I’ve been fascinated by Philip K. Dick since the 1960s, and The Man in the High Castle’ is his masterpiece. The Amazon series shares little with the book except a few major characters. But it’s so effective in showing life inside two slightly different totalitarian societies (Japanese West Coast, Nazi East Coast) that it’s taken on a life of its own.
Here is Juliana Crain fleeing the Japanese zone, almost getting killed by the Kempeitai while seeking asylum in the Nazi Reich. New York looks pretty much like itself except for swastikas everywhere. Creepy scene when she’s given a thorough physical examination to make sure she’s ‘Aryan’ enough to get asylum.
She’s taken in by SS Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith and his wife Helen. Smith has a secret — his young son has a genetic defect that would mean instant euthanasia if it got out. There’s a funeral set in a ‘church’ that’s all Nazi and no Jesus or God.
It’s compelling and yet depressing, in these times above all.
As a comic relief I listened to the two Gershwin political musicals ‘Of Thee I Sing’ and ‘Let ‘Em Eat Cake’. The first is pretty broadly comic and not disturbing. The second is when President Wintergreen fails to get re-elected and stages a military coup to make himself dictator. No longer so funny, especially when he introduces ‘blue shirts' (like brown in Germany and black in Italy) and there's a song, 'Blue, Blue, Blue'.
I hope neither of these worlds is where we’re heading.