The Man in the High Castle

[Dave (imported)]

I went to watch THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE on Amazon and I need a piece of software that I can't seem to load. So one day in the next month so, I'll cure that problem.

However, I did buy the book.

It is a very strange alternate history from back when alternate histories weren't in fashion.

And it is Phillip K Dick who has written BLADE RUNNER, MINORITY REPORT, the story that became TOTAL RECALL ...

SO this is a very strange book for the Sci Fi types. This is a book of cultural exposition.

It is about America being defeated in WW2 -- The East half controlled by Germany and the western half controlled by Japan.

Parts of the middle are more or less ungoverned or rather I would say unscathed. There is very little action.

It is set in the year 1965...

Phillip Dick's premise is that FDR was assassinated before 1940 and Nance became president. Plus, the US never entered the war and the Third Reich prevailed. Since the USA wasn't prepared, The Pearl Harbor attack succeeded just as Japan planned it. . .

A science fiction part is that Germany is trying to colonize the moon and mars with their rockets.

Germany has ethnically cleansed Africa and surpassed the Italians by giving them Turkey and the middle east. Stalin was defeated and the Russians are being purged as non-aryans... Interestingly, Rommel defeats the British in the Sahara in this alternate history.

So the year is 1965 and the book has several characters and settings: The west coast in San Francisco where we meet a man who sells American memorabilia from before the war -- Most of it not authentic which is a problem. How does one prove the authenticity of an artifact? Suppose that you had FDR's cigarette lighter and a certificate of authenticity from his family. Would an exact duplicate of the lighter pass with the authenticating letter? What is the reality of the light? What is real?

There are Nazi's in Europe doing their bad things. They have plans to conquer Japan and take over the entire world. Japan has no such ambitions.

There's also his Japanese customers who want to live a different life from that on the Island of Japan.

Another character is one of the few surviving Jews (cleansed by order of the Nazi's) He sells things.

We meet his wife in Colorado and she meets a trucker who is also a German spy.

They go to visit the MAN in the HIGH CASTLE who has written an alternate history where the USA won the war. It is a book that offers hope that the USA won WW2 and the entire history is wrong. It is a third history (the first being ours, the second being what is seen by the characters, the third being this book (Grasshopper) ...

Phillip Dick knew that Hitler was demented and dying so Martin Boormann is the Fuhrer. He dies and another of the Hitler inner circle is trying to take over his office.

It all is very alternate history, a fever dream, a vision of parallel universes, a butterfly, a grasshopper of the High Castle that is written by the I Ching itself.

A very strange novel in which the I Ching rules.

That is not the AMAZON series, though. I doubt the original book from PK Dick could ever become a movie.

So they made this into a rebellion movie and there are those elements. That ;s not to say one version is better than the other

Not such thing is true. From all that I know of the AMAZON series, it is very good but it doesn't follow the book.

So if anyone watches the TV show on Amazon. Sometime in the next 30 days, I will get my computer straightened out and possible have an intelligent discussion of the changes between the written word and the visual TV.

[hopper44 (imported)]

Excellent show. I'm currently on episode four. I haven't watched it in a week or so though because I'm hooked on Hannibal.

[Dave (imported)]

Phillip K Dick has the uncanny ability to write books and stories that seem to be impossible to make into movies.

Yet, there are enterprising writers out there that turn his stories into amazing Sci Fi movies.

I know a little bit about the changes from novel to TV and I don't want to say anything until all six episodes are out and well viewed.

spoilers, yanno

[Wolf-Pup (imported)]

Just finished watching. I haven't read the book though, so can't address the differences.

[Dave (imported)]

I haven't had time to get the password problem on my computer solved. I have only read the book.

One of the keys to understanding the novel is that everything in it is co-incidental (not a misspelling) and not in the sense of serendipity but in the sense of parallel universes touching and co-incident at particular points of history.

--There is our history of WW2

--There is a history where FDR dies and the USA never enters the war. . .Germany gets the a-bomb and rockets and the Axis wins. Germany and Japan win and split the USA between them.

There is a history where FDR dies but Britain doesn't fall and is given the Levant, most of southern Europe, and I think the Indian subcontinent. The Brits are as brutal as the Germans.

--There are two histories where the jewelry and the maker of "authentic" relics touch. To which we can ask "what is authentic?"

--In one of these histories, a trucker is a disguised German assassin sent to kill the man in the high castle.

--In one of these histories Juliana and Frank get back together. Another where they remain apart.

--The The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, by Hawthorne Abendsen is banned by the Germans and yet read by the Japanese.

--It is a story of the I-Ching. It is said that the I-Ching understands the deeper patterns of the Universe. It begins with heaven and earth and ends with a life not yet completed.

And thus is the story left open in the novel.

Remember the coins on which the I-Ching is cast -- there are two sides to every coin. Music cannot exist without silence. Action cannot exist without inaction. Reality doesn't exist without dreams.

[Losethem (imported)]

Considering I grew up in the San Francisco area, I find this alternate history fascinating. I am not sure what to think of the San Francisco cliffhanger in episode 10, nor why they didn't resolve the major issue within the head American Nazi's family before the season finale, or do much of anything to address it.

--LT

[Dave (imported)]

Considering I grew up in the San Francisco area, I find this alternate history fascinating. I am not sure what to think of the San Francisco cliffhanger in episode 10, nor why they didn't resolve the major issue within the head American Nazi's family before the season finale, or do much of anything to address it.

--LT

I can't tell you because when I loaded the last update of Mac OS (El Capitan), it buggered my password and I need that password to load the Amazon software that plays the show. Hopefully, I will get to the Apple help desk the first week or two of January.

I read the book and then gave it to my Sister-in-law as a gift for Christmas.

In the book, some of the characters literally don't make a move without consulting the I-Ching. Did that carry over?

I know that the writers kept Hitler alive in the video version because they were afraid that too many viewers did not know who Martin Bormann, Joseph Goebbels, Reinhard Heydrich, or Hermann Göring were. We know they were Hitler's lieutenants and deputies but that's because we're old. Hitler was terminally ill at the end of WW2.

Also, does the video have the Germans colonizing Mars? And did they drain the Mediterranean?

[moi621 (imported)]

Just say, "No!" to

Netflix, Hulu, Amazon channels.

Keep the "airwaves" FREE and

support piracy of restricted distribution arts

for all peoples and humanity too.

[Wolf-Pup (imported)]

Just say, "No!" to

Netflix, Hulu, Amazon channels.

Keep the "airwaves" FREE and

support piracy of restricted distribution arts

for all peoples and humanity too.

I don't see how they are differerent than HBO or Showtime who also make their own shows for a paying audience, as well as showing movies from all the various studios. As for Piracy, posting about it in a public forum seems like a dubious idea....

[Wolf-Pup (imported)]

The Nazi's bombed Washington, enslaved Africa, and eradicated all the Jews in Europe. I think South America was still a free zone. Americans apparently happily embraced anti-semitism, and Judaism was outlawed on the Japanese areas as well.

They have rockets to travel from place to place and there was talk of colonization, but I don't remember if it was the moon or Mars.

How it ended was strange. Like the Trade Minister knew there was a better version or dimension than where he was living and somewhow the necklace let him cross to the real history (ours). Maybe he is The Man in the High Castle and brings the films back with him? Also who had the film and the end Joe or Juliana?