official site of the acclaimed novelist​​ ​
and cult SF author Jody Scott
  • Home
  • About
    • About Jody
    • Links
    • Subscribe
  • Blog
  • Books
    • Books in print
    • Bibliography
    • Reviews
  • Contact
  • Subscribers
    • Cure It With Honey
    • ​​Outtakes & Short Stories
    • Photo Album
    • More Goodies

Insight & Rebellion

3/14/2018

0 Comments

 

 THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE by Philip K. Dick

Picture
  To the list of dystopian cautionary tales suddenly relevant again (as if they ever weren't!) in the trumpian, post-truth, authoritarian-leaning era I recommend adding Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle, which answers the question, What if Germany and Japan had won WWII? 
    If you've seen the Amazon adaptation, there is little resemblance. Character names are the same but the plot is very different; the subversive video of the series is, in the novel, a novel. Germany controls Europe, the eastern U.S., is expanding into the solar system and has attempted a"final solution" on the entire continent of Africa. From The Home Islands Japan controls South America, Asia and the west coast. A nominal U.S. neutral zone separates Nazi and Nippon territories. 
   The setting is San Francisco and the neutral zone, the reader learns of life in Nazi territory only from secondhand reporting.  
   The IChing or "oracle", the ancient Chinese book of wisdom, features importantly for all the main characters, and is in a way, another character through which Dick explores the themes of fatalism and enduring in a world in which there is no shining light on the hill, no safe refuges left to flee to- or take hope from. All is authoritarianism- of the brutish Nazi stripe or the more civilized Japanese variety.    
    Into this reality of despair is dropped the surprisingly bestselling novel The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, an alternate fiction in which the allies won the war, defeating Germany and Japan. A fiction unimaginable for some, a revelation of Truth for others.
   As one would expect, the novel is contemplative, internal, philosophical, and the ending ambiguous (perhaps a disappointment to readers weaned on flattering sales pitches and attention-eroding tech gadgetry who find their way to the novel from the Amazon series), but Dick's The Man in the High Castle sheds insightful, unsettling light onto life under totalitarianism. A light very much needed these days.  Highly recommended! 
Mary Whealen 
read more reviews

SOUTHBOUND by Joseph Ferguson

Picture
    "Society everywhere is in a conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members"  wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson in Self Reliance.
   The protagonist of Southbound has assuredly never read Emerson but he knows whereof Emerson speaks. Cruising the literary highway of counterculture anti-heroes, Basement Man, transplant from Alabama, pulls up to a bar in New Jersey and we hitch a ride for this episodic portrait of his lifelong, booze-fueled rebellion.   
    From the tragicomic death of his friend on the docks of Hoboken to beaches a little less respectable for his presence ("Avast ye scurvy lubbers!") to a retirement home, Basement Man is aware but not resigned (to paraphrase Edna Millay). I've heard it said that 'your integrity to yourself is more important than your immediate life,'  and that's a sentiment Basement Man would drink to: "Better a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy, spider!"
   Southbound by Joseph Ferguson makes us look around and perceive the poetry in life. And that is a very good thing.
​Mary Whealen
read more reviews

0 Comments
    Picture
    Tweets by @jodyscottinfo

    For latest news, exclusive content, free books, subscribe (4-5 times per year)

    * indicates required

    Get blog via email or reader:

    RSS Feed

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner


    Categories

    All
    Alan Turing & Bias
    Anecdotes About Jody
    Anecdotes From Jody About Her Life
    Beginning Of The Beat Generation
    Book Promotion
    Burroughs
    California
    Censorship & Political Correctness
    Circle Magazine
    Coover
    Dog Park Incident
    Essays By Jody
    Fiction
    Gay Pride
    George Leite
    Guest Posts
    Mary 's Posts
    O.J.
    Posing As Jody Scott
    Quotes & Excerpts
    Reviews
    Robert
    Science Fiction
    Trump
    Why I Married Don Scott
    Why This Site?
    Women's March


    Archives

    June 2022
    June 2020
    December 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016


    Picture
    Picture
    Now in print & E-edition
    Picture
    Intro by Ted Sturgeon
    Picture
    Exciting conclusion to The Benaroya Chronicles
Copyright © 2016-2021 Mary Whealen/ jodyscottinfo, All rights reserved.
  • Home
  • About
    • About Jody
    • Links
    • Subscribe
  • Blog
  • Books
    • Books in print
    • Bibliography
    • Reviews
  • Contact
  • Subscribers
    • Cure It With Honey
    • ​​Outtakes & Short Stories
    • Photo Album
    • More Goodies