The Man in the High Castle

As with all of Philip K. Dick's work, the question has to do with the nature of reality, and our relation to reality. The reality here is an alternate history in which Giuseppe Zangara succeeded in assassinating FDR, leading to the Axis triumphing over the Allies in the Second World War.

How realistic is the alternate reality? I'm not sure I buy the Nazis on Mars (!) in 1962. The scope of their projects? Absolutely. Our setting is the Western United States, though, an area controlled by the conquering Japanese.

One device that I really like is the incorporation of the I Ching, which several of the characters use to guide their actions; "should I follow the suggested course?" or "what is going to happen next?"

A nod at the nature of reality is that there's a popular novel, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy (paraphrased from a line in Ecclesiastes) in which Roosevelt survives the assassination (as he does in our reality) and through his strong leadership, the US is prepared for World War II, and the Allies win. As more of this novel-within-a-novel is revealed, it's clear that the world of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy is not our own -- Roosevelt doesn't seek a third term, and there are other important points of divergence.

The climax of the novel is (perhaps) a Japanese diplomat slipping into another reality after contemplating a piece of jewelry made by American artisans. Left unsaid is if the reality is the one of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, of our reality, or another one entirely. (One would think the reality would be one of the above. A third reality, resembling both of those, would be needlessly complicated, right?)

Or perhaps the climax could be said to be the end, which implies (of course, this being Dick) that the world of the novel isn't the true reality, but a false one. As to whether true reality is the world of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy (thus implying our world is false, as well), our world, or another one entirely is left unsaid.

I really enjoyed this -- I thought the characters moved the plot well and were better put together than some of Dick's other stories, and the interweaving of Japanese culture into American really worked for me. The questions as to the nature of reality and the prophecy of the Book of Changes were well incorporated, as well. Recommended.

Lolita

Lolita is a weird novel -- despite the subject matter, it's clearly not intended to (and does not) titillate, but the sexuality (even if not expressed explicitly) is impossible to separate from the content.

A friend of mine said the only way that Nabokov could have written this is if he was a pederast. I rejected that utterly without reading the novel, and after reading the novel, I just think that's a funny assertion.

I'm having trouble thinking of what I want to say about this -- it's the difference between enjoying the writing and approving of the subject matter. Our narrator (who gives himself the ludicrous moniker of  'Humbert Humbert') is not quite unrepentant, never tries to obfuscate what he has done (although he does avoid explicit description), and occasionally tries to justify himself. Nevertheless, he's certainly not reliable. (In fact, for many people, the textbook definition of "unreliable narrator" is "Humbert Humbert." I would argue that this probably isn't the best example, since he's not obviously contradicting himself two chapters later, but later parts of the book do have a more difficult-to-believe sheen.) If you're reading a novel looking for redemption, this is certainly not it. Humbert does realize that he's robbed Lolita of her childhood, but given how monstrous his actions are, that doesn't come close to making up for them.

As with other Nabokov, there's a lot of worldplay, some double entendres, plenty of other languages inserted (in the case of Humbert, this makes sense, as he's ostensibly European. In the case of Nabokov, moreso).

Yes, this is worth reading. Yes, this is more than a little unsettling. Yes, there are layers (as Nabokov himself notes in the afterward, he certainly wasn't trying to glorify Humbert Humbert.)