The oracle from the mountain

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The oracle from the mountains (English original title: The Man in the High Castle ) is an alternative world story and dystopia by the American writer Philip K. Dick from 1962. It is set in the same year in a fictional present, in which the Third Reich and Japan defeated and divided the United States .

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Historical background of the alternative world

Franklin D. Roosevelt was assassinated in the first year of his presidency in 1933, and World War II ended in 1947 with the victory of the Axis powers . After the defeat, the US is divided between the victorious powers Germany and Japan. To the west of the Rocky Mountains lies the Japanese (Pacific States of America, PSA), to the east the German area. This in turn is divided into the “United States of America”, which continues to exist under this name, and the “South”, a racist regime that collaborates with Germany. There is a neutral buffer zone between the Japanese and German areas, the "Rocky Mountain States" (RMS).

Germany has meanwhile drained the Mediterranean Sea to gain habitat (see also the real, but never realized Atlantropa project) and is busy, among other things, with completely exterminating Africa's black population. After the death of Chancellor Martin Bormann ( Adolf Hitler is now vegetating with syphilis ), there is a power struggle between different groups of the National Socialist regime. While it pursues a ruthless policy of submission and annihilation, the Japanese occupiers are authoritarian, but in a much milder form than the Germans. Italy maintains a small empire in the Middle East, but otherwise no longer plays a major role in world affairs.

In contrast to our reality, Reinhard Heydrich , Fritz Todt and Erwin Rommel did not die in this alternative world during the Second World War. After Himmler's death in 1948, which was not fully explained, Heydrich took on his role. Todt, with his organization Todt, rebuilt the part of the USA occupied by the Germans, but was then sidelined in 1949, which also applied to Rommel, who after his victory in North Africa overran England with his armored divisions and later became the military governor of the German-occupied part of the USA . The alternative world has assigned two personalities from the arts and entertainment a peculiar role, for example Herbert von Karajan is the conductor of the New York Philharmonic , Bob Hope has a satirical program in Canada , which is obviously not occupied by the Nazis , in which he makes fun of the Nazi regime can.

The technical development also differs from the actual one, so the German Reich has a comprehensive space program (manned flights to the moon and Mars took place until 1962), hydrogen bombs and intercontinental passenger rocket ships, advanced materials research (it will be a car with a Plastic body mentioned, which should be offered for $ 600) and a very distinct pharmaceutical industry. On the other hand, z. For example, television has hardly any significance for the National Socialism depicted in the novel; It is said that up to now a program has been broadcast for four hours a day in Germany and that the construction of the first television station in North America is planned for 1970.

The political world map in the novel

action

Against this background, the experiences of various protagonists from the Japanese-occupied and the buffer zone are described, whose lives are interwoven through private or professional circumstances.

  • Rudolf Wegener, an agent of the German Abwehr , travels disguised as a Swedish trader to San Francisco , where he meets with Mr. Tagomi , the head of the Japanese Trade Commission. He must remain undetected until Mr. Yatabe from Japan arrives, the chief of the Japanese general staff, to whom Wegener wants to convey a message for the Japanese government. Wegener warns Yatabe of the plans of the Nazi Empire to switch off Japan after a staged incident with a sudden massive nuclear strike in order to then be able to take its overseas territories. When two men from the German security service want to pick up Wegener, Tagomi shoots them and gets into an internal conflict. In the midst of the power turmoil ( Joseph Goebbels was initially able to win the power struggle) Wegener returns to Germany, where he is received by the Waffen SS. His future fate and the question of whether his warning will reach Japan in time remain uncertain.
  • After Frank Frink (née Fink ) was fired from his old company, a company that produced counterfeiting of former American everyday objects as antiques, he started making jewelry with him at the suggestion of his former foreman Ed McCarthy under the name "Edfrank". In order to extort start-up capital from his old employer, he goes under a false identity to a customer of his former employer, the shopkeeper Robert Childan , and tells him about the fake after he has pretended to be interested in a Colt. McCarthy Childan later tries to sell a collection of the "Edfrank" jewelry, and Childan eventually includes some on a commission basis. After investigations by his former employer, Frink is finally picked up as a Jew and is actually supposed to be extradited to the Germans. Tagomi, to whom the request was handed over, refuses to extradite him due to his annoyance that the security service has tried to pick up Wegener and orders the release of Frink, who is released without knowing why.
  • Robert Childan is a shopkeeper (American Artistic Handcrafts Inc.) and famous among the Japanese. The goods are former American everyday objects that are collected by the Japanese, but have hardly any real value, and most of them are likely to be forgeries, which the dealer only learns in the course of the action. He takes over the most valuable works of the Edfrank jewelers on commission and gives one to Mr. Tagomi for testing . Childan fluctuates between admiration and disgust for the Japanese occupiers, with whom he has contact in the form of a young Japanese couple (Paul and Betty), with whom he feels inferiority complexes (with some paranoid expressions). He is both an admirer of the Nazis and a racist. When Childan Betty wants to give a piece of jewelry made by "Edfrank" and gives it to Paul, he finds it trivial at first and secretly makes fun of it, but then changes his mind and finds a special wisdom and balance ("Wu") in the piece. He returns the piece of jewelry and offers Childan the choice of selling these spiritual works of art or, as he is offering Childan on the orders of his supervisor, mass-producing them as cheap lucky charms. Childan, who trades purely for the sake of money, eventually develops a kind of national pride after an internal struggle and wrests an excuse from Paul for the suggestion to sell off the new American art.
  • Mr. Tagomi feels torn between the modern American and traditional , Buddhist world. Later, the simple beauty of a piece of jewelry made by the Edfrank jewelry store and sold by Mr. Childan opens up access to another reality.
  • Frink's ex-wife Juliana Frink , who lives in Colorado and works as a judo teacher there, has a relationship with Joe Cindella , a supposedly Italian trucker. This relationship is more of a sexual nature, Frink is both attracted and repulsed by Cindella. Cindella shows Frink the book "The Plague of the Locust" by Hawthorne Abendsen , a fictional novel about a world in which the Axis powers lost the war. Frink has heard of the book before and begins to read it with fascination. Together with Cindella, she makes her way to the author Abendsen, who is said to live in a house that has been converted into a kind of fortress. When it turns out during her stay in Denver that Cindella is a Swiss killer in the service of the Germans who is supposed to eliminate Abendsen, Frink fatally injures him after a failed suicide attempt with a razor blade and travels on alone. When she arrives, it turns out that Abendsen lives in a completely normal house. After Frink is received by Abendsen, he reports that he wrote the book with the help of the Chinese I Ching. For her part, Frink asks the oracle what the lesson to be learned from the book is, to which she receives the answer that the book reproduces the "inner truth" with the defeat of the Axis powers.

The grasshopper lies heavy

A book within the book, the Heuschreckenbuch , also called “The Plague of the Locust” in recent translations, which is banned in the area controlled by the Nazis but a bestseller on the Japanese side, is about a fictional world in which the Axis wages war has lost. The author is Hawthorne Abendsen , the title of the book is borrowed from the Bible ( Ecclesiastes {12,5 EU } "the locust dragged itself along").

The fictional world of the book, however, differs from the actual story of the Second World War. Great Britain played a key role in the defeat of the Axis powers. The almost defeated Soviet army can only hold the city of Stalingrad with massive support from British troops, which are marching from North Africa via Turkey to Russia. Hitler and Goebbels are caught alive by the English and tried in Nuremberg. There follows a power struggle between Great Britain and the United States, which Great Britain can decide for itself. The main reason for this is Churchill , who remains British Prime Minister for years and resolutely leads the Empire , while in the USA one weak president succeeds another. The British Empire, which fell apart in the real world after the war, is the most powerful nation in the world in the Locust Book after this Cold War- like competition.

Using the I Ching

The I Ching ( Chinese  易經  /  易经 , "Book of Changes") is repeatedly used as an oracle in the book by the Japanese and American protagonists . Towards the end of the book it turns out that the book in the book, The Grasshopper is Heavier, arose from interviews with the I Ching. According to Dick, the I Ching helped him write it himself, helping to determine the development of the story The Oracle of the Mountains .

subjects

The main theme of the book is the influence of unreality on reality.

  • Robert Childan notes that many of his antiques are fakes. In view of Childan's goods, Tagomi- san comes to the conclusion that only the historical connotation of the objects determines their value, but cannot be verified as such.
  • Joe Cindella imagines Juliana Frink as a dark-haired Italian. After visiting the hairdresser, he has apparently dyed blonde hair and claims that he no longer wants to be Italian. In fact, he is Swiss and this is his actual hair color; the dark hair was just a wig.
  • In order not to be recognized as a Jew, Frank Frink underwent extensive surgical interventions to adapt the characteristic “Jewish” features such as the shape of the skull and nose (see: Physiognomics ). Rudolf Wegener, under his cover name Richard Baynes, claims the same against a German artist and adds that other Jews with similar interventions continue to have influence up to the highest levels of government.
  • The "locust book" describes the development of history more precisely than the actual book itself does.
  • The "man in the high castle" lives contrary to the announcement on the blurb of the "locust book" on a fortress secured with weapons and barbed wire in a normal house.
  • At the end of the story, Juliana and Abendsen find out, with the help of the I Ching, that their world is actual fiction.
  • Tagomi-san sees an alternative world, represented by a different street scene without rickshaws , the Embarcadero Freeway and a society in which the Japanese are not superior to the Americans.

reception

In 1963 Philip K. Dick received the Hugo Award in the novel category for “The Oracle from the Mountains” . It is regarded by critics as his best work and found its way not only in the classic series of science fiction, but also received acceptance beyond the science fiction field, for example through its inclusion in the general classics series of the Penguin publishing house. Accordingly, the book is one of Dick's best-known works.

Adaptations

Started sequel as a novel

In 1974 Dick began to write a sequel for "The Oracle of the Mountains", but he broke off this project again. Only the first two chapters were completed and published together with his estate. The two chapters have also been translated into German and added as an appendix to the new translation of the original novel. The two chapters describe how a command of the defense had entered our world through a "nexus" and how Canaris and Göring are now presenting some artefacts from it. The Nazis suspect that there must be other parallel worlds, e.g. B. that of Abendsen. In addition, Wegener presented himself to SS leader Heydrich , who knew about his mission in San Francisco and also hoped to get information about Goering's parallel world program from him.

radio play

In 1982, Bayerischer Rundfunk produced a radio play based on the novel entitled "Butterfly with swastikas" . Processing: Michael Koser . Director: Gert Westphal . Actors: Gert Günther Hoffmann (as Abendsen) , Aljoscha Sebald (as Tagomi) , Rüdiger Bahr (as Frank Frink) , Katharina Lopinski (as Juliana Frink) , Horst Sachtleben (as Cindella) , Harald Leipnitz (as Sundmann (= Wegener)) , Siemen Rühaak (as Childan) u. a.

filming

Amazon had the novel adapted for a television series called The Man in the High Castle , which appeared on Amazon Prime Video between 2015 and 2019 . The Man in the High Castle consists of four seasons of 10 episodes each.

See also

expenditure

German first edition:

  • Philip K. Dick: The Oracle from the Mountain. German by Heinz Nagel, König Verlag, Munich 1973, ISBN 3-808-20082-0

New edition:

literature

Web links