The Man in the High Castle Chapter 3 Summary

  • This chapter takes place a little earlier (we think). In Canon City, CO—in the free Rocky Mountain States between the Japanese-controlled West Coast and the German-controlled East Coast—Juliana Frink relaxes after teaching her judo-self-defense class. Up in the sky, she sees one of the fancy new German rockets that take people around the world in super-fast speed.
  • Down on Earth, Juliana isn't so happy—despite knowing judo, which would thrill us.
  • At a diner, she runs into two truckers traveling from the East. They almost get into a political discussion-fight with the cook over German policies, but Juliana tries to keep everyone calm and bacon-filled.
  • The younger trucker is Italian and he seems sensitive about his dark skin (because of prejudice against dark-skinned people).
  • After he gives Juliana some nylons, so she agrees to drive him to a hotel for the night.
  • Meanwhile, up in the air, Baynes is on a rocket (maybe the same one that Juliana saw at the beginning of the chapter?), traveling to San Francisco.
  • As one usually does on an airplane or rocket, Baynes gets into a conversation with his neighbor, a committed Nazi artist named Alex Lotze.
  • They disagree about art: Baynes likes the modernists, whom Lotze considers to be corrupt and Jewish-leaning. So it's a typical art conversation.
  • Baynes is so disgusted-enraged about Lotze's idiotic Nazism that he decides to have some fun with him. Baynes tells Lotze that he is Jewish (but had surgery so no one can tell) and that many top-ranking Nazi officials are really Jews in disguise (kind of like Transformers).
  • After landing, Baynes meets Tagomi, who gives the gift he got from Childan: a Mickey Mouse watch from 1938. Baynes tries to look impressed, even though he always preferred Bugs Bunny. (OK, that last part isn't true, but it should be.)