Key themes
- Reality as something constructed — and what happens when the construction fails
- The Axis-won-WWII alternate history and what it asks us to examine
- The I Ching and contingency — lives that could have gone otherwise
About this book
An alternate history where the Axis won the war; a paranoid, brilliant puzzle-box of a novel.
Published in 1962, The Man in the High Castle won the Hugo Award and is widely considered Dick's most accomplished novel. He used the I Ching to make narrative decisions during the writing and described the alternate history as being 'shown to him' rather than invented.
Discussion questions
- The novel is an alternate history in which Germany and Japan won the war. How does Dick use this premise — to explore the nature of fascism, to examine American identity, or something more destabilising?
- Within the novel, a novel exists called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, in which the Allies won the war. How does this novel-within-novel work — and what is Dick saying about the relationship between fiction and reality?
- The I Ching determines many characters' decisions — it also guided Dick's writing of the novel. What does this structural dependence on chance say about fate and agency?
- The novel's ending is deliberately unresolved — Juliana discovers something about the nature of their reality but what she will do with this knowledge is unclear. What is Dick refusing to give the reader?
- The Man in the High Castle is Dick's most literary novel. How does it compare to his more pulp SF work — and what does the alternate history frame allow him to do that straightforward SF cannot?
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