Born | Philip Kindred Dick December 16, 1928 Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
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Died | March 2, 1982 (aged 53) Santa Ana, California, U.S. |
Pen name | Richard Phillips Jack Dowland |
Occupation | Novelist, short story writer and essayst |
Nationality | American |
Genres | Science fiction Speculative fiction Postmodernism |
Notable work(s) | Ubik, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, The Man in the High Castle, A Scanner Darkly,VALIS trilogy |
Signature |
The I Ching is prominent in The Man in the High Castle; having diffused it as part of their cultural hegemony overlordship of the Pacific Coast U.S., the Japanese — and some American — characters consult it, and then act per its replies to their queries. Specifically, "The Man in the High Castle", Hawthorne Abendsen, himself, used it to write The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, and, at story's end, in his presence, Juliana Frink, queries the I Ching: "Why did it write The Grasshopper Lies Heavy?" and "What is the reader to learn from the novel?" The I Chingreplies with Hexagram 61 ([中孚] zhōng fú) Chung Fu, "Inner Truth", describing the true state of the world—every character in The Man in the High Castle is living a false reality.