The Owl in Daylight is a novel Philip K. Dick was writing at the time of his death in 1982. He had already been paid an advance for the book by the publisher and was working against a deadline. After his death, his estate approached other writers about the possibility of someone completing the novel based on his notes, but that proved to be impossible, as he had never formally outlined the story. Dick viewed the novel as his Finnegans Wake. The idea was inspired partly by an entry in the Encyclopædia Britannica on Beethoven that referred to him as the most creative genius of all time, partly by traditional views of what constitutes the human heaven (visions of lights), and finally by the Faust story.
However, Andrew M. Butler's alternative plot summaries seem to suggest that he might have become fascinated by Dante's Divine Comedy as a form of theophany. In his final completed work, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, his narrator, Angel Archer, shows similar appreciation for Dante's masterpiece, which suggests that this argument may have some merit.
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True Facts About The Owl
Transcription
here are true facts about be Owl. baby Owls are called Owlets and they look like a cotton ball that grew a face, and legs. Owlets are born without flight feathers. the Owl has large front facing eyes which give it a wide range of binocular vision. its eyes on nearly immobile in their sockets and therefore it must swivel its head around its neck to see. Some owls bob their heads up and down in order to maximize their depth perception. try it right now. focus on object and bob your head up and down. that's right keep bobbing your head. it doesn't really work for humans, but you do look like an idiot. as the Owl grows older it developes its flying feathers oh my thats cute, he's like little baby. He likes being pet, its really the eyes isn't it, it's adorable. oh look this ones playing with his friend. wait, what you doing to that Bird? crap you're not playing don't try to hide it. I already saw it. beneath those fluffy feathers the owl is what we call a bird of prey. because it eats prey. just as the as the Owls call us apes of the hamburger, because we eat hamburgers. The Owl is a specialized hunting machine its talons on are zygodactyl, two in front two in back, and their grip is the strongest of the raptors 500 pounds per square inch eight times stronger than the human. they crush their victims, then tear off little strips before swallowing them whole... digesting them and then vomiting out the bones and fur in a small pellet. and this is why it's polite to throw up at an owl dinner party. The Owl is a quiet hunter. it has specialized feathers on the front of its wings that reduce turbulence and allow it to fly in relative silence. if silence were loudness they would be the loudest flying bird. that's a terrible metaphor. the Owl's face is basically like a giant ear. The specialized feathers of its facial disc channel sound to its ear holes, like a fuzzy satellite dish. that's nasty, yep thats an earhole many owls have asymmetrical year holes; one is higher than the other. By sensing tiny differences in the delay in volume of sound as it arrives in each ear, ...the Owl is able to create a three-dimensional auditory map of its surroundings. try riding a bicycle at night and picking up on moving burrito with your feet, based on the sound that it makes. That is how an Owl do. When they aren't being quiet, Owls make a wide variety of sounds. perhaps the most famous of these sounds is the 'hoo hoo' sound made by some Owls. It reminds me of the fairy tale, where a young girl is lost in the forest, and she sees an Owl and asked it 'do you know where my mother is?' and the Owl responds 'why the hell would I know where your mother is?!' 'are you stupid? and why are you fairy tale children always getting lost in forests and hallucinating about animals that can talk?" and then the owl swooped down and ripped the little girl's face off and ate her eyeballs. and then the owl hooted 'hoo hoo' it's a German fairy tale so its a little dark I guess. maybe it's the translation? Nope not the translation. says right here rips her face off. oh god there's even a picture. just remember don't do drugs because an Owl may just to rip your face off
Claims about possible content
Nearly all that is known about one interpretation of the projected plot came from a discussion that Dick had with his journalist friend Gwen Lee on January 10, 1982, which Lee transcribed and later published.[1]
By contrast, Andrew M. Butler cites multiple sources for his own contentions about the possible plot, which are cited below. They include references within Greg Rickman's The Last Testament (1985), Lawrence Sutin's In Pursuit of VALIS (1991), and the interview collection What if Our World is Their Heaven? (2006), cited above.
Both are shown to be correct in The Selected Letters of Philip K Dick Volume 6: 1980 -1982, where one can read Dick's own description of the story and what he wanted to do with it. The plot was to express what he believed was an evolutionary step in humanity, using an interpretation of Joachim de Fiore, where he believed that one age of humanity used the left side of the brain, another the right, and the future would combine the two leading to a greater understanding of what is real. Moreover, the use of Dante was to demonstrate how hell, purgatory and heaven can all be experiences of life, showing how the world is experienced according to the left, right and whole of the brain.
Possible plot summaries
The novel dealt with one Ed Firmley, a composer of scores for B-movie grade sci-fi films, and a race of alien humanoids that had evolved without the development of sound as a basis of communication. The shamans of this alien race would on occasion have visions of Earth and its many sounds. Due to their unique evolution without sound the holy men were incapable of describing these experiences to the rest of their race. They just knew that the place they saw was their heaven. Meanwhile their race was modeled around sight and light, encompassing much more of the electromagnetic spectrum than the limited human vision. In fact, from their perspective, humans were capable of sight but nearly blind, such as a mole appears to a human. Their language involved the telepathic projection of color patterns in precise gradations and following mathematical formulas.
A spaceship carrying members of this race arrives on Earth and they mug Firmley as a cover-up for plugging a bio-chip into his head. This bio-chip is a digitized form of one of the aliens with a link back to the ship – essentially allowing everyone to experience Firmley by proxy. The bio-chip is supposed to be passive, serving only as a means of relaying the mystic experience of sound to an entire race. Soon the alien presence in the bio-chip becomes bored of Firmley’s music, which is bland, schmaltzy schlock, and the pop music that he constantly listens to. As a consequence of this boredom, the bio-chip turns from being passive to active, controlling what Firmley listens to as well as feeding him mathematical formulas that he begins to use as the basis of his compositions. His career, from a financial perspective, dwindles, but he becomes a respected avant-garde artist. The active role the bio-chip takes in the relationship begins frying Firmley’s brain. At this point the aliens make themselves known and offer to remove the chip, but Firmley refuses. He sees himself as an artist whereas before, he was of no consequence, doing what he did simply for money. Firmley decides to give up his body to be transformed into a bio-chip which is in turn implanted into an alien brain. This will also lead to the eventual death of the alien host, but it offers Firmley a chance of experiencing their world of lights, our heaven.[1]
However, Andrew M. Butler offers several alternative summaries which contradict the Lee/Dick interview cited above. A god-like being, Ditheon, fuses the Torah and Jesus Christ into a single being and takes over an individual. A scientist travels through the events of Dante's Divine Comedy, and a Beethoven-like composer is writing a film score, while pursued by aliens.
A scientist creates a theme park that is related to the events of his youth, whereupon a sentient artificial intelligence imprisons him within it, as a youth. He has to travel through Dantean realities (and artist, political activist and gay social networks in the Berkeley of the 1940s and 1950s) to return home and resume his life as an old man.
Alternatively, Dante's Divine Comedy is a portal to alternate subjective realities that represent three ways of perceiving the world.
"The owl in daylight" is a phrase Dick heard on television. It means "not to understand", or "to be blind".
Tessa Dick version
Dick's former wife Tessa wrote her own version of The Owl in Daylight, which was self-published[2] in January 2009. The novel uses little to none of the material that Philip K. Dick was working on at the time of his death, though it does bear many similarities. She remarked, "I attempted to express the spirit of Phil's proposed novel, without using his plot or the one character that he had created ... Phil had written very little about this novel ... It was very sketchy and did not even name any characters ... The Owl in Daylight is my concept of what Phil's novel should be."[3] At the request of the Philip K. Dick Estate, Mrs. Dick voluntarily removed her novel from publication, making copies rare and hard to come by.
References
- ^ a b Lee, Gwen; Sauter, Doris Elaine (2000). What If Our World Is Their Heaven? The Final Conversations of Philip K. Dick. pp. 49–140. ISBN 1-58567-378-1.
- ^ "Widow self-publishes 'recreation' of Philip K Dick's final novel". TheGuardian.com. 16 February 2009.
- ^ Baum, Henry (February 12, 2009). "Interview with Tessa Dick, Widow of Philip K. Dick". Self-Publishing Review.
Sources
- Butler, Andrew M. (2007). The Pocket Essential Philip K. Dick. Harpenden. pp. 113–114. ISBN 978-1-904048-92-3.
- Rickman, Gregg (1985). Philip K. Dick: The Last Testament. Long Beach: Fragments West/Valentine Press. ISBN 0-916063-02-X.
- Sutin, Lawrence (1991). In Pursuit of Valis: Selections from the Exegesis. Novato: Underwood-Miller. ISBN 0-88733-091-6.
This page was last edited on 24 November 2021, at 18:51