"The Man In The High Castle " story by Philip K. Dick
The Man in the High Castle
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Cover of first edition (hardcover)
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| Author | Philip K. Dick |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Alternate history |
| Publisher | Putnam |
Publication date
| October 1962 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| Pages | 240 |
| OCLC | 145507009 |
| 813.54 | |
The Man in the High Castle (1962) is an alternate history novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. Set in 1962, fifteen years after an alternative ending to World War II, the novel concerns intrigues between the victorious Axis Powers—primarily, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany—as they rule over the former United States, as well as daily life under the resulting totalitarian rule. The Man in the High Castle won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1963. Beginning in 2015, the book was adapted as a multi-season TV series, with Dick's daughter, Isa Dick Hackett, serving as one of the show's producers.
Reported inspirations include Ward Moore's alternate Civil War history, Bring the Jubilee (1953), various classic World War II histories, and the I Ching (referred to in the novel). The novel features a "novel within the novel" comprising an alternate history within this alternate history wherein the Allies defeat the Axis (though in a manner distinct from the actual historical outcome).
Contents
Synopsis
Background
In the novel's alternate history, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt was assassinated by Giuseppe Zangara in 1934 leading to the continuation of the Great Depression and US isolationism during the opening of World War II. Adolf Hitler led Nazi Germany to conquer most of Europe and the Soviet Union, murdering Jews, Roma, Slavs, and other groups. Meanwhile, Imperial Japan occupied Eastern Asia and Oceania. The Nazis then, with help of their allies, conquered most of Africa. As Japan invaded the US West Coast, Germany invaded the US East Coast. By 1947, the US and the remaining Allies surrendered to the Axis, ending the war.
By the 1960s, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany are the world's competing superpowers, with Japan establishing the "Pacific States of America" (P.S.A.) from the former Western United States and the remaining Rocky Mountain States being a neutral buffer zone between the P.S.A. and the Nazi-occupied former Eastern United States. In the East, there are two countries: "The South" is a racist puppet regime which collaborates with the Nazis. The United States of America still exist by name in the Northeast of the former territory and are controlled by a German military governor. For unexplained reasons, Canada remains independent despite being part of the Allies.
Hitler, though still alive, is incapacitated from advanced syphilis, and Martin Bormann has become Chancellor of Germany, with Goebbels, Heydrich, Göring, Seyss-Inquart (who oversees the extermination of the peoples of Africa), and other Nazi leaders soon vying to take his place. The Nazis have drained the Mediterranean to make room for farmland, developed and used the hydrogen bomb, and designed rockets for extremely fast travel across the world as well as space, having colonized the Moon, Venus, and Mars. The novel is set mostly in San Francisco, the Pacific States' capital; here, Chinese residents first appear in the novel as second-class citizens and black people are slaves. The secondary setting of the novel is the Rocky Mountains States, namely the cities of Cañon City, Denver and Cheyenne.
Plot summary
In 1962, fifteen years after Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany have won World War II, Robert "Bob" Childan owns an Americana antique shop in San Francisco, California (located in the Japanese-occupied Pacific States of America), which is most commonly frequented by the Japanese, who make a fetish of romanticized American cultural artifacts. Childan is contacted by Nobusuke Tagomi, a high-ranking Japanese trade official, who is seeking a gift to impress a visiting Swedish industrialist named Baynes. Childan's store is stocked in part with counterfeit antiques from the Wyndam-Matson Corporation, a metalworking company. Frank Frink (formerly Fink), a secretly Jewish-American veteran of World War II, has just been fired from the Wyndam-Matson factory, when he agrees to join a former coworker to begin a handcrafted jewelry business. Meanwhile, Frink's ex-wife, Juliana, works as a judo instructor in Canon City, Colorado (in the neutral buffer zone of Mountain States), where she begins a sexual relationship with an Italian truck driver and ex-soldier, Joe Cinnadella. Throughout the book, many of these characters frequently make important decisions using prophetic messages they interpret from the I Ching, a Chinese cultural import. Many characters are also reading a widely banned yet extremely popular new novel, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, which depicts an alternate history in which the Allies won World War II in 1947, a concept that amazes and intrigues its readers.
Frink reveals that the Wyndam-Matson Corporation has been supplying Childan with counterfeit antiques, which effectively works to blackmail Wyndam-Matson for money to finance Frink's new jewelry venture. Tagomi and Baynes meet, but Baynes repeatedly delays any real business as they await an expected third party from Japan. Suddenly, the public receives news of the death of the recently-ill Chancellor of Germany, Martin Bormann. Childan tentatively, on consignment, takes some of Frink's "authentic" new metalwork and attempts to curry favor with a Japanese client, who surprisingly considers Frink's jewelry immensely spiritually alive. Juliana and Joe take a road trip to Denver, Colorado, and Joe impulsively decides they should go on a side-trip to meet the mysterious Hawthorne Abendsen, author of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, who supposedly lives in a guarded fortress-like estate called the "High Castle" in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Soon, Joseph Goebbels is announced as the new German Chancellor.
Baynes and Tagomi finally meet their Japanese contact as the Nazi secret police, the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), close in to arrest Baynes, who is revealed to be a Nazi defector named Rudolf Wegener. Wegener warns his contact, a famed Japanese general, of Operation Dandelion, an upcoming Goebbels-approved plan for the Nazis to launch a surprise attack on the Japanese Home Islands, in order to obliterate them in one swift stroke. As Frink is elsewhere exposed as a Jew and arrested, Wegener and Tagomi are confronted by two SD agents, both of whom Tagomi shoots dead with an antique American pistol. Back in Colorado, Joe abruptly changes his appearance and mannerisms before the trip to the High Castle, leading Juliana to deduce that he intends to murder Abendsen. Joe confirms this, revealing himself to be an undercover Swiss Nazi assassin. Juliana mortally wounds Joe and drives off to warn Abendsen of the threat to his life.
Wegener flies back to Germany and learns that Reinhard Heydrich (a member of the anti-Dandelion faction) has launched a coup against Goebbels, possibly installing himself as Chancellor. Meanwhile, Tagomi remains shaken by the shootout and goes to Childan to sell back the gun he used in the fight; instead, sensing the energy from one of Frink's jewelry items, Tagomi impulsively buys it from Childan. Tagomi then undergoes a spiritually intense experience during which he momentarily perceives an alternative-history version of San Francisco. Later, Tagomi on a whim forces the German authorities to release Frink, whom Tagomi has never met and does not know is the maker of the jewelry. Juliana soon has her own spiritual experience when she arrives in Cheyenne. There, she discovers that Abendsen now lives in a normal house with his family, having left behind the High Castle due to a change of outlook; he no longer preoccupies himself with thoughts that he might soon be assassinated. After dodging many of Juliana's questions about his inspiration for his novel, Abendsen finally confesses that he used the I Ching to guide his writing of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. Before leaving, Juliana infers then that "Truth" wrote the book in order to reveal the "Inner Truth" that Japan and Germany really lost World War II.
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