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59 | Outline 1981 |
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Outline only and interview notes |
THE TRANSMIGRATION OF TIMOTHY ARCHER completed in June 1981 was part of a two-book contract. The second book PKD was to write was a science fiction novel and it was to be due by the beginning of 1983. Dick speaks of this novel in the Twilight Zone interview with John Boonstra:
(PKD): The contract is a two-book contract, and there's a science fiction novel in it. And it pays exactly three times for the science fiction what is being paid for TIMOTHY ARCHER.
(TZ): Have you begun the sf novel?
(PKD): I've done two different outlines. I'll probably wind up laminating them together and making one book out of it, which is what I like to do, develop independent outlines and then laminate them into one book. That's where I got my multiple plot ideas. I really enjoy doing that, a paste-up job. A synthesis, in other words.
This second novel is not due until January 1, 1983, so I've got time. Right now I'm just physically too tired to do the typing. It looks like it's going to be a good book, too. It's called THE OWL IN DAYLIGHT.
{…} I'm now working very closely with the Ladd Company and, I'm on very good terms with them. In fact, that's one of the things that's worn me out. I've been so amped-up over BLADE RUNNER I couldn't work on THE OWL IN DAYLIGHT.
In a letter to his editor at Timescape Books, David Hartwell, PKD makes an ‘informal statement’ about THE OWL IN DAYLIGHT:
It will be based somewhat (as I have discussed with you and Russell Galen) on Dante's COMMEDIA - and also on Goethe's FAUST Part One, In the future a scientist who is very old supervises the construction of an amusement park (something like the "lands" at Disneyland) of Berkeley, California circa 1949-1952 with all the various groups and subcultures of that time and place represented. In order to impose coherency on the Park he involves one of the planet's leading computers in the operation of it, turning this high-level computer into the mind behind the Park. The computer resents this, since it prefers to solve abstract, theoretical problems of the highest order. The computer pays the scientist back by trapping him in the Park and making him subject to its mind (that is, the computer's mind): the scientist is given the physical body of a high school boy, and he is deprived of his memories of his true identity (you can see the influence of Van Vogt on me, here, and also that of a number of my earlier novels) . Now the scientist, trapped in his own amusement Park and subject to the mind of the misused (misused and knowing it and keenly resenting it) must solve the maze that the Park represents and find his way out of it by solving problems propounded by the computer and presented to him in sequence.)
In this letter, of which we have quoted a brief section, PKD goes on to develop this plot further. Of the story itself Andy Watson and K.W. Jeter of the Philip K. Dick Society sketch out an alternative plot:
(Andy Watson:) To me that seems the truly profound and
criminal element in there not having been time for him to at least write THE OWL IN
DAYLIGHT. I'm suspecting that it would have been a breakaway from that set, the so-called
trilogy.
(KW Jeter:) Possibly. the only thing I know about (THE OWL IN DAYLIGHT) was that it was
supposedly based on Beethoven's life.
(AW:)Was it going to be science fiction?
(KW:)Supposedly
(AW:)But based on Beethoven's life?
(KW:)In some way. It would have references to Beethoven's life. After Phil died, I was
contacted by his daughter's lawyers, asking what I knew about it and if I had any ideas
about whether the book could be successfully completed based upon the outline Phil wrote
to get the contract. I wrote back to them saying that from my conversations with Phil, it
was my understanding that the outline was very incomplete, no more than a few pages long.
(AW:)Perhaps they were concerned with the legal obligation of the contract and whether the
money had to be returned?
(KW:)Yeah, something like that. Or whether they could find somebody who'd be able to write
the book. And I said no. Seeing as Phil would deviate or diverge so much from his outlines
anyway, there wasn't much of a chance.
In the last interview PKD conducted in his life with Gwen Lee and which was published in Starlog in 1982 shortly after his death, PKD talks more of THE OWL IN DAYLIGHT:
(PKD:) This is the book I'm allegedly writing, THE OWL IN DAYLIGHT. Its a folk expression from the South -- an owl being blind in the daylight. It simply means a person whose judgement is clouded over. The book is about the inability to understand. I can't even put it into words.
{...}
(Starlog): And you have a new outline for this novel?
(PKD:)Within a short period of time. It has jelled quite a bit. I talked to my agent. He said, "Are you sure you can do it?" Because the novel would be from the viewpoint of an entity that was not human but from presumably another star system. Its view of us and our culture. It would begin on another star system on a planet with a civilization quite different from ours -- a civilization where there's no atmosphere such as we have and as a result, speech is never developed; they're mute and deaf. And because of the failure to utilize sound, they have no art predicated on sound. Now, our art predicated on sound is, of course, music, and we take music for granted. But for them, since they do not employ sound, there is no analog that will correlate in their world for music. And what I want to do is, you know, the way we have in our world mystical visions of heaven, like at the end of Dante's Divine Comedy, and these visions are generally that heaven is light -- the concept of light is almost always associated with the next world to us. Now, this planet, not having sound, utilizes colour for language. Just as we use different audio frequencies, they use different colour frequencies. Their world is one that employs vision and visual things entirely and no sound whatsoever. Their normal world would be the way we envision the next world to be.{...}.
In this final interview PKD goes on at length about the plot of THE OWL IN DAYLIGHT. The interested reader is referred to the 1982 issue of Starlog for more details or to Gwen Lee's book WHAT IF OUR WORLD WERE THEIR HEAVEN? published in 2000. In this book there is a lot of talk about THE OWL IN DAYLIGHT.
From these above, somewhat conflicting plot descriptions, we can see that THE OWL IN DAYLIGHT was to be a complex novel but we cannot know for sure what it was to be about. To different people it seems that PKD pitched different ideas and no one of them described a true outline for the proposed novel. It’s also possible that PKD actually began writing this novel for in a letter to a young fan, Kris Hummel, at the end of Jan 1982, he writes:
{…} I’d be happy to read a story by you, but you must send me a return manila envelope with postage, because I can never manage to get down to the store to buy manila envelopes, especially now that I’ve started on my new s-f novel for Simon & Schuster (called THE OWL IN DAYLIGHT).
So perhaps out there somewhere there is a partial manuscript for THE OWL IN DAYLIGHT?
See THE TRANSMIGRATION OF TIMOTHY ARCHER.
VALIS was actually the beginning of a trilogy, the second part being THE DIVINE INVASION. The third book, THE OWL IN DAYLIGHT, was never written. {Letter to PKDS from Tessa Dick}
(Andy Watson:) To me that seems the truly profound and criminal element in there
not having been time for him to at least write THE OWL IN DAYLIGHT. I'm suspecting
that it would have been a breakaway from that set, the so-called trilogy.
(K.W.Jeter:)Possibly. the only thing I know about (THE OWL IN DAYLIGHT) was that it
was supposedly based on Beethoven's life.
(AW:)Was it going to be science fiction?
(KW:)Supposedly
(AW:)But based on Beethoven's life?
(KW:)In some way. It would have references to Beethoven's life. After Phil died, I was
contacted by his daughter's lawyers, asking what I knew about it and if I had any ideas
about whether the book could be successfully completed based upon the outline Phil wrote
to get the contract. I wrote back to them saying that from my conversations with Phil, it
was my understanding that the outline was very incomplete, no more than a few pages long.
(AW:)Perhaps they were concerned with the legal obligation of the contract and whether the
money had to be returned?
(KW:)Yeah, something like that. Or whether they could find somebody who'd be able to write
the book. And I said no. Seeing as Phil would deviate or diverge so much from his outlines
anyway, there wasn't much of a chance.
(P:)God knows what THE OWL IN DAYLIGHT would have been. He was firing on all cylinders like he'd never done before. So he really had a very nice last 5 years.
A review by Andy Watson of the LP album "The Owl In Daylight" by the band Pink Litmus Paper Suit .
Starlog #165, April 1991, p53:
(PKD:) This is the book I'm allegedly writing, THE OWL IN DAYLIGHT. Its a folk expression from the South -- an owl being blind in the daylight. It simply means a person whose judgement is clouded over. The book is about the inability to understand. I can't even put it into words.
{...}
(Starlog): And you have a new outline for this novel?
(PKD:)Within a short period of time. It has jelled quite a bit. I talked to my agent. He said, "Are you sure you can do it?" Because the novel would be from the viewpoint of an entity that was not human but from presumably another star system. Its view of us and our culture. It would begin on another star system on a planet with a civilization quite different from ours -- a civilization where there's no atmosphere such as we have and as a result, speech is never developed; they're mute and deaf. And because of the failure to utilize sound, they have no art predicated on sound. Now, our art predicated on sound is, of course, music, and we take music for granted. But for them, since they do not employ sound, there is no analog that will correlate in their world for music. And what I want to do is, you know, the way we have in our world mystical visions of heaven, like at the end of Dante's Divine Comedy, and these visions are generally that heaven is light -- the concept of light is almost always associated with the next world to us. Now, this planet, not having sound, utilizes colour for language. Just as we use different audio frequencies, they use different colour frequencies. Their world is one that employs vision and visual things entirely and no sound whatsoever. Their normal world would be the way we envision the next world to be.{...} {See Starlog #165, p54 for continuation}{Interview with PKD conducted in 1982 by Gwen Lee and Doris E. Sauter}
See also WHAT IF OUR WORLD WERE THEIR HEAVEN? by Lee & Sauter, ?, hb, ?, 2000, ? ? (?)
Philip K. Dick - Letter: The Dazzled Owl (The Owl in
Daylight)
by Philip K. Dick, May 21, 1981
[note: less than a year before his death, Philip K. Dick wrote
to his editor to describe his plans for what would have been his next book. As far as we
know, no part of THE OWL IN DAYLIGHT was ever actually written. Dick died on March 2nd.
1982. This is the first publication of this letter/outline. -Paul Williams, literary
executor, Estate of Philip K Dick.]
(c) 1987 by the Estate of Philip K. Dick. {The following is excerpted from this document
-- Lord RC}:
May 21, 1981
Mr. David G. Hartwell, editor
Timescape Books
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Dear David,
I'd like to express my pleasure at the cover of THE DIVINE INVASION and
at the enormously high quality of the book qua book. It is frankly. the highest quality
book I've ever had published (that is. my novel turned into book) . Thank you. As I'm sure
you are aware. THE DIVINE INVASION got an excellent review in PW [PUBLISHERS WEEKLY] .
Should help to sell copies.
While I'm writing you it occurs to me to let you know that now that I
have turned over the BISHOP TIMOTHY ARCHER manuscript to my agent (and I am tremendously
excited by how it came out, especially in regard to the viewpoint character Angel Archer;
for me she is totally real. more so than any other person I have ever written about! ) I
am already turning my attention to the s-f novel that I will be doing for you. While I as
yet do not have a formal outline, I can herewith give you a little idea of what it will be
about. Consider this a very informal statement about that novel.
It will be based somewhat (as I have discussed with you and Russell
Galen) on Dante's COMMEDIA - and also on Goethe's FAUST Part One, In the future a
scientist who is very old supervises the construction of an amusement park (something like
the "lands" at Disneyland) of Berkeley, California circa 1949-1952 with all the
various groups and subcultures of that time and place represented. In order to impose
coherency on the Park he involves one of the planet's leading computers in the operation
of it, turning this high-level computer into the mind behind the Park. The computer
resents this, since it prefers to solve abstract, theoretical problems of the highest
order. The computer pays the scientist back by trapping him in the Park and making him
subject to its mind (that is, the computer's mind): the scientist is given the physical
body of a high school boy, and he is deprived of his memories of his true identity (you
can see the influence of Van Vogt on me, here, and also that of a number of my earlier
novels) . Now the scientist, trapped in his own amusement Park and subject to the mind of
the misused computer (misused and knowing it and keenly resenting it) must solve the maze
that the Park represents and find his way out of it by solving problems propounded by the
computer and presented to him in sequence. {...}
{... ...}
Cordially, Philip K. Dick
See philipdick.com for the
completion of this letter which goes on for several more hundred words about the proposed
plot for THE OWL IN DAYLIGHT}
Cordially,
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