Week 8 - What role does the I Ching have as an organisational device in the structure of High Castle?

As someone who generally stays well away from the science fiction/speculative fiction genres, it should come as no surprise to my readers that I found Philip K Dick's novel The Man in the High Castle to be, quite simply, weird. I did not really enjoy reading it, therefore found it hard to follow and keep up. However, in reading this week's Critical Reader, I was able to find out a bit more about the novel (as well as the writer himself) and understand it on a higher level. 

What I found most interesting and what made the largest impact on me in my reading of the novel and the latter readings, was Dick's use of the I Ching, something I had never heard of before. According to Brown (2001) the I Ching is the ancient Chinese book of divination, or seeking knowledge of the future. (Brown, 2001). 

Within The Man in the High Castle, the I Ching is used as an organisational device to structure the novel, with Dick himself stating "I've used it to develop the direction of a novel". (Dick, as cited by Mountfort, 2006, p. 3). According to Mountfort (2006) "There are ten oracle consultations outlined within the covers of High Castle." (Mountfort, 2006, p. 5).  Mountfort argues that these ten consultations/oracle readings show the "'physical' seams of the construction of Dick's novel" and that they are its central organisational device because the characters consult the I Ching to find out "how they should interpret events, what they should do next, and what the result would be.” (Mountfort, 2006, p. 5). 

References

Brown, E. (2001). Introduction. In Dick, P.K., The Man in the High Castle (p.v-xii). London: Penguin.

Mountfort, P. (2006). Oracle-text/Cybertext in Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle. Conference paper, Popular Culture Association/ American Culture Association annual joint conference, Atlanta,
2006.