The Man in the High Castle

Hawthorne Abendsen, the best-selling author of the speculative novel The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, is the “man in the high castle” of the book’s title. For years after he wrote his controversial book, he lived in a “high castle,” armed and secured against would-be Nazi assassins. However, by the time Juliana arrives at his house, Abendsen and his family have moved to a quiet, normal, suburban home. Having resigned himself to the fact that Nazis could attack him anywhere, Abendsen has instead prioritized a fulfilling day-to-day life over an existence spent in anxious watchfulness. He therefore illustrates the novel’s call to “find the small:” the ordinary, everyday joys and heartbreaks of life. Abendsen can also be seen as an alternative version of Dick himself—both men write speculative fiction about an alternate outcome of World War II, and both use the ancient Chinese I Ching to do so. Interestingly, Juliana believes that Abendsen’s book is in some way fundamentally true, in that it reveals something about their own world. Abendsen resents this fact, perhaps because in admitting the role of the I Ching in his own writing process, he is also admitting the role of chance and coincidence in creating any given reality.