plot
is fighting the Nazis and the Japs to
retake America, or to somehow correct
history and get it back on course with our
reality, that is not what this book
is about at all. For that you'll have to
look elsewhere.
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