The Main in the High Castle

The Man in the High Castle, by Phillip K. Dick is a grand and magisterial science fiction novel. Written in 1962, the only thing 'science fiction' about it is the fact that its an alternate history novel. Set in 1962, fifteen years after an alternative ending to World War II. Here, Germany and Japan actually win the war. Now, both countries share control over the entire world, including the United States. The Man in the High Castle won the most prestigious science fiction award [the critically acclaimed Hugo Award] in 1963. In 2015, Amazon Prime adapted the novel into a series. However, you can't compare the show to the novel, its just not good enough to even compare notes on. 

Inspirations for the book include Ward Moore's alternate Civil War history, Bring the Jubilee [1952], various classic World War II histories, as well as the I, Ching [used by the characters in the novel], which creates a sense of a novel within a novel.   

More on the world within the novel. FDR was assassinated in 1934, leading the continuation of the Great Depression and isolation during the War. Hitler and Nazi Germany take over Europe and the Soviet Union, murdering anyone they don't like. Japan controls Eastern Asia and Oceania. The Nazis helped Italy conquer Africa. Japan invades the US West Coast while Germany invades US East Coast. By 1947, the US and Allies surrender to the Axis powers, ending the War. The US is still independent, but under Nazi rule. 

By 1960 Japan and Nazi Germany are the worlds' superpowers. Japan establishes the Pacific States of America [P.S.A] from the former Western United States, with the Rocky Mountains as a neutral zone between the PSA and the Nazi-occupied former Eastern United States. For reasons not explained the UK, Spain, Canada, and many other nations in the world remain independent. 

Hitler is still alive but he's going through an advanced stage of syphilis, not governing. Martin Bormann is Chancellor of Germany, with Goebbels, Heydrich, Göring, Seyss-Inquart (who oversees the extermination of the peoples of Africa), and other Nazi leaders soon trying to take his place.

The Nazis drained the Mediterranean to make room for farmland, developed the hydrogen bomb, designed rockets for fast travel across the world as well as space, having colonized the Moon, Mars, and Venus. The novel takes place in PSA, where Chinese are second class citizens, and blacks are slaves. The secondary setting for the novel is the Rocky Mountain states, Cañon City, Denver and Cheyenne.

Now for the plot. This is where things get interesting. In 1962, Robert Childan owns an antique shop frequented by bourgeois Japanese who like historical American artifacts. Childan is contacted by Tagomi, a high-ranking Japanese official, who is seeking a gift for Baynes, a Swedish industrialist. Childan's store is stocked with items from WM, a company that Frank Frink [formerly Fink, a Jewish name] works for. 

Frank Frink is secretly an American Jew who survived Nazi Germany. He's just been fired from WM, so him and Ed [also from WM, Ed quits WM] go into the jewelry making business on their own. 

Meanwhile, Frank's ex-wife Juliana, works as a judo instructor in Canon City, Colorado, where she begins a sexual relationship with an Italian truck driver and ex-soldier, Joe Cinadella. Throughout the book, most of the characters, resort to using the I, Ching, a cultural import from China used ask questions, "what should I do?". Ask the Oracle. Most of the characters are also reading the Grasshopper Lies Heavy, a popular work of fiction that depicts a world where the Allies won the War, similar to our real life world. 

Frink reveals that WM has been selling Childan counterfeit material, not stuff of actual historical value, which works to blackmail WM so he can fund his new jewelry venture. Tagomi and Baynes meet but Baynes keeps delaying until they get word from a third party from Japan. Suddenly, the Chancellor of Germany, Martin Bormann dies, making national and world-wide news. Childan takes Frink's work on consignment to some Japanese, who tell them that the artwork is junk, but contains spiritual value. That the items could be sold in Asia or Latin America as magic good luck charms, things of that nature. This upsets Childan, who thinks that original American artwork is too good to be junk magic charms. Juliana and Joe out of nowhere decide to visit Abendsen, the writer of the Grasshopper. Goebbels is announced as the next new Chancellor of Germany. 

Baynes and Tagomi meet their Japanese contact as the Nazi secret police close in to arrest Baynes [who is actually a high ranking Nazi official, although he is really a Jew, complete with body changes and enhancements to lose his Jewish 'look']. In fact, it turns out that Baynes is actually a Nazi defector named Rudolf Wegener. Wegener warns his contact, a famous, high-ranking Japanese General of Operation Dandelion, a Goebbels approved surprise attack on the Japanese Home Islands, in order to destroy them in one fell swoop! 

Frink is exposed as a Jew and arrested [but is later released with no explanation]. Meanwhile, Wegener and Tagomi take down two SD Agents, actually it is Tagomi who kills both of them with an antique Civil War revolver. Back in Colorado, Joe cuts his hair short, dyes it blonde, and starts acting differently, making Juliana believe that he's going to kill Abendsen. In fact, she's been had. He's actually a Nazi on assignment to kill the famous writer of Grasshopper. 

Wegener flies back to Germany and finds out that Goebbels has been ousted by Reinhard Heydrich, who is anti-Dandelion. Tagomi is extremely shaken by the blood on his hands. He goes back to sell the antique revolver to Childan, but Childan doesn't take it back. Instead, Tagomi buys one of Frink and Ed's 'silly' trinket items that Childan had on consignment for EdFrank Jewelry. Tagomi goes on an intense spiritual quest where he momentarily perceives an alternate history of San Francisco. He does 'see' into the metaphysical reality, a philosophical section of the book.

Elsewhere, Juliana puts a razor blade to Joe's neck, presumably killing him. Then she goes on to meet Abendsen, who it turns out, doesn't live in a High Castle surrounded by weapons, but in a normal house, with his family and friends. In fact, Abendsen doesn't even occupy his mind with thoughts that he's going to get assassinated. However, when Juliana tells him that she saved him from a potential killer [Joe], Abendsen is grateful. Juliana asks Abendsen tough questions about how he wrote the Grasshopper. At first he gives her half-assed answers and is arrogant. But eventually he admits that he used the I, Ching to write Grasshopper, which leads to Juliana, before leaving, to infer that "Truth" wrote the book in order to reveal the "Inner Truth" that Japan and Germany really lost the War. 

I don't usually go into this much detail about the plot of a book when I write a blog about it. However, this novel is so important and great that I felt obligated to, so that if you, the reader don't have the time to actually read the novel, you can read my synopsis and find the inspiration to make time to read this great book. 

Some novels just hit you on the head and a light bulb goes on, a little voice in your head says, "This is an important book."  This is so with The Man in the High Castle. The material here, so much about Nazi's and whatnot, is hard to bear, and I think snowflakes in the Twitter literary world would find lots to complain about. However, because it was written in 1962, it got the praise it deserved, for it shows a world that could have been, may have been, if only we had lost the war. 

Culturally, there is a lot going on here. For example, just like how the characters in the book used the I, Ching to make important decisions, so did Phillip K. Dick use it for decisions regarding plot and such. Not only that but in order for Dick to write the book he did a ton of Nazi history reading. Going down that road is difficult for anyone [excluding Nazis], for that history is hard to take in, absorb, and write about. In fact, Dick wanted to write a sequel but couldn't because he just didn't want to read and write more about Nazis, understandably so. 

The use of the I, Ching makes for a great novel-within-a-novel theme [so does the Grasshopper book]. The use of the I, Ching is downright fascinating. This book has everything: extrapolation, suspense, action, art, philosophy, plot, and character. Its no wonder that it won the Hugo Award in 1963, its a masterpiece. 

In addition, another thing that really 'spoke' to me as I read the book was the pure artistry of Dick's literary style, technique. He's a true master of fiction. I learned more about how to write a sympathetic character, from studying the way Dick describes the thoughts of the characters as they 'perform' in the world of this particular fiction. I haven't thought about doing this sort of thing in my own fiction. I'm striving to become a great fiction writer, and although I think it would be super difficult to imitate Dick's style, I also think I've learned from his style as well, how to use the voice of the writer as well as the voice of the characters. Very important stuff.

In terms of Phillip K. Dick, it might not get any better than this. I've read a lot of Dick's novels, and the one I can think of that I enjoyed as much as this one was Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep? However, I would say that this is arguably a more important novel in the genre, and for Dick as a writer.  

An aside, this is a very tough-minded book. Not for snowflakes.

Read the novel, skip the show, be amazed. 

Other blogs on Phillip K Dick
http://ofigueroamusic.blogspot.com/2017/05/phillip-k-dicks-cosmic-puppet.html 
http://ofigueroamusic.blogspot.com/2015/12/man-in-high-castle.html