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Shifting Histories, Blurred Borders, and Mediated Sacred Texts in Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle

Shifting Histories, Blurred Borders, and Mediated Sacred Texts in Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the... Amazon Studios’ television adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s novel The Man in the High Castle, an alternate history in which the Axis powers won World War II, highlights Dick’s preoccupation with issues of national and personal identity, the contingencies of history, and what we might call the sacred power of certain texts to shape reality by shaping worldviews. Dick gives the I Ching a central role in his novel, and consulted it himself for plot advice. This article argues that Dick elevates the world-creating influence of popular literature and media by positioning The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, a novel-in-the-novel that depicts a history much like our own, as an equally ‘sacred’ text. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Literature and Theology Oxford University Press

Shifting Histories, Blurred Borders, and Mediated Sacred Texts in Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle

Thrall, James H
Literature and Theology , Volume 32 (2): 15 – Jun 1, 2018
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Publisher
Oxford University Press
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press 2018; all rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com
ISSN
0269-1205
eISSN
1477-4623
DOI
10.1093/litthe/fry009
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Amazon Studios’ television adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s novel The Man in the High Castle, an alternate history in which the Axis powers won World War II, highlights Dick’s preoccupation with issues of national and personal identity, the contingencies of history, and what we might call the sacred power of certain texts to shape reality by shaping worldviews. Dick gives the I Ching a central role in his novel, and consulted it himself for plot advice. This article argues that Dick elevates the world-creating influence of popular literature and media by positioning The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, a novel-in-the-novel that depicts a history much like our own, as an equally ‘sacred’ text.

Journal

Literature and Theology – Oxford University Press

Published: Jun 1, 2018

Keywords: I Ching; Science fiction; Alternate history; Sacred texts; Media and culture; Philip K. Dick

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