The Owl In Daylight

“That final last movement for the 13th quartet Beethoven wrote keeps showing up (as it were: i.e., being played) on KPFA, and Owl is invariably terrified by it— he knows not why. 

Golly: I'd even be parodying VALIS in my absurdist treatment of the search — Faustian search - for knowledge (salvation through gnosis, which seems to be my own downfall). Owl feels superior to all the other "people" in the construct because they can’t see — or aren't interested in — the plasma's autograph. Hence the title: The Owl in Daylight - Owl is a fool, but, like Jack Isidore, a holy fool in Christ.  

Obviously I'll be either going Borges one better or parodying him - either will do.

Harvey Pong idiot S-F fan.

The trouble with Owl, the plasma points out, is that in a way he's too clever; he's outsmarting his own maze — which after all was built not to trap or punish him but to teach him and help him problem solve; but he does sniff it out (1) that it's a forgery (in which I parody my own 10 volume meta-novel!) and (2) that a vast "God like intelligence" lies concealed behind it. 

This is counterproductive — and costing Owl money. So here Owl we have an absurdist Faust story which parodies my exegesis and Borges and Gnosticism.”

PKD, 1981