Friday, December 15, 2006

Dick's "The Man in the High Castle"

Having fallen into a rut of reading the same author's books, I found a couple of top-(whatever) lists for fiction, and I'm working my way through them at the library. I just finished Philip K. Dick's "The Man in the High Castle." It was OK, but I was rather unsatisfied with the ending. Two of the main characters just lose it, then the whole alternate 'real' reality thing seemed to come out of nowhere.

I completely missed that Tagomi was supposed to be visiting our reality. I thought it was just being pointed out that Japanese control wasn't total.

Did Juliana actually swallow a razorblade? If so, how was she able to just continue on with the story (eating, drinking, sleeping, etc) with no ensuing problems?

Hawthorne's family's bland acceptance that Juliana had killed a man seemed too much to accept.

All in all, an OK book. But mix in a little ignorance of German and history around WWII, that this was the first PKD book I've read, and the way it ended, I can't say I'd recommend it.

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