A Possible Man in the High Castle Sequel?

Tony Pfarrer

Question:

Radio Free Albemuth went unpublished during Phil's life because he couldn't bear to revise it along his agent's suggestions. Instead Phil took a long detour that eventually produced VALIS. One wonders, after seeing RFA, what the agent wanted to change so badly that bothered Phil. However, if this had never occurred we wouldn't have VALIS. RFA was not Phil's first title for this book. During the writing of it he referred to it as Valisystem A, and it was intended to be a sequel to The Man In The High Castle. My question is, has anyone found lingering evidence within RFA that it once was this sequel? Is there any indication at all within the text itself, any remains that point to Phil's original intentions?

The reply:

I think that's a really tough question to answer because the sequel itself (VALISYSTEM A, "the concept" ) went through a number of changes and merges with TO SCARE THE DEAD (Exegesis) until it became VALISYSTEM A, "the completed manuscript."

I lent someone my SELECTED LETTERS (1974) so I can't outline what he said about VALISYSTEM A in 1974 when he was initially developing the plot, and (LETTERS 77-79) is at home right now, but I do have SELECTED LETTERS (75- 76) right here and this is what Phil says about VALISYSTEM A:

Feb. 16, 1975: "...VALISYSTEM A, about a divine and loving ETI [extraterrestrial intelligence - ed.] which was helping Hawthorne Abendsen, the protagonist-author in MITHC [The Man in the High Castle - ed.] , continue on in his difficult life after the Nazi secret police finally got to him... VALISYSTEM A, located in deep space, sees to it that nothing, absolutely nothing, can prevent Abendsen from finishing his novel."

At this point, VALIS-A seems like a straight sequel. There seems to be no similarity between RFA & VALIS-A, other than the ETI.

Feb. 25, 1975: "...VALIS-A, about Hawthorne Abendsen and how it went later on after the Nazis go him, based on my life after Nancy left me, and also based on my ideas about my March experience that were early ideas; my plot of say around April to November 1974."

Ok, looks like the March pink-beam experience is starting to creep in.

May 5, 1975: "...sequel to MITHC, which I called VALISYSTEM A... I've improved and altered it quite a bit in the conception - now, the working title is TO SCARE THE DEAD... In a nutshell: an ordinary businessman of modern day Los Angeles suddenly finds resurrected inside his own brain or mind the mind of an early Christian, an Essene... it is not a demon possession, but saint possession."

Not much mention of Hawthorne Abendsen, is there? Now that VALIS-A has been retitled TO SCARE THE DEAD (also the working title of the EXEGESIS) it's only natural that the EXEGESIS will start taking over.

He mentions TO SCARE THE DEAD often in letters throughout the rest of 1975, often referring to it as a religious novel. In his Oct. 31, 1975 letter he gives a brief synopsis of the initial part of TO SCARE THE DEAD and there is no trace of MITHC or Abendsen, but Nicholas Brady is a character. Finally, in the last half of 1976:

Aug. 18, 1976: "I am writing VALISYSTEM A, now, these days, instead of TO SCARE THE DEAD... it is in the first person, by me, about my friend Nicholas Brady who has all these weird religious/paranormal experiences."

Now he's back to using the title VALISYSTEM A but it seems to have no relation to the VALISYSTEM A of Feb. 1975 which was about Hawthorne Abendsen and Nazis.

By Oct. 1 he finally has this rough first draft of VALISYSTEM A completed.

My interpretation of the above chain of events is: VALISYSTEM A was originally (late 1974/early 1975) meant to be a sequel to MITHC but after it got merged with the mystical/religious EXEGESIS in 1975, the sequel plot got swallowed up by the pink-beam experiences and the MITHC plot never clawed its way back out, even though by late 1976, he was again referring to a portion of it as VALISYSTEM A. By the time he got a manuscript of VALISYSTEM A written in Sept. 1976, it was no longer the original idea of "VALISYSTEM A, THE SEQUEL to MITHC."

Since the first manuscript of VALISYSTEM A bears little relation to the MITHC sequel, I find it even more unlikely that RFA would have any "sequel" material embedded in it dating from this version of VALISYSTEM A.