GRGR(8)--parallel worlds

[j minnich]

John M writes:
>
>Well, since the leitmotif of this section might arguably be: *which do you
want it to be?* 
>What if TRP were playing here w/ an *alternate* or *parallel universe* type
of narrative 
>thing?  You know the device--doesn't Phillip K. Dick use it in one of his
novels--What if 
>Germany had won the war?  What if Hitler had been assassinated? What if
Kennedy 
>hadn't? etc.  It's a tried and true science fiction/fantasy device, I
believe.  (I am sure you 
>erudite folks will provide other examples of the genre--I really am
interested in knowing).  

GR never seemed to me to be a parallel universe novel.  That extra Christmas
I can't explain, though.  I've read most of P.K. Dick's stuff. I'd rather
say that nearly ALL of PKD's novels used the parallel universe device.
Notably, his _The Man in the High Castle_, from circa 1965. There's a fine
scene in that novel where a sympathetic Japanese gentleman, Mr. Tagomi,
wanders around the North Beach area of San Francisco among the pedestrians
and "pedicabs" (which have become the predominate modes of transport in San
Francisco after the Axis nations won WWII).  As he suffers a heart attack
during his walk he has a vision of an alternate universe in which the U.S.
won the war and in which the Americans built a horrible, ugly, double-decked
freeway along the embarcadero.   He is appalled by the ugliness of the
Embarcadero Freeway (not to mention by the heart attack itself).  This scene
from _The Man in the High Castle_ got even better after the Embarcadero
Freeway, damaged beyond repair, during the Loma Prieta quake got torn down.
I always thought that _High Castle_ was one of PKD's best efforts. It wasn't
as wooden and slap-dash as some of his other books.  The typical PKD mixture
of brilliance and drek was skewed away from the drek.  The female lead
character, Juliana Frink, was for me one of PKD's most sympathetic and
appealing women.                   -j minnich
---------------------------------------------------------------
The poet is dead.
Nor will ever again hear the sea lions 
Grunt in the kelp at Point Lobos.
Nor look to the south when the grunion 
Run the Pacific, and the plunging
Shearwaters, insatiable, 
Stun themselves in the sea.  
   -W. Everson