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3.4 AVERAGE
3.4 AVERAGE
I was really enjoying this most of the way through but the final third didn’t work for me at all.
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This Philip K Dick dude would be a pretty good writer if he ever learned to finish a story in a cohesive and logical way…
dark
medium-paced
This is a disturbing, and at times, puzzling book. Like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep—a book I enjoyed far more—Dick basically goes nuts towards the end, forsaking reality and peppering the dialogue with all sorts of weird tangents and philosophical musings.
Before the book goes to crazy-town, it is quite powerful. Dick imagines what life would be like if the Axis won World War II. The unsettling answer: for most people, life would go on. They would marry, split up, try to do business, and adjust. I mean, that’s what people did after World War II, which saw plenty of carnage, even with the Nazis losing. The post-war new world order envisioned here brings many atrocities, and while some characters don’t like them, they don’t let them ruin their dinner. Hey, there’s no shortage of atrocities in the world today, and our government is clearing changing in unpleasant ways, but most people just go about their business, and try to stay out of the way. Because what are you going to do?
he book also shows how ordinary people can become complicit in bigotry; even the book’s moral center, Mr. Tagomi, falls victim to it at times. It’s worth nothing that Dick wrote this in 1962, when there were still segregated bathrooms in the South.
I also like the way he gets into the mechanics of how markets work, which is rather unexpected, and something you also saw in Do Androids.
On the downside, the book kind of drags—the big spy plot should be exciting but it isn’t, and it barely even tries to be. (The plot with Julianne and her boyfriend does have a solid climax.) It is also extremely confusing and has too much going on, with too many characters doing too much. While it’s an impressive feat of world-building, Man in the High Castle is often more interesting to think about than to read.
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced