The Man in the High Castle
Hello all! I apologize for the delay in this post! I finished the book over a month ago, but I have been spending every waking minute trying to balance finishing my Yoga Teacher Training and keeping up with my family life. But, I’m excited to say that not only am I officially a RYT 200, I also have my first yoga job. Yay! So in the coming months, you may see blogs in addition to the book reviews. Things like yoga life, mom thoughts, etc.
So without further ado, let’s get down to business!
The Man in the High Castle was written by Philip K Dick in 1962. The story takes place in the same year, the Nazi’s and the Japanese are in charge of most of the world after the U.S. lost World War II. The I Ching is the go to in the West, slavery is legal and all Jews that have managed to survive live in hiding. The passing of the German leader, and a book spewing ideas of a world in which the U.S. won the war send all sides into unbalance.
Perhaps you’ve watched the two fascinating seasons of this show on Amazon Prime and you’re wanting to read the book to dive deeper into this alternate reality. Or vice versa, maybe you’ve read the book and you’re eager to binge watch the series. But I will tell you now, that these worlds could not be more different. The show is a very loose development of a novel that chills your core and leaves you with no real ending, no answers and no hope.
“They want to be the agents, not the victims, of history. They identify with God’s power and believe they are godlike. That is their basic madness. They are overcome by some archetype; their egos have expanded psychotically so that they cannot tell where they begin and the godhead leaves off. it is not hubris, not pride; it is inflation of the ego to its ultimate — confusion between him who worships and that which is worshipped. Man has not eaten God; God has eaten man.
What they do not comprehend is man’s helplessness. I am weak, small, of no consequence to the universe. It does not notice me; I live on unseen. But why is that bad? Isn’t it better that way? Whom the gods notice they destroy. Be small…and you will escape the jealousy of the great.”
This quote from early in the book, regarding the Nazi’s, sends chills down my spine. It reminds me so much of the leaders I currently see in charge of our country. This book, while being a hypothetical, what if, is chilling because Dick is letting society know, that the reality we live in can shift in a moment. Once the scariest people manipulate themselves into positions of power, the aftermath they create is not so easy to escape.
This book is told from many different points of view, most commonly Frank and Juliana Frink, Mr. Tagomi and Robert Childan. The historical knowledge and cultural research that P.K. Dick must have done to write this novel is really impressive. The chapters that take place in the West are written mostly in what is almost like an Easternized English. Robert Childan speaks in this way but doesn’t think in this way, it’s my belief that he respects the Japanese and wants to be like them; wealthy, admired, important. Frank Frink, on the other hand, doesn’t speak in this fashion. He doesn’t want to be like the Japanese. He remembers a time before the Japanese and the Nazi’s ruled the world, and he’s hopeful for a time when they won’t. There are clear examples in this book of what it’s like to be a blind sheep, and rewarded for it for a time, and what it’s like to rebel and break off from the path, and be hunted down for the decision.
Each story line revolves around The Grasshopper Lies Heavy by Hawthorne Abendsen, a writer holing up in the only free lands left. A book about what life would have been like if the U.S. hadn’t lost the war. And the looming question of what’s real and what isn’t. Throughout the story, there’s the understanding that every side is darkness. Mr. Tagomi makes refrences to the Yin and Yang in the world, the world has become unbalanced in a way it usually isn’t…the understanding that Yin has taken over.
“The heart, locked within two yin lines of black passion. Strangles, sometimes, and yet, even then, the light of yang, the flicker at the center.”
I spent the whole book, hoping for a resolve, hoping to find the characters wake up from a nightmare they’d all been living. Only to be met with a story creeping further and further into darkness. And this alternate reality collapsing in on itself, but not towards a new world of hope and growth…but to a darkness that even this Yin laden world can’t even imagine.
Please read this book. It’s a message that needs to be heard.
Let me leave you with the one, beautiful sliver of hope that I found. A reminder to us all, to keep on keeping on. To take each day moment by moment. And to continue to make the conscious decisions to do what is right.
“No wonder Mr. Tagomi could not go on, he thought. The terrible dilemma of our lives. Whatever happens, it is evil beyond compare. Why struggle, then? Why choose? If all alternatives are the same…
Evidently we go on, as we always have. From day to day. At this moment we work against Operation Dandelion. Later on, at another moment, we work to defeat the police. But we cannot do it all at once; it is a sequence. An unfolding process. We can only control the end by making a choice at each step.
He thought, We can only hope. And try.”
So what’s next?? My very favorite book to read during the holidays, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.
This novel brings back memories from my childhood. I always loved watching the 1933 film with my mom. In high school, I got to play Beth March in the musical! I am always grateful for the lessons this book continues to teach me, and I can’t wait to read through it again with all of you!
