A Different World After War

The Man in the High Castle by Phillip K Dick



It’s been over a decade since World War II has ended and the world is a different place now that Germany and Japan has won the war.  Very little remains of what was the United States of America, with the east coast now German Territory and the west belonging to Japan. Most of the Jewish population has been terminated with those surviving living behind plastic surgery and false names. Since most of the world is now under German or Japanese control, rulers are looking to colonize other planets like Mars. But in the midst of all this change, life still continues. And with all this change someone has written a book, that has been banned in Germany and all its territories, about what the world would have been like if the United States and Britain had won the war.
                The Man in the High Castle introduced quite a few different characters, from an American antiques dealer, a Jewish man in hiding, a leading German officer governing in Japanese Territory, and a Japanese official just to name a few. The author was very thorough in introducing different characters representing altering points of views and situations. The novel was almost hostile with fear, racism and cultural awareness being constant ideas throughout the book. All of the characters are under a certain amount of pressure in this new environment to present themselves a certain way in order to prevent being mistreated by others. Image in this new world is all that matters.
                Now I found the idea of having this novel incorporate itself into the story line to be brilliant. The idea that some of these characters are reading a novel that is the alternative reality of their own is intriguing because its exactly what I’m doing. When I opened this book, I entered into an alternate reality, which is theirs, and they were doing the exact same thing. It was a little unnerving at first, simply because of the reaction some of the characters were having to this world where the US and Britain won but it was realistic.
                I, for the most part, enjoyed this novel. I can appreciate why it received the acclaim that it did upon its release. I personally found the story, in its beginning, very hard to connect with. Phillip K Dick definitely dived right in to a situation that you were not at all familiar with. Each character introduced a different ideal and understanding and it wasn't until you observed all these different characters that you truly started to grasp the severity of these new situations. I would recommend this to readers who simply want to read an interesting book about how different life could have been. People ask themselves “what if” questions all the time and this answers one: What would life be like if Germany and Japan had won the second World War?

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