The Man In the High Castle (Summary)
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00:00The Man in the High Castle, Brief Summary The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
00:08was first published in 1963.
00:12It happens to be an alternative history novel that is set in 1962.
00:17The novel opens in 1962.
00:20It is 15 years after the victory of the Axis Powers, Imperial Japan, and Nazi Germany,
00:28in the Second World War.
00:30We are introduced to Robert Bob Childen.
00:33He happens to be the owner of an American antiques shop in San Francisco, California.
00:39The place is in the Japanese-occupied Pacific states of America.
00:45Several Japanese visit the place very frequently.
00:48They often make a fetish of romanticized American cultural artifacts.
00:54One day, a high-ranking Japanese trade officer named Nobusuke Tagomi contacts Childen.
01:02He wants to buy a gift to impress a Swedish industrialist named Banes.
01:08At Childen's store, there are some antiques brought from a metalwork company named Windermatsen
01:14Corporation.
01:15Frank has recently been fired from the Windermatsen factory.
01:20He was formerly known as Frink.
01:23He is a secretly Jewish-American veteran of the Second World War.
01:28He is fired because he happens to have joined a former co-worker to start a handicraft jewelry
01:34business.
01:35Frink's ex-wife, Juliana, works as a judo instructor in Cannon City, Colorado.
01:43She develops a sexual relationship with an Italian truck driver who used to be a former
01:48soldier named Joe Sinodella.
01:51Throughout the story, several of the characters often make certain important decisions with
01:57the help of messages they interpret from the I Ching.
02:01Several of these characters read a banned but highly popular novel called The Grasshopper
02:06Lies Heavy.
02:07The novel presents an alternative history which shows that the Allies had won the Second
02:12World War.
02:13The readers of the novel are obviously amazed and intrigued because they happen to be living
02:18in a period and the world that has the Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany as victorious forces.
02:26Through Frink it is revealed that Childen has been getting counterfeit antiques from
02:31the Windermatsen Corporation.
02:33Eventually, Frink blackmails the Windermatsen for money to finance his new jewelry business.
02:41Baines and Tagomi meet but Baines continues to delay the business because they have been
02:46waiting a third party from Japan.
02:50One day, the people receive the news that the Chancellor Germany, Martin Bormann has
02:55passed away.
02:57He had been ill.
02:59Childen, on one occasion, gets tempted and takes some of the original new metal work
03:05from Frink's consignment and tries to please a Japanese client.
03:10The Japanese client believes that Frink's jewelry is highly spiritually alive.
03:16We are introduced to Joe and Juliana.
03:19They go on a road trip to Denver, Colorado.
03:23Joe wants to meet Hawthorne Abenson, the author of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy.
03:29He decides that they should take a secret side trip to meet that author.
03:34The author happens to be in a heavily guarded fortress-like estate.
03:39The place is called the High Castle.
03:41It is located in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
03:45On the other hand, Joseph Goebbels becomes the new German Chancellor.
03:50Tagomi and Baines eventually meet the Japanese contact as agents of the Nazi secret police,
03:57the Sikostienst.
03:59They are about to arrest Baines.
04:02It is revealed that he is actually a Nazi defector named Rudolf Wegener.
04:08Wegener has a Japanese contact who happens to be a famous Japanese general during Operation
04:14Dandelion.
04:16It happens to be a secret plan for the Nazis to attack the Japanese home islands to kill
04:21them swiftly in one attack.
04:24On the other hand, Frink is revealed to be a Jew.
04:27He gets arrested.
04:29The SD agents interrogate Wegener and Tagomi.
04:33Tagomi shoots those agents dead with an antique American pistol.
04:38The narrative brings us back to Colorado.
04:42Before taking the trip to the High Castle, Joe changes his appearance and manners.
04:47Juliana thinks that he actually wants to kill a Benderson.
04:51Joe confirms it and reveals that he is an undercover Swiss Nazi assassin.
04:56Juliana is obviously shocked.
04:59Juliana irons him very seriously and drives off to inform a Benderson that his life is
05:06in danger.
05:07Wegener goes back to Germany.
05:10Tagomi is still unstable after the shootout.
05:14Tagomi goes to Childen to sell back the gun that he happens to have used in that gun fight.
05:21He senses the energy from one of Frink's jewels.
05:25Tagomi buys it from Childen.
05:28He has a sudden spiritual moment and he perceives an alternative history version of San Francisco.
05:34Tagomi is able to compel the German authorities to release Frink.
05:40He has never personally met Frink and does not know that Frink has made the jewel he
05:45has bought.
05:47When Juliana reaches Cheyenne, she has her own spiritual experience.
05:52She finds out that Benderson is now living in a normal house with his family.
05:58He has already left the High Castle because of a change of outlook.
06:02He is not lost in thoughts now that he will be killed.
06:07Juliana asks him several questions about his inspiration to his novel The Grasshopper.
06:13He confesses that he used the I Ching to guide his writing of the novel.
06:19Before her departure, Juliana understands that truth itself wrote the book so that the
06:24inner truth that Japan and Germany had actually lost the war could be revealed.