Meta Fiction, Story, and Philip K. Dick’s Man in the High Castle

SPOILER ALERT: If you’ve not read The Man in the High Castle, the fol­low­ing con­tains plot ele­ment spoil­ers.

The Man in the High Castle man­ages to jam three of my favorite things into a sin­gle nov­el. First, it’s by Philip K. Dick, who may not have been the great­est crafter of prose in the world, but imag­ined some of the most endur­ing sci­ence fic­tion tales in Eng­lish lit­er­a­ture. Sec­ond, it not only fea­tures the I-Ching, Dick claims that it was actu­al­ly in part writ­ten by the I-Ching. He says he used the book of changes as a cre­ative guide, ced­ing deci­sion mak­ing about many aspects of the nar­ra­tive to the text of the hexa­grams. And third, he may have made that whole thing up in order to cre­ate a mind-bend­ing metafic­tion. Or not.

Now, to break down the cen­tral meta-fic­tion we’re deal­ing with here:

The Man in the High Castle is a book writ­ten by Phillip K. Dick with the help of the I-Ching about an alter­na­tive his­to­ry in which Japan and Ger­many won World War II. Cen­tral to the book is anoth­er book, The Grasshop­per Lies Heavy, which is a nov­el writ­ten with the help of the I-Ching about an alter­na­tive to THAT alter­na­tive his­to­ry in which Japan and Ger­many lost World War II.

In a nice twist, the tele­vi­sion series com­ing out on Ama­zon Prime in Novem­ber 2015 ren­ders The Grasshop­per Lies Heavy as a film instead of a book, neat­ly trans­port­ing the par­al­lel mir­ror effect to the medi­um in which the sto­ry is told.

If that’s not meta enough, there are points in the plot where the I-Ching fea­tures as a door­way between worlds — two char­ac­ters cast paired hexa­grams, in dif­fer­ent places at the same time, linked by a sin­gle chang­ing line. Anoth­er char­ac­ter finds him­self eeri­ly trans­port­ed into a sur­re­al vision of San Fran­cis­co which may be the one in which Dick was actu­al­ly writ­ing the book — or at least one in which Japan had lost WWII — through a piece of jew­el­ry craft­ed by the char­ac­ter who throws the iden­ti­cal hexa­gram. The hexa­grams that are cast in the book all pre­dict the future or shape the behav­iour of char­ac­ters, and (if he’s to be believed) were actu­al­ly cast by Dick in order to deter­mine plot move­ment and char­ac­ter behav­iour.

In the final scene of the book, in the pres­ence of the author of The Grasshop­per Lies Heavy, Juliana Frink asks the ora­cle itself why it wrote the book.

The hexa­gram she casts is Inner Truth, Pigs and Fish­es — the same hexa­gram which Tagomi casts after killing the two SD men, but which we only learn about as he is hav­ing his heart attack in Chap­ter 14, and mak­ing the cru­cial deci­sion to spare Frank Frink’s life. My I-Ching App ren­ders the judg­ment thus:

Inner Truth. Pigs and fish­es.
Good for­tune.
It fur­thers one to cross the great water.
Per­se­ver­ance fur­thers.

In deal­ing with oth­er peo­ple, there are invis­i­ble forces which man­i­fest them­selves as vis­i­ble effects. The cats’ paws on a lake are the result of the unseen wind. When one seeks to influ­ence some­one, one must seek the invis­i­ble forces which stir them. By intu­it­ing them, and by plac­ing your goal in the path of those forces, one estab­lish­es a bond which can accom­plish great things.

Juliana inter­prets the hexa­gram to mean that The Grasshop­per Lies Heavy rep­re­sents the truth — that Japan and Ger­many lost the war, and she inhab­its a fic­tion­al con­struct. She does, in fact, occu­py a fic­tion­al con­struct cre­at­ed by Dick — which he con­struct­ed by con­sult­ing the I-Ching. But the fic­tion­al con­struct of the world in The Grasshop­per Lies Heavy is not in fact the world in which we and the author live — it’s sim­i­lar in the out­come of the war, but diverges: FDR’s advis­er Rex­ford Tug­well suc­ceeds him as Pres­i­dent, and the Cold War is between the US and an intact British Empire instead of the Sovi­et Union. But if that alter­nate his­to­ry is real, then the upward impli­ca­tion from book with­in book to read­er is that we our­selves live in a fic­tion­al con­struct — one which might betray its fic­tion­al­i­ty through con­sult­ing the I-Ching for a win­dow on the next lev­el up. This is irre­sistibly deli­cious stuff, clas­sic Philip K. Dick: think of Dekkart not know­ing if he’s a repli­cant or not in Blade Runner/Do Androids Dream of Elec­tric Sheep or the lay­ers of ambi­gu­i­ty about what’s real in Total Recall/We Can Remem­ber it for you Whole­sale. In this case, how­ev­er, he’s tied his metafic­tion to a 3,000 year old book that exists in our world and imbued it with a pow­er to glimpse beyond the fourth wall.

Some­what obses­sive­ly, I reread The Man in the High Castle recent­ly and not­ed each of the hexa­grams men­tioned in the book. You are wel­come. 😉

Chap­ter 1: Seat­ed on his bed, a cup of luke­warm tea beside him, Frink got down his copy of the I Ching. From their leather tube he took the forty-nine yarrow stalks. He con­sid­ered, until he had his thoughts prop­er­ly con­trolled and his ques­tions worked out.
Aloud he said, ‘How should I approach Wyn­dam-Mat­son in order to come to decent terms with him?’

Hexa­gram 15, Mod­esty

Chap­ter 1: A new ques­tion, then. Set­ting him­self, he said aloud, ‘Will I ever see Juliana again? [While not men­tioned in the text, I sus­pect that Frank cast a chang­ing line at the top, which means his trans­formed hexa­gram was pre­cise­ly the one Tagomi is throw­ing at this moment: Hexa­gram 28, Pre­pon­der­ance of the Great.]
Hexa­gram 44, Com­ing to Meet

Chap­ter 2: Mr Tagomi began. ‘I inquired of the ora­cle, “Will the meet­ing between myself and Mr Childan be prof­itable?” and obtained to my dis­may the omi­nous hexa­gram The Pre­pon­der­ance of the Great. The ridge­pole is sag­ging. Too much weight in the mid­dle; all unbal­anced. Clear­ly away from the Tao…obtaining Hexa­gram Ta Kuo, Twen­ty-eight, I fur­ther received the unfavourable line Nine in the fifth place. It reads:
A with­ered poplar puts forth flow­ers.
An old­er wom­an takes a hus­band.
No blame. No praise.

Pre­pon­der­ance of the Great (with chang­ing line in the 5th place)

Chap­ter 2: My ques­tion regard­ing Mr Bay­nes pro­duced through the occult work­ings of the Tao the Hexa­gram Sheng, Forty-six. A good judge­ment. And lines Six at the begin­ning and Nine in the sec­ond place.’ His ques­tion had been, Will I be able to deal with Mr Bay­nes suc­cess­ful­ly? And the Nine in the sec­ond place had assured him that he would. It read:
If one is sin­cere,
It fur­thers one to bring even a small offer­ing.
No blame.”

Push­ing Upward, which trans­forms with chang­ing lines in the first and sec­ond place toDark­en­ing of the Light

Chap­ter 4: Should I attempt to go into the cre­ative pri­vate busi­ness out­lined to me just now?’ And then he began throw­ing the coins. The bot­tom line was a sev­en, and so was the sec­ond and then the third. The bot­tom tri­gram is Ch’ien, he real­ized. That sound­ed good; Ch’ien was the cre­ative. Then line Four, an eight. Yin. And line Five, also eight, a yin line. Good lord, he thought excit­ed­ly; one more yin line and I’ve got Hexa­gram Eleven, T’ai, Peace. Very favourable judge­ment. Or — his hands trem­bled as he rat­tled the coins. A yang line and hence Hexa­gram Twen­ty-six, Ta Ch’u, the Tam­ing Pow­er of the Great. Both have favourable judge­ments, and it has to be one or the oth­er. He threw the three coins.
Yin. A six. It was Peace.
Open­ing the book, he read the judge­ment.
PEACE. The small departs,
The great approach­es.
Good for­tune. Suc­cess.
So I ought to do as Ed McCarthy says. Open my lit­tle busi­ness”

Hexa­gram 11, Peace mov­ing into Hexa­gram 26, The Tam­ing Pow­er of the Great

Chap­ter 5: ““God speaks to man in the sign of the Arous­ing,”’ Mr Tagomi mur­mured.
‘Par­don?’
‘The ora­cle. I’m sor­ry. Fleece-seek­ing cor­ti­cal respon­se.’
Wool­gath­er­ing, Bay­nes thought. That’s the idiom he means. To him­self he smiled.
‘We are absurd,’ Mr Tagomi said, ‘because we live by a five-thou­sand-year-old book. We ask it ques­tions as if it were alive. It is alive. As is the Chris­tian Bible; many books are actu­al­ly alive. Not in metaphoric fash­ion. Spir­it ani­mates it. Do you see?’ He inspect­ed Mr Baynes’s face for his reac­tion.”

Hexa­gram 51: The Arous­ing

Chap­ter 6: Mr Tagomi felt guilt. This is not a good day. I should have con­sult­ed the ora­cle, dis­cov­ered what Moment it is. I have drift­ed far from the Tao; that is obvi­ous.
Which of the six­ty-four hexa­grams, he won­dered, am I labour­ing under? Open­ing his desk draw­er he brought out the I Ching and laid the two vol­umes on the desk. So much to ask the sages. So many ques­tions inside me which I can bare­ly artic­u­late …
When Mr Ram­sey entered the office, he had already obtained the hexa­gram. ‘Look, Mr Ram­sey.’ He showed him the book.
The hexa­gram was Forty-sev­en. Oppres­sion — Exhaus­tion.
‘A bad omen, gen­er­al­ly,’ Mr Ram­sey said. ‘What is your ques­tion, sir? If I’m not offend­ing you to ask.’
‘I inquired as to the Moment,’ Mr Tagomi said. ‘The Moment for us all. No mov­ing lines. A sta­t­ic hexa­gram.’ He shut the book.”

Hexa­gram 47: Oppres­sion (Exhaus­tion)

Chap­ter 6: At three o’clock that after­noon, Frank Frink, still wait­ing with his busi­ness part­ner for Wyndam-Matson’s deci­sion about the mon­ey, decid­ed to con­sult the ora­cle. How are things going to turn out? he asked, and threw the coins.
The hexa­gram was Forty-sev­en. He obtained one mov­ing line, Nine in the fifth place.
His nose and feet are cut off.
Oppres­sion at the hands of the man with the pur­ple knee bands.
Joy comes soft­ly.
It fur­thers one to make offer­ings and liba­tions.
For a long time — at least half an hour — he stud­ied the line and the mate­ri­al con­nect­ed with it, try­ing to fig­ure out what it might mean. The hexa­gram, and espe­cial­ly the mov­ing line, dis­turbed him. At last he con­clud­ed reluc­tant­ly that the mon­ey would not be forth­com­ing.
‘You rely on that thing too much,’ Ed McCarthy said.

Hexa­gram 47: Oppres­sion (Exhaus­tion) with 9 in the 5th place which trans­forms to Hexa­gram 40, Deliv­er­ance This, if my the­o­ry is cor­rect, would be the sec­ond time that that Tagomi and Frink have cast iden­ti­cal hexa­grams that dif­fer only in their chang­ing lines. In the case of Frink, how­ev­er, the trans­formed hexa­gram is not only pro­pi­tious, it’s actu­al­ly prophet­ic: two sen­tences lat­er, a “mes­sen­ger” arrives with a cer­ti­fied check for $2000.00. The mon­ey is deliv­ered, Frank and Ed are deliv­ered from eco­nom­ic ruin.

Chap­ter 10: At sev­en o’clock the fol­low­ing morn­ing, P.S.A. reck­on­ing, Mr Nobusuke Tagomi rose from bed, start­ed towards the bath­room, then changed his mind and went direct­ly to the ora­cle.
Seat­ed cross-legged on the floor of his liv­ing room he began manip­u­lat­ing the forty-nine yarrow stalks. He had a deep sense of the urgen­cy of his ques­tion­ing, and he worked at a fever­ish pace until at last he had the six lines before him.
Shock! Hexa­gram Fifty-one!
God appears in the sign of the Arous­ing. Thun­der and light­ning. Sounds — he invol­un­tar­i­ly put his fin­gers up to cov­er his ears. Ha-ha! ho-ho! Great burst that made him wince and blink. Lizard scur­ries and tiger roars, and out comes God him­self!
What does it mean? He peered about his liv­ing room. Arrival of — what? He hopped to his feet and stood pant­i­ng, wait­ing.

Hexa­gram 51: The Arous­ing

Chap­ter 13: When she had parked she sat with the motor run­ning, shiv­er­ing, hands in her coat pock­ets. Christ, she said to her­self mis­er­ably. Well, I guess that’s the sort of thing that hap­pens. She got out of the car and dragged her suit­case from the trunk; in the back seat she opened it and dug around among the clothes and shoes until she had hold of the two black vol­umes of the ora­cle. There, in the back seat of the car, with the motor run­ning, she began toss­ing three R.M.S. dimes, using the glare of a depart­ment store win­dow to see by. What’ll I do? she asked it. Tell me what to do; please.
Hexa­gram Forty-two, Increase, with mov­ing lines in the sec­ond, third, fourth and top places; there­fore chang­ing to Hexa­gram Forty-three, Break­through. She scanned the text rav­en­ous­ly, catch­ing up the suc­ces­sive stages of mean­ing in her mind, gath­er­ing it and com­pre­hend­ing; Jesus, it depict­ed the sit­u­a­tion exact­ly — a mir­a­cle once more. All that had hap­pened, there before her eyes, blue­print, schemat­ic:
It fur­thers one
To under­take some­thing.
It fur­thers one to cross the great water.
Trip, to go and do some­thing impor­tant, not stay here. Now the lines. Her lips moved, seek­ing …
Ten pairs of tor­tois­es can­not oppose him.
Con­stant per­se­ver­ance brings good for­tune.
The king presents him before God.
Now six in the third. Read­ing, she became dizzy;
One is enriched through unfor­tu­nate events.
No blame, if you are sin­cere
And walk in the mid­dle,
And report with a seal to the prince.
The prince … it meant Abend­sen. The seal, the new copy of his book. Unfor­tu­nate events — the ora­cle knew what had hap­pened to her, the dread­ful­ness with Joe or what­ev­er he was. She read six in the fourth place:
If you walk in the mid­dle
And report to the prince,
He will fol­low.

I must go there, she real­ized, even if Joe comes after me. She devoured the last mov­ing line, nine at the top:
He brings increase to no one.
Indeed, some­one even strikes him.
He does not keep his heart con­stant­ly steady.
Mis­for­tune.
Oh God, she thought; it means the killer, the Gestapo peo­ple — it’s telling me that Joe or some­one like him, some­one else, will get there and kill Abend­sen. Quick­ly, she turned to Hexa­gram Forty-three. The judge­ment:
One must res­olute­ly make the mat­ter known
At the court of the king.
It must be announced truth­ful­ly. Dan­ger.
It is nec­es­sary to noti­fy one’s own city.
It does not fur­ther to resort to arms.
It fur­thers one to under­take some­thing.
So it’s no use to go back to the hotel and make sure about him; it’s hope­less, because there will be oth­ers sent out. Again the ora­cle says, even more emphat­i­cal­ly: Get up to Cheyen­ne and warn Abend­sen, how­ev­er dan­ger­ous it is to me. I must bring him the truth.
She shut the vol­ume.
Get­ting back behind the wheel of the car, she backed out into traf­fic.

 

Hexa­gram 42: Increase[with chang­ing lines in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and top places, trans­form­ing into Hexa­gram 43: Break­through

Chap­ter 14: Could this, Mr Tagomi won­dered, be the answer? Mys­tery of body organ­ism, its own knowl­edge. Time to quit. Or time par­tial­ly to quit. A pur­pose, which I must acqui­esce to.
What had the ora­cle last said? To his query in the office as those two lay dying or dead. Six­ty-one. Inner Truth. Pigs and fish­es are least intel­li­gent of all; hard to con­vince. It is I. The book means me. I will nev­er ful­ly under­stand; that is the nature of such crea­tures. Or is this Inner Truth now, this that is hap­pen­ing to me?
I will wait. I will see. Which it is.
Per­haps it is both.
That evening, just after the din­ner meal, a police offi­cer came to Frank Frink’s cell, unlocked the door, and told him to go pick up his pos­ses­sions at the desk.

Hexa­gram 61: Inner Truth

Chap­ter 15: The ora­cle,’ Abend­sen said, ‘was sound asleep all through the writ­ing of the book. Sound asleep in the cor­ner of the office.’ His eyes showed no mer­ri­ment; instead, his face seemed longer, more som­bre than ever.
‘Tell her,’ Car­o­line said. ‘She’s right; she’s enti­tled to know, for what she did on your behalf.’ To Juliana she said, ‘I’ll tell you, then, Mrs Frink. One by one Hawth made the choic­es. Thou­sands of them. By means of the lines. His­toric peri­od. Sub­ject. Char­ac­ters. Plot. It took years. Hawth even asked the ora­cle what sort of suc­cess it would be. It told him that it would be a very great suc­cess, the first real one of his career. So you were right. You must use the ora­cle quite a lot your­self, to have known.’
Juliana said, ‘I won­der why the ora­cle would write a nov­el. Did you ever think of ask­ing it that? And why one about the Ger­mans and the Japan­ese los­ing the war? Why that par­tic­u­lar sto­ry and no oth­er one? What is there it can’t tell us direct­ly, like it always has before? This must be dif­fer­ent, don’t you think?’
Nei­ther Hawthorne nor Car­o­line said any­thing.
‘It and I’ Hawthorne said at last, ‘long ago arrived at an agree­ment regard­ing roy­alties. If I ask it why it wrote Grasshop­per, I’ll wind up turn­ing my share over to it. The ques­tion implies I did noth­ing but the typ­ing, and that’s nei­ther true nor decent.’
‘I’ll ask it,’ Car­o­line said. ‘If you won’t.”

Hexa­gram 61: Inner Truth

11 thoughts on “Meta Fiction, Story, and Philip K. Dick’s Man in the High Castle”

  1. Lâu r?i m?i ??c ???c bài hay nh? này, ?úng là m? mang t?m m?t ????. M?i khi r?nh r?i, mình th??ng chi?n t?i daga cua dao, giao di?n m??t, slot ra ??u, r?t ?áng ?? th?.

    1. I am a fan of the book and it was hard for me to watch the TV series, due to the lack of the ICh­ing in it. It is a very over­looked plot device, if not the whole mean­ing of the thing. After it did not show up with the same pres­ence in the book and then Grasshop­per became film instead of books…I do not know. Given the time peri­od, it would be eas­ier to copy sub­ver­sive fic­tion then a movie reel. I guess I just did not get what the mak­ers were try­ing to do.

      1. It also would have made a nice Peter Green­way type graph­ic design for the TV series, to inter­lace the I Ching graph­ics into the TV series. It could have been very cre­ative. I guess no one wants to be cre­ative any­more.

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