7. The Restaurant At The End of The Universe (Adams) vs 26. The Man In The High Castle (Dick)

Quote Porn

The Man In The High Castle

"Evil, Mr. Tagomi thought. Yes, it is. Are we to assist it in gaining power, in order to save our lives? Is that the paradox of our Earthly situation?"

"It is therapeutic to meet these people who have intimidated you. And to discover what they are really like. Then the intimidation goes."

The Restaurant At The End of The Universe

"In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move."

" 'Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt the leaf as legal tender, we have, of course, all become immensely rich.' Ford stared in disbelief at the crowd who were murmuring appreciatively at this and greedily fingering the wads of leaves with which their track suits were stuffed. 'But we have also,' continued the management consultant, 'run into a small inflation problem on account of the high level of leaf availability, which means that, I gather, the current going rate has something like three deciduous forests buying one ship's peanut.' Murmurs of alarm came from the crowd. The management consultant waved them down. 'So in order to obviate this problem,' he continued, 'and effectively revalue the leaf, we are about to embark on a massive defoliation campaign, and... er, burn down all the forests. I think you'll all agree that's a sensible move under the circumstances.' The crowd seemed a little uncertain about this for a second or two until someone pointed out how much this would increase the value of the leaves in their pockets whereupon they let out whoops of delight and gave the management consultant a standing ovation. The accountants among them looked forward to a profitable autumn."

A Few Thoughts

The Man In The High Castle is a great exercise in imagination. Alternate history books have become all the rage (culminating in Stephen King trying his hand in 11/22/63), but the dust had only a decade settled from World War II when Dick wrote the book. The alternate history facet of the book is important because The Man In The High Castle isn't so much a narrative of one or two characters living in an Axis-won world, but rather a tapestry of more than a dozen characters and their roles around a planned German hydrogen bomb & a fiction-within-fiction book asking what would happen if the Allies had won the war. 

I'm aware that this is somewhat of a mouthful. Think of it this way: remember the Simpsons episode 22 Short Stories About Springfield? That's sort of how this book rolls. 

My interaction with this book has become kind of a point of humour when I look back on it: I can tell you how Dick sets up his alternate world, what happened to FDR and Hitler and how the Third Reich and the Japanese divvied up the United States... but I can hardly remember any of the many characters' names, let alone their roles in the whole situation. The writing wasn't particularly compelling—I had to wrestle with my Kindle Clippings file to even find two quotes that still resonated with me outside the context of reading the book itself. It's almost making me lament that I didn't include setting as one of my scoring metrics in the head-to-head section, because that is the strength of this book to the point that I could hardly tell you anything else about it. There were just so many named characters that were talked about for such short times that, even though I know the book had a plot, I can hardly tell you who did what or why. 

As far as I can tell in my limited religious studies experience, the book has a neat and at-least-half-reverent take on the I Ching. A number of characters use the text and the rituals it contains to guide their lives to better and worse horizons. While Dick doesn't present the I Ching as infallible by any means, watching fictional characters cast hexagrams and ponder their situations with its guidance felt like a story outside of the fiction, and was interesting to read. Similarly, the jewelry shop that exists in the book is a neat sideplot that, although probably nothing like an actual jewelry shop startup, was really fun to read. 

...just don't ask me who was involved in either case. 

The Restaurant At The End of The Universe, despite being the second in the series, is the highest rated Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy book on Goodreads, and likely my favorite to boot. Its story follows the characters from the first book as they come off an adventure looking for a quick bite to eat. 

This book succeeds the first, in my eyes, largely because the settings and characters the gang encounter have so many brilliantly written bits. The true ruler of the universe and The Lord are delightfully insane; the Total Perspective Vortex and Zaphod's interaction with it (even if it is in a puppet universe) helps cement his character as the ultimate beacon of arrogance; the nature of the titular restaurant is refreshingly contemplative in a book that's principally for the lulz; and Arthur and Ford's meeting and marooning with the Golgafrinchans is at once earmark British humour and a dark, scathing commentary on human nature and society. 

That last part, especially, largely helps to elevate this book as the pinnacle of the series. While Adams' British humour manifests itself in many ways (decreasingly so after the third book), it's only during the closing pages of The Restaurant At The End of The Universe (and somewhat during the opening ones of Life, The Universe & Everything) that Adams abandons harmless absurdity and begins to really cut into 20th century ideals and, to be blunt, starts calling everyone on their shit. My younger mind missed the parody of it entirely, so it's at least a little subtle—but, as the quote above shows, it's not exactly hidden, either.
In summary: when an author points out that I'm a selfish consumerist jerk and, rather than get offended or pledge to change, I just laugh: that's good satire. 

Head-to-Head

Characters: Long story short, The Man In The High Castle suffers from too many figures, not enough prose.
Advantage: The ludicrous Restaurant At The End of The Universe.

Plot: I'm going to cheat a little here and consider Dick's setting as his plot, because it kind of is. Restaurant is a great book, but the plot often serves to get the hilarious characters from one spotlight to the next, and is sort of unimportant. Think of it like a spotfest wrestling match in a regular ring, while TMITHC is more like a Hell in a Cell.

Advantage: The Man In The High Castle. 

Ending: The actual last page of Restaurant isn't a big deal, but the book's later pages are definitely its better pages.

Advantage: The Restaurant At The End of The Universe.

Language/Writing: Adams phrases and delivers his work ideally. TMITHC was often phrased awkwardly in (what I think was) an attempt to create atmosphere. 

Advantage: The Restaurant At The End of The Universe.

Philosophy: At face, neither contains a ton. But then, extended thinking about Restaurant ends up mired in thoughts about entropy, society, and leadership. TMITHC posits a world that'll host a wide variety of what-ifs and other game theory-type predictions, and that's before you even consider the I Ching.

Advantage: Too close to call. 

Winner Winner Turkey Supper

Hey, some amends for knocking out the first Hitchhiker's Guide book early! The Man In The High Castle is worth the short read, but it stands out to me as the piece of fiction I remember in the oddest way. 

The Restaurant At The End of The Universe moves on to the second round.