I've read a few of his works, and I pretty much enjoyed them; but I really have no idea what 'The Man in the High Castle' was all about. I got friendly with a few characters, reasonably adapted to the alternate reality and so on, but I have no idea what it was trying to say...
Not that every book has to say anything to be enjoyable, but I hear many people rave about it and I feel like I must have missed something. Well read people don't rave about empty books when they got not much out of it but a read through that provoked little thought.
I left it just confused. What was he trying to make us understand? The nazi's won, and in that reality things were pretty grim, so was the point about how people feel when they're forced to live subservient to a totalitarian regime? I doubt that's new to anyone, and you don't need the alternate reality to express that -- it happens today -- and he wasn't even particularly striking in his visualizations of it so I don't do think that was it... I was pretty deflated by it really, but I suppose it left a bigger mark on me because I spent so long afterwards trying to figure out the point :P
If anyone feels differently, I'd really love to hear your views -- I just didn't 'get' it..
I think it is a way off from being his best book. It has, conventionally speaking, the most striking premise (for its day). Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is much superior.
What I found really interesting is to read his short fiction and then go back to the novels. In the stories you see his controlled, precise side and that kind changes how you feel about his longer work. I cannot recommend these enough:
Faith of Our Fathers
Upon The Dull Earth
The Electric Ant
I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon
I think reading the novels one is only seeing one side of the writer.
Not that every book has to say anything to be enjoyable, but I hear many people rave about it and I feel like I must have missed something. Well read people don't rave about empty books when they got not much out of it but a read through that provoked little thought.
I left it just confused. What was he trying to make us understand? The nazi's won, and in that reality things were pretty grim, so was the point about how people feel when they're forced to live subservient to a totalitarian regime? I doubt that's new to anyone, and you don't need the alternate reality to express that -- it happens today -- and he wasn't even particularly striking in his visualizations of it so I don't do think that was it... I was pretty deflated by it really, but I suppose it left a bigger mark on me because I spent so long afterwards trying to figure out the point :P
If anyone feels differently, I'd really love to hear your views -- I just didn't 'get' it..