BOOK: The Man in the High Castle (1962)

by benmweilertNo Comments
The Man in the High CastleYear: 1962Author: Philip K. DickLength: 505 minutes / 8.42 hours While I haven't seen the Amazon TV series based on this book, I have had enough awareness of the basic premise going in. An alternate reality where the Allies lost World War II felt like such an interesting concept that I had to read the book that spawned this idea. Of course, I also enjoy Philip K. Dick's writing for the same reasons: he has novel ideas that he executes well. Unfortunately, I found The Man in the High Castle to be underwhelming. To Dick's credit, his world-building for a history where Japan took over part of the United States after World War II felt quite thorough. Little subtle ways that people act, economies based on American antiques, as well as other differences that made sense with such a drastic change to history. The problem is, Dick was so focused on world-building that he forgot to write...
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BOOK: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962)

by benmweilertNo Comments
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Year: 1962 Author: Ken Kesey Length: 601 minutes / 10.02 hours As one of the few films in American history to win the “big 5” Academy Awards (which are Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay), I was interested in the book that helped One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest attain its award-worthy status. I figured that if such a book could provide such great content to win awards as a movie, it would certainly have artistic merit in its own right. After all, many people posit that a book is better than the movie it is made out of. I wanted to make sure that, at the very least, it wasn’t any worse than the movie. Perhaps the largest difference between the two versions of this story (I’m not going to go into the live-theatre version, since I haven’t seen it), is that the book has a very interesting narrator in the character of “Chief” Bromden, whereas the...
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