tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23814546891666495742024-03-12T19:25:35.848-07:00Yet Another Lafferty BlogThis is a place to post my thoughts on the works of R. A. Lafferty. Please join in the conversation--reply with your ideas or express your opinions of mine. And go view the truly great Lafferty blogs: The Ants of God are Queer Fish (http://antsofgodarequeerfish.blogspot.com/ ), Continued on Next Rock (http://ralafferty.tumblr.com/ ), and the Lafferty Devotional Page (http://www.mulle-kybernetik.com/RAL/).
Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04415345283350861149noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2381454689166649574.post-57322610353495370372024-01-08T15:24:00.000-08:002024-01-08T15:24:28.498-08:00Introduction to Fourth Mansions<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEI9qmIbwMxqstfRJJ0ZI-cw0qrAXrobYMsRXhKUqrzM7MnpCI9QKJT7t2txJkOnrlyCdY7yeq_41TWscbQDBf1zT4vLU7GJ_n-bO_TKQ3VO2YpYghW5-PwpKwlmWlDp6NSD7iwk3kyGzvFcGtLQTtiuX1oNKK51gRsMMh-DspsWBfsbCqApZOkn6qzM8/s1000/Fourth%20Mansions%20Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="612" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEI9qmIbwMxqstfRJJ0ZI-cw0qrAXrobYMsRXhKUqrzM7MnpCI9QKJT7t2txJkOnrlyCdY7yeq_41TWscbQDBf1zT4vLU7GJ_n-bO_TKQ3VO2YpYghW5-PwpKwlmWlDp6NSD7iwk3kyGzvFcGtLQTtiuX1oNKK51gRsMMh-DspsWBfsbCqApZOkn6qzM8/w392-h640/Fourth%20Mansions%20Cover.jpg" width="392" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p>About six years ago, some of the good folks at the Locus Science Fiction Foundation approached me to write an introduction to a new edition of <i>Fourth Mansions</i>. It being almost six years since we finished the back and fourth editing and cleaning up of my draft, I begin to worry that the proposed edition might not be forthcoming. </p><p>So without further ado, here is my draft:</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Introduction to <i>Fourth Mansions</i> by R. A. Lafferty</h2><div>Introduction (c) 2018, Kevin Cheek</div><div><i>Fourth Mansions</i> (c) 1969, R. A. Lafferty </div><div><br /></div><div><span id="docs-internal-guid-a88b8288-7fff-41a2-11f4-9b3f1208256f"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">This is an immensely hopeful book. In the decades since I first encountered </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Fourth Mansions</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, I have returned to it time and time again to renew my sense of hope for humanity’s future. At its core, it offers the hope that any common everyman may be able to rise up and lead us through our current travails (no matter when you are reading this) and bring us to the next level of spiritual, intellectual, and cultural evolution. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">First, a little about R. A. Lafferty, the self-proclaimed “cranky old man from Tulsa.” He was born in 1914 and lived most of his life in Oklahoma. He didn’t start publishing stories until his mid 40s, and was in his mid 50s when he published </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Fourth Mansions</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. He was a devout Roman Catholic, and his Catholicism informed everything he wrote. However, this might not be Catholicism as many of us would recognize it. He was deeply educated in the history of Catholic theology, and many of his references are based on the writings of Thomas Aquinas and Saint Augustine. His faith may have often caused him to look with dismay on our cultural failings, but it also filled him with hope about our potential. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Fourth Mansions</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> is directly based on </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Interior Castle</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, a book on spiritual meditation by Teresa of Avila written in 1577. She used the idea of a journey through a large castle as a metaphor for the evolution of the human spirit. Each dwelling or “mansion” within the castle represents a different state of spiritual progress. As a person progresses through stages of spiritual evolution, he or she moves from mansion to mansion within the castle. In the first through third mansions, the soul is driven to perfect itself through prayer and desire to know God. In the fourth mansion, the soul has reached a plateau, and the forces of sin and evil try hardest at this level to distract the soul and knock it back to the beginning of its journey. In the fifth through seventh mansions, having successfully survived the perils of the fourth, the soul progresses through increasing stages of grace and perfection, ultimately to achieve union with God in the seventh. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Lafferty bases </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Fourth Mansions</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> on the idea that human civilization is developing through a similar journey of evolution to the spiritual seeker in Teresa of Avila’s book. Humanity is in the fourth mansion--we have achieved so much over the past decades and centuries that we are on the verge of greatness. With humanity becoming a fine apple to pluck, external forces start pushing in to control us. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Fourth Mansions</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> tells the story of a young cub reporter, Freddy Foley, as he discovers four distinct conspiracies that assail mankind. Lafferty creates a bestiary--a set of animals to represent each conspiracy: </span></p><br /><ul style="margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 0; padding-inline-start: 48px;"><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">The Toads</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">, who sleep hidden underground for years or centuries, only to return and frustrate mankind’s development whenever we are at risk of achieving greatness. They are influential people who reappear again and again over history.</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">The Pythons</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">, or </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">Hydras</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">, which lash out and try to remake the world. They are dilettantes and intellectuals with extraordinary psychic powers of projection and communication. They want to make a better world, but have no morality, and try only to aggrandize themselves. </span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">The Unfledged Falcons</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">, which represent the militant over-reaction to change. These are bloody revolutionary movements and sudden militias.</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">The Badgers</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">, who love mankind and watch the gates of the castle. They guard against the other conspiracies, and are against any change at all.</span></p></li></ul><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Lafferty uses a lot of tricks to move Freddy’s story along. Enough happens in this slim volume for a door-stopper-thick trilogy by other authors. He invents an instantaneous psychic mode of communication called a brain weave, by which he is able to switch the narrative back and forth across thousands of miles without leaving the close point of view of Freddy Foley. For example, at one point Freddy is sitting in an institution in Washington, DC, and because he has been brushed by the brain weave, he is able to watch a friend back in Oklahoma compose a lecture. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Lafferty often makes seemingly offhand remarks that later become repeated memes or handles, and help the reader keep track of the story and characters. At one point he describes a character as having twisted passion. “Not twisted,” the character comments, “it’s helical--that sounds better.” From then on every time he mentions "helical passion," you know he is talking about that character. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">He often describes things in metaphor. For example, he introduces several characters by describing what kind of paintings they are. The paintings don’t have anything to do with their appearance, but the personality of the paintings match the personality of the characters. Look at this introduction: </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Wing Manion reminded one of a fish done by Paul Klee: not in her actual appearance, of course, but in her style. Yet she was good-looking, and Klee never painted a good-looking fish in his life. Those Klee fishes, though, they have passion.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">And to top it all off, Lafferty gleefully mixes levels of metaphor and reality. Many of the events he describes may only be happening on a subconscious level. Often the characters are not even aware in their waking minds that such things are taking place. In one scene, Freddy needs to contact his girlfriend a thousand miles away: </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Freddy called her up, not by phone. Other forms of communication had come onto him lately almost without his noticing them. He got her but could not get her attention. She was lounging on subterranean beaches and wild dogs were tearing her apart. “You’re missing pieces, you’re missing the best pieces,” she kept calling at the tearing dogs. “All you’re tearing off is the legs. Don’t any of you like the white meat?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Freddy couldn’t get her attention that way. Finally he called her on the telephone and she answered on the fourth ring…”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Did I mention that this book can be very funny at times? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Ultimately, as Freddy starts to unravel the mysteries of the four conspiracies, we begin to see that he may have the strength of will and simple clarity of vision to lead humanity through to the next mansion. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I said this is an immensely hopeful book. Freddy stands in as a representative of assailed humanity. Any one of us may have the fortitude and clarity of vision to help us all succeed. I say “any” one of us, not some select person. Unlike fantasies where a single person, living in common squalor, is unknowingly the heir of great power and possibility--like young Wart in </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Once and Future King</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> becoming King Arthur, or like Harry Potter or Luke Skywalker. In Freddy Foley, we have a person who represents every one of us common humans. If he can stay true to his compass and lead us through, then each of us can do the same. Of course, with that ability comes the responsibility to try. </span></p><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In many ways, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Fourth Mansions</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> feels more timely today than in 1969 when it was first published. Over the last two centuries, the world has been advancing at an ever-increasing rate. It feels like we can’t quite keep up--if we could only get a finger-hold in the present, we could become truly great. The conspiracies that Lafferty imagines are really metaphors for our own tendencies and proclivities. The world is not assailed by four discreet conspiracies, but by millions of individuals who want to steer it to their own profit. Yet, following Freddy Foley’s model, each of us--even you, even I--can become the leader that takes us all to greatness. The scariest part of this book is the duty it thrusts into our hands to lead us to the next mansion. Will it be the first again, or the fifth? It’s up to you, really!</span></span></div>Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04415345283350861149noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2381454689166649574.post-18210444338700854922021-08-24T11:20:00.006-07:002021-08-24T15:46:05.627-07:00Waking to Mountains<p>"Frog on the Mountain" is one of the Great Stories. </p><p>Last weekend, we went up to the town of Dillon for a chamber music festival (mindblowingly great concert, by the way, check 'em out:<a href=" https://www.alpenglowchambermusic.org/"> www.alpenglowchambermusic.org</a>). We stayed overnight, and the view from our hotel window in the morning reminded me of the opening phrase of "Frog on the Mountain":</p><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote style="background-color: white; border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif;">He woke to mountains.</span></blockquote></blockquote><p>Re-reading it, I was struck again by how beautifully crafted the opening is, from the first "He woke to mountains" to the second utterance of the same phrase. </p><p>Go back and re-read those first few pages. I'll wait.</p><p>Garamask's assertion that he hates space, but loves worlds brings to mind the Bradbury story, "No Particular Night or Morning," which is a dialogue between two extremes, embodied in the characters of two passengers of a spaceship far between planets in deep space. Hitchcock cannot believe in anything he cannot see and touch, so he no longer believes in Earth. He then begins to doubt even his immediate memories and deteriorates into disbelief of everything. Clemens has enough imagination to bolster his memories and experience Earth in his mind, allowing him to believe in it.</p><p>Garamask expresses with great vitality the need to experience worlds directly, and accuses the distance of space of destroying that experience: </p><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote style="background-color: white; border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif;">"</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: garamond, "new york", times, serif;">I have, let us say, a passion for a certain unkempt and mountainous world, but space comes near to destroying that passion in me; for I have seen that world appear on the scope like a microbe, and I will watch it disappear like a microbe again. I have studied epic and towering things under the microscope. And when I put away the microscope, I know that the towering things are really too small to see. From the aspect of space, all the towering and wild worlds that I love are things too small to see or to believe in. I love a big world, and I hate space for spoiling that bigness.</span><span style="font-family: garamond, "new york", times, serif;">"</span></blockquote></blockquote><p>While he is vital and direct, he is also lacking a fundamental imagination that allows the rest of us to conceive of worlds we cannot experience. The captain calls him on this: </p><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote style="background-color: white; border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif;">"</span><span style="font-family: garamond, "new york", times, serif;">Mr. Garamask, weren't you ever young?” the Captain asked him.</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote style="background-color: white; border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;">"<span style="font-family: garamond, "new york", times, serif;">I <i>am</i> young yet, Captain. I am physically the fittest man on this ship. And this is a very young and aspiring idea that I am effecting now."</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote style="background-color: white; border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: garamond, "new york", times, serif;">"</span><span style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif;">Ah, were you never something else, Mr. Garamask, not quite so young, and much more awkward?</span><span style="font-family: garamond, "new york", times, serif;">"</span></blockquote></blockquote><p>This awkwardness is a huge part of what makes us human. The Oganta have it in abundance. It is funny that Garamask is undeniably the hero of the story, but he cannot partake of the awkwardness. </p><p>"Frog on the Mountain" is very much in the vein of Fourth Mansions in that Garamask has to incorporate the strengths of all four monsters to be a "fully charged human." He has to fight each monster in its element and style, to essentially become the monster to defeat it, so he must incorporate the characteristics of "Sinek the cat-lion, Riksino the bear, Shasos the eagle-condor, and Bater-Jeno the crag-ape or the frog-man (depending on the translation)." He handily defeats the first three monsters (though Riksino only with help). </p><p>The story leaves us in the middle of the last battle. Garamask is clearly a Hemmingway-esque adventurer-hero. In a mid-century American story in the standard mold, the adventurer-hero wins a clever and decisive victory--usually one that emphasizes his values and worth as a man. However, with that opening exchange between the Captain and Garamask, Lafferty shows gives us some uncertainty. The primary characteristic of Bater-Jeno is the awkwardness of the Oganta. Can Garamask overcome his own nature to beat Chavo the Oganta at his own oafish and awkward game? We cannot be sure of the outcome.</p><p>Back to the opening: Those first few perfectly crafted pages change our understanding of the story. By giving us that exchange, Lafferty does two things that he revels and excels in. Firstly, He sets up the story we are about to read--the rugged spacefarer taking on the challenges of a new world with only his wits and vitality--while deliberately subverting the storyline. Secondly, he leads us to imagine experiencing directly a powerful and beautiful action, waking to mountains.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9sWYLLiRarw/YSU2aesJgYI/AAAAAAABVWA/hARyQfM2cyEFQ2Zvzs999xDywxbueTrNACPcBGAsYHg/s4032/PXL_20210822_144848972.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9sWYLLiRarw/YSU2aesJgYI/AAAAAAABVWA/hARyQfM2cyEFQ2Zvzs999xDywxbueTrNACPcBGAsYHg/w400-h300/PXL_20210822_144848972.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The view from my hotel room window in Dillon, CO in the morning.<br />Buffalo Mountain 12,772 ft. and Red Peak 13,182 ft.</div><br /><p style="text-align: right;">Text and photo (c) 2021, Kevin Cheek</p><p><br /></p>Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04415345283350861149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2381454689166649574.post-52477755152590527022019-12-03T13:33:00.001-08:002019-12-03T13:33:29.628-08:00More Thoughts on The Fall of RomeI've been reading Martin Crookall's weekly blog posts on Lafferty in his blog <i><a href="https://mbc1955.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Author for Sale</a></i>. He recently posted his entry on <i><a href="https://mbc1955.wordpress.com/2019/11/27/the-man-who-wrote-lafferties-the-fall-of-rome/" target="_blank">The Fall of Rome</a></i>. I responded to his blog, and thought I should also repost my comments here.<br />
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Darrell Schweitzer wrote a wonderful introduction to <i>The Fall of Rome</i> for an edition that never saw print. He talked about the way history was written during the Roman Empire and immediately thereafter. The job of the historians then was to create something beautiful that also recounted the history. From that point of view, <i>The Fall of Rome</i> succeeds beautifully, it is deeply fun to read and also shows us a perspective on the Goths that most of us would ever have considered.<br />
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It is a fabulistic history. It gives us the accurate bones, but with flesh that must be somewhat fictional. Darrell Schweitzer points out the example of the conversation between Alaric and the ghost of his father. No-one was there to report the dialog, and no transcript has survived. Yet the story becomes part of the background for Alaric’s dual loyalties between the Goths and the Empire.<br />
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Did the Gulf of Corinth freeze at Alaric’s command to let his army escape Stilicho? Most likely not, but this story tells us he did make an unlikely escape. Alaric and/or his supporters may have also used the story of this improbable escape to help build up his own mythos in his time.<br />
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Lafferty tells us as much, I think, by including the little bit about Atrox Fabulinius (which could be english-ized as “Atrocious Liar”). Essentially, the truth is in there, but in this case history serves story, rather than the other way around.<br />
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And what a story it serves! This is a book you can read for the great overarching story of the collapse of the Res Romana, for the narration of strategies and battles and shifting loyalties, or just for the sheer joy of Lafferty’s word-craft. I frequently would have to stop and revel in individual sentences or paragraphs. For example, the paragraph early in the book where he is discussing what remnants and artifacts survive to tell us about the culture of the Goths in the early 5th century AD.<br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">"The dance is something with no survival, lacking verbal or pictoral record. The Goths may have had it. If they painted, it was not in a medium or on a material that has survived. Their history was unwritten. Their scientific speculation may not have gone beyond mead-table discussions and arguments. There is no record of their early philosophy. Since they were Germans, they must have constructed philosophical systems; and also, since they were Germans, these would have been erroneous."</span></span></div>
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And that’s not even the best line in the book, merely the one that was on the top of my mind from recent conversation.<br />
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Darrell Schweitzer’s introduction is included in his book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fantastic-Horizon-Essays-Reviews/dp/1434403203" target="_blank"><i>The Fantastic Horizon: Essays and Reviews</i></a>, and reprinted with his kind permission in <i><a href="http://www.feastoflaughter.org/#3" target="_blank">Feast of Laughter, Volume 3</a></i>.<br />
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Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04415345283350861149noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2381454689166649574.post-86568253627743481802019-11-14T16:23:00.002-08:002019-12-03T12:23:39.035-08:00The Deeper We Go, or Oh What a Tangled WWW we Read, or More Links than a Sausage FactoryThis is the double edged sword of reading Lafferty with a Web browser handy. Martin Crookall, in his <i>Author For Sale</i> blog, recently posted his thoughts on <i>Archipelago</i>: <a href="https://mbc1955.wordpress.com/2019/11/13/the-man-who-wrote-lafferties-archipelago">https://mbc1955.wordpress.com/2019/11/13/the-man-who-wrote-lafferties-archipelago</a><br />
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Reading this reflection led me to reflect on my experience reading <i>Archipelago</i> and discussions various Lafferty fans and I have had about it. I especially loved the interlude where Hans is sitting in a cafe in a drunken reverie thinking about talking to Marie Monaghan and then transitioning into actually talking with her, with no real transition in the narrative between the two states. You can read the passage on DOJP's wonderful blog here: <a href="http://antsofgodarequeerfish.blogspot.com/2016/02/reading-argo-cycle-part-2-archipelago.html">http://antsofgodarequeerfish.blogspot.com/2016/02/reading-argo-cycle-part-2-archipelago.html</a> (and of course, I blogged about it here: <a href="http://www.yetanotherlaffertyblog.com/2016/06/drunken-reveries.html">http://www.yetanotherlaffertyblog.com/2016/06/drunken-reveries.html</a>).<br />
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Reading this, I paused over the passage where Hans is trying to figure out how to describe Marie's eyes. She had green eyes, and he didn't know how the classics would have described them. He reflects on a verse:<br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">"Nicolette had eyes of vair,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Something, something, yellow hair—" </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">But vair had become vert with the disintegration of the French soul, and it was no longer the green of the Troubadors: ignorant wise men even said that vair was a shade of gray. </span></span></div>
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So, I highlighted the line "Nicolette had eyes of vair", right clicked, and chose <b>Search Google</b>. This led me to someone having a very similar rumination about the meaning of "vair" to describe eyes in <i>Aucassin and Nicolette: a Love Story</i> by Francis William Bourdillion published in 1867, an examination of the medieval romance of the same name: <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Z7oPrY9GJlIC&pg=PA166&lpg=PA166&dq=Nicolette+had+eyes+of+vair&source=bl&ots=yqbUwXykR9&sig=ACfU3U30WgGa7RQFHXhrQlCyGLd2Pqf-hQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi_s-be9urlAhURP6wKHY5jAfEQ6AEwAHoECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=Nicolette%20had%20eyes%20of%20vair&f=false" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/books?id=Z7oPrY9GJlIC&pg=PA166&lpg=PA166&dq=Nicolette+had+eyes+of+vair&source=bl&ots=yqbUwXykR9&sig=ACfU3U30WgGa7RQFHXhrQlCyGLd2Pqf-hQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi_s-be9urlAhURP6wKHY5jAfEQ6AEwAHoECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=Nicolette%20had%20eyes%20of%20vair&f=false </a><br />
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Looking for a bit of background led me to the Wikipedia article. Wikipedia is my constant friend when reading Lafferty's novels. <i>Aucassin et Nicolette</i> is a late 12th C or early 13th C novel. It is a love story across class lines and of the Love-wins-over-Duty genre. It is a <i>chantefable</i>, a combination of prose and verse, so every few paragraphs, at least one of the characters bursts into song. Here's the article: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aucassin_and_Nicolette">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aucassin_and_Nicolette</a><br />
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So I went back to my Google search window and searched for "Nicolette had eyes of vair yellow hair". This brought me to one of those specific instances of song in a 1910 translation of <i>Aucassin and Nicolette</i>.:<br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><i>Here one singeth:</i> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14px;">There were gathered she</span>p<span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14px;">herds all.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14px;">Martin, Esmeric, and Hal,</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14px;">Aubrey, Robin, great and small.</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14px;">Saith one, "Good fellows all,</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14px;">God keep Aucassin the fair,</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14px;">And the maid with yellow hair,</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14px;">Bright of brow and eyes of vair.</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14px;">She that gave us gold to ware.</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14px;">Cakes therewith to buy ye know,</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14px;">Goodly knives and sheaths also.</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14px;">Flutes to play and pipes to blow,</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">May God him heal! </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14px;"> </span></div>
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And the link to that search is here: <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=mr4OAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA27&lpg=PA27&dq=Nicolette+had+eyes+of+vair+yellow+hair&source=bl&ots=QcN-d60LQ1&sig=ACfU3U3DP15otCEaEihZAfjuqQiBE48xwA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiXlLHJ7OrlAhVQrJ4KHaURBoQQ6AEwAXoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=Nicolette%20had%20eyes%20of%20vair%20yellow%20hair&f=false">https://books.google.com/books?id=mr4OAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA27&lpg=PA27&dq=Nicolette+had+eyes+of+vair+yellow+hair&source=bl&ots=QcN-d60LQ1&sig=ACfU3U3DP15otCEaEihZAfjuqQiBE48xwA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiXlLHJ7OrlAhVQrJ4KHaURBoQQ6AEwAXoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=Nicolette%20had%20eyes%20of%20vair%20yellow%20hair&f=false</a><br />
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As has become my usual experience falling down the rabbit holes of Lafferty's classical allusions, there is substance at the bottom of even the most throwaway-seeming remark. It's just that Lafferty, and his characters, are far more well-read than I!<br />
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<br />Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04415345283350861149noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2381454689166649574.post-19868028454217728272019-09-19T13:14:00.003-07:002019-09-19T13:14:49.824-07:00Why Fourth Mansions?<div>
I have commented often that <i>Fourth Mansions</i> is my favorite book by any author in any genre. Why do I feel so strongly about it? </div>
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<ol>
<li>The sheer joy and exuberance of the writing. Lafferty's way of introducing characters with seemingly unrelated bits of information that as the book progresses become repeated and increasingly important. </li>
<li>The sense that there is more going on than is apparent on this side of the curtain. This is a perhaps a tired trope, but somehow Lafferty telegraphs the idea that these are not specific actual conspiracies, but allegory for our own conflicting inner forces. </li>
<li>The wonderful play he has with metaphor and different levels of reality. When Biddy Bencher is lying on subterranean beaches being torn apart by wild dogs, and she is complaining that they are only taking her legs. At the same time she is in her room listening to the stereo. Both are true, but one is true to her character while the other events are occurring in a more mundane reality. </li>
<li>Perhaps most importantly, <i>Fourth Mansions</i> is an immensely hopeful book. Freddy Foley is not a hereditary chosen one, he stands in fore each and every one of us malodorous worms in the middle, for every everylout. That he can integrate the strengths of the four monsters and lead humanity through to the fifth mansion, means that each one of us has that potential!</li>
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Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04415345283350861149noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2381454689166649574.post-45120683406976362142018-09-29T23:16:00.000-07:002018-09-29T23:16:41.965-07:00How I Discovered Fourth MansionsSome decades ago, I believe it was the summer I was 18--so 1984-ish, I would head on Fridays after work at my summer construction job to a local independent Santa Fe bookstore. Someone would always bring a six-pack of Tecate, and the owner would have limes to cut for the beer bottles. A group of us would sit around drinking beer and talking about Science Fiction. There was a young lady among the Friday afternoon regulars who was married to an exiled Czechoslovakian poet and political activist. Her husband lived in hiding in Los Alamos, NM unable to leave the confines of their compound out of fear of extradition. She would often read us her translations of her husband's poetry. One day, we were talking about Science Fiction's ability to explore the inner workings of government while being too outré to attract censorship. She thrust a copy of Fourth Mansions into my hands and told me it would help me understand what is really going on.<br />
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I read Fourth Mansions that summer, and it rapidly became my favorite book, by any author in any genre. A number of things in the book resonated with me immediately. I loved the idea of the brain weave because I had a close group of friends I had gone to high school with. We played Dungeons and Dragons together pretty much every weekend from the ages of 14, camped together, ran track together, and sat and blew off and read science fiction together. We had a close group dynamic that felt almost telepathic. It was a very little stretch to imagine that the group the Harvesters could literally move the world with a more intense science-fictional version of that same group dynamic.<br />
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In high school, we had a very strong art history curriculum, and over Christmas break a year and a half earlier, my group of friends and I had traveled to California and seen the Holbein exhibit at the Getty museum in Malibu (this was long before the new Getty Museum had been built in downtown LA). When Lafferty introduced each of the Harvesters by comparing them to paintings, I could see the paintings in my mind’s eye and have a sense of the personality he was describing.<br />
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I really loved the idea that many events in the story could have been happening only on a metaphorical level, from the confusion that Miguel Fuentes might have been a part of Michael Fountain’s under-mind rather than a distinct person, to Biddy lounging on subterranean beaches with wild dogs tearing her apart, to the final battle of Jim Bauer and Arouet Manion as giant snakes or bulls on a crumbling cliff edge.<br />
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And especially I resonated with the idea that there is more going on in the world than met the eye. I was going into my sophomore year of college, and I had a sense of evolving possibly into something great, and that there innumerable stumbling blocks in my way that could prevent me from reaching that greatness. More than anything, I responded to the sense of hope in the book that each of us can achieve evolution.<br />
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I do not believe that the Badgers, the Pythons, the Toads, and the Unfledged Falcons in any way reflects real conspiracies against the Human world. I believe they stand as a metaphor for the millions or billions of individual plots hatched by every person who wants a piece of the world pie. Plots that are no more than daydreams and minor greed, but that show the conflicted nature of each individual human. At least that's my interpretation.<br />
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Since that summer, I have read Fourth Mansions at least 7 times, and I get more out of it every time. To this day it remains my favorite book by any author in any genre. However, I still don't know how the wife of the Czechoslovakian poet interpreted it (and I still haven’t returned her book).<br />
<br />Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04415345283350861149noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2381454689166649574.post-8701362201467172432017-11-29T15:34:00.000-08:002017-11-29T15:39:26.789-08:00When Should We Read Fourth Mansions? Now More Than EverI was chatting about a sequence for republishing Lafferty novels. The obvious first choice is <i>Past Master</i>, because it is a rollicking, action-packed, and often deeply funny novel that is perhaps his most approachable book. But after <i>Past Master</i>, what next?<br />
<br />
One obvious selection would be <i>Okla Hannali</i>. After the DAPL protests, a lot of focus has been placed on Native American issues. <i>Okla Hannali</i> is one of the greatest novels of the 20th Century. I firmly believe the U of O Press are among the genuinely good guys of the world, and I love the edition they publish. What I'd like to see is full-court press to get their edition advertised better, placed on the bookshelves of major chain bookstores under American Lit or Native American stories, and first and foremost urged into American Studies curriculums across the country. I really think this country could become a better place if more people read that book.<br />
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That being said, I have a different recommendation for the next Lafferty novel. <i>Fourth Mansions</i> feels more relevant today than it did when it was written. There is a feeling in today's world that things are not what they seem. That we are on the verge of greatness or breakthrough and being prevented by forces beyond both our control and our understanding. Ultimately, Fourth Mansions is a very hopeful book--full of the promise that we common everymen, we everylouts can master the monsters that beset us and bring about the next step in our collective development. It is a variation of the hope that <i>The Once and Future King</i> and the <i>Harry Potter</i> books offered--the hope the each of us could secretly be the chosen one, the one capable of leading humanity to success. However in <i>Fourth Mansions</i> though the gifts fall to Freddy Foley, he stands in for every one of us. The power is available to all people, not restricted to a single chosen one.<br />
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It'd have been great if <i>Fourth Mansions</i> could have been re-released when the fever over the Dan Brown book was at its peak, because the world could have seen how the conspiracy story could have been told in far greater depth with far greater economy, skill, and joy. Still, in today's political and media climate with bogus conspiracy theories du jour cropping up left, right, and far right, Fourth Mansions might feel spot on.<br />
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I'd love to hear everyone else's suggestions.<br />
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Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04415345283350861149noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2381454689166649574.post-10513973328707001392016-06-13T13:53:00.000-07:002016-06-13T16:36:11.978-07:00Drunken Reveries<div>
I'm currently rereading both <i>Fourth Mansions</i> and <i>Arrive at Easterwine</i>. While they are arguably tighter novels than The <i>Devil is Dead</i> and <i>Archipelago</i>, it strikes me that they have in common a narrative that is interrupted at times by reflection and reverie. </div>
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Nowhere is this more apparent than in the <a href="http://antsofgodarequeerfish.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/reading-argo-cycle-part-2-archipelago.html" target="_blank">longish excerpt from <i>Archipelago</i> that Daniel posted on his blog</a>. In this example, the narrative starts in Hans' drunken reverie and switches to the real world seamlessly, without losing any of the feeling of idle daydream. He starts thinking about Marie's eyes and imagining the stories she would tell in her half of the conversation, and then she arrives and the conversation continues with Marie actually participating. However, at no point does the the conversation lose that kind of loose, tangential feeling of a drunken reverie. </div>
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The experience of reading <i>The Devil is Dead</i> has always struck me as awakening from just such a reverie. The individual scenes are striking, but it is very hard to remember how the book fits together. It has a very dream-like narrative, especially when you consider the prescience Finnegan has about the two lives and two faces of Papadiabolous. And of course, the book is peppered with drunken stories told by the characters. </div>
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The narrative in <i>Arrive at Easterwine</i> exists on many levels of metaphor, and several times dispenses completely with straightforward narration of the supposed real world. I think the most pronounced example is the recurrent meditation on the Balbo family crest and its thrice-painted center emblem, El Brusco (the sudden or brusk one), La Brusca (the burning bush or passion or love), and Labrusca (the spring wine or Easter wine). Again, this narrative is in the form of a thought running into a tangential thought running into a deep analysis of an imagined detail. It is a recurrent daydream through the narrative that deeply informs and prefigures the story at each turn. </div>
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Even <i>Fourth Mansions</i> which is a pretty tightly written action narrative (for Lafferty) takes time to digress into the qualities of the different animals, the reasons for various impressions, and hallucinatory sequences that have more in common with dream logic than waking logic. For sheer reverie there was the rambling examination of Freddy's memories about the poor neighborhood of Tulsa and why he was afraid when he was there. Elements of that kept cropping up later on in the story, like the references to Leo Joe Larker having raised a boy from the dead when he was no more than ten years old. For sheer hallucinatory interludes there were the scene where Freddy was trying to reach Biddy via brain weave, and she was distracted on subterranean beaches while wild dogs tore her apart, and the multiple metaphorical scenes of the final battle between Arouet Manion and James Bauer. </div>
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A reviewer once said "One awakens from reading a Lafferty book as from a dream." I think that is particularly apt. His novels make more sense when you allow them to follow their own logic, and read along almost in a dream-like state or drunken reverie of your own in parallel. The result is that the individual images and impressions are striking and powerfully remembered, but the plot works directly on the subconscious, leaving very little conscious trace. </div>
Kevin Cheekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17615258563790520320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2381454689166649574.post-10325005081738198262016-05-27T14:49:00.000-07:002016-05-31T13:05:22.570-07:00Revisiting the Bookshelf<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Forgive me. I know I shouldn't brag, but I still feel the need to share my--for lack of a better description--long-winded verbal "shelfie:" I've been a bit aquisitive since I first posted about My Lafferty Bookshelf in 2013. My collection now consists of:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>The Reefs of Earth</i> (1968) (2 reads)</span></span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Space Chantey</i> (1968)</span></span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (3 reads)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Past Master</i> (1968)</span></span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (4 reads)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Fourth Mansions</i> (1969) (multiple copies, so I can force them into people's hands)</span></span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (~7 reads)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Nine Hundred Grandmothers</i> (1970) (Collection)</span></span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (uncounted multiple reads)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>The Devil is Dead</i> (1971) (1 extra copy to force into people's hands)</span></span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (4 reads)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Strange Doings</i> (1971) (Collection)</span></span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (uncounted multiple reads)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>The Flame is Green</i> (1971)</span></span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (2 reads)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Arrive at Easterwine</i> (1971) (multiple copies, so I can force them into people's hands)</span></span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (5 reads)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>The Fall of Rome</i> (1971)</span></span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (2 reads)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Okla Hannali</i> (1972)</span></span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (4 reads)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Does Anyone Else Have Something Further to Add? </i>(1974) (Collection)</span></span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (uncounted multiple reads)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Not to Mention Camels</i> (1976)</span></span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (0.2 reads)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Funnyfingers and Cabrito</i> (1976) (Collection) (Chapbook)</span></span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Apocalypses</i> (1977)</span></span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (2 reads)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Archipelago</i> (1979)</span></span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Aurelia</i> (1982)</span></span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (0.25 reads)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Annals of Klepsis</i> (1983)</span></span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Golden Gate And Other Stories</i> (1983) (Collection) </span></span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (uncounted multiple reads)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Through Elegant Eyes</i> (1983) (Collection) </span></span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Laughing Kelly and Other Verses</i> (Poetry) (1983) (Chapbook) </span></span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Heart of Stone, Dear and Other Stories</i> (1983) (Collection) (Chapbook)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Snake in His Bosom and Other Stories</i> (1983) (Collection) (Chapbook)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Half a Sky</i> (1984)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (2 reads)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Ringing Changes</i> (1984) (Collection) </span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">(uncounted multiple reads)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>It's Down the Slippery Cellar Stairs</i> (Nonfiction) (1984) (Chapbook)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>The Man Who Made Models and Other Stories</i> (1984) (Collection) (Chapbook)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Slippery and Other Stories</i> (1985) (Collection) (Chapbook)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>My Heart Leaps Up - Chapters 1 & 2 </i>(1986) (Chapbook)</span></span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>My Heart Leaps Up - Chapters 3 & 4</i> (1987) (Chapbook)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>My Heart Leaps Up - Chapters 5 & 6 </i>(1987) (Chapbook)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>My Heart Leaps Up - Chapters 7 & 8 </i>(1987) (Chapbook)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>My Heart Leaps Up - Chapters 9 & 10</i> (1987) (Chapbook)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Serpent's Egg</i> (1987) (Morrigan Press (UK) edition)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>East of Laughter</i> (1988) (Morrigan Press (UK) edition) </span></span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (0.5 reads)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>The Early Lafferty</i> (1988) (Chapbook)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>The Back Door of History</i> (1988) (Chapbook)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>True Believers</i> (Nonfiction) (1989) (Chapbook)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i style="font-family: inherit;">How Many Miles to Babylon</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> (1989) (Chapbook)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i style="font-family: inherit;">Episodes of the Argo</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> (1990)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (0.66 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i style="font-family: inherit;">Lafferty in Orbit</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> (1991)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i style="font-family: inherit;">Mischief Malicious (And Murder Most Strange)</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> (1991) (Chapbook)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (0.25 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i style="font-family: inherit;">Grasshoppers & Wild Honey - Chapters 1 & 2 </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">(1992) (Chapbook)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (not read yet)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i style="font-family: inherit;">Iron Tears</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> (1992)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (2 reads)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Dotty</i> (1990)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (0.5 reads)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Tales of Chicago</i> (1992)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Sindbad: The 13th Voyage</i> (1999)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (2 reads)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The<i> Man Who Made Models</i> (2014) (#1 of The Collected Short Fiction of R. A. Lafferty)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Feast of Laughter Issue 1</i> (2014) (Lafferty fanzine - by the Ktistec Press --including ME!)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (uncounted multiple reads)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>The Man With the Aura</i> (2015) (#2 of The Collected Short Fiction of R. A. Lafferty)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Feast of Laughter Issue 2</i> (2015) (Lafferty fanzine - by the Ktistec Press --including ME!)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (uncounted multiple reads)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Feast of Laughter Issue 3</i> (2015) (Lafferty fanzine - by the Ktistec Press --including ME!)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (uncounted multiple reads)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>The Man Underneath </i>(2016) (#3 of The Collected Short Fiction of R. A. Lafferty)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1 read)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>The R.A. Lafferty Fantastic MEGAPACK®</i> (2016) (Collection)</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (0.12 reads)</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span> That’s 51 books and chapbooks if you don't count the three volumes of Feast of Laughter. I finally have both published Coscuin books. I have more of the Argo mythos, but only one part of More than Melchisedech (one of the joys of Tales of Chicago was discovering the wonderful R. Ward Shipman illustrations--arrgh, I want to find Tales of Midnight and Argo).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That being said, the primary joy of collecting these is reading them, not just owning. My copies go back and forth to work and on vacations with me for bus rides and odd quiet moments. Of course, I still haven't finished reading all of it. I'm currently halfway through Dotty, I have yet to get through Not to Mention Camels. I haven't actually finished Aurelia yet. There are also a few stories in some of the collections that I've skipped here and there. In time, I imagine I'll read through it all, and re-read, and re-read, and keep discovering new things!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">One notable exception to the reading-over-owning rule is the three Centipede Press volumes. They are so beautifully bound and published that just holding them in my hands is an aesthetic experience. They are a joy to see on the bookshelf--almost as much as they are a joy to read! I also get a kick out of seeing Feast of Laughter up on the bookshelf with all the other greats! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There are still few hard or impossible to find Lafferty books I would love to track down (and be able to afford): <span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Devil is Dead Trilogy:
</span></span><br />
<ul>
<li style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">More than Melchisedech</span></i></li>
<ul>
<li style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tales of Midnight (1992)</span></li>
<li style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Argo (1992)</span></li>
</ul>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chapbooks</span></span><br />
<ul>
<li style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Four Stories</i> (1983)</span></li>
<li style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Strange Skies</i> (Poetry) (1988)</span></li>
<li style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>The Elliptical Grave</i> (1989) (Novella)</span></li>
<li style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>The Early Lafferty II</i> (1990)</span></li>
<li style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Horns on Their Heads</i> (1976)</span></li>
<li style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Promontory Goats</i> (1988)</span></li>
<li style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Anamnesis</i> (1992)</span></li>
<li style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Sodom and Gomorrah, Texas</i> (2007) (Single story - reprinting of Gutenberg text)</span></li>
<li style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>The Six Fingers of Time </i>(2010) (Single story - reprinting of Gutenberg text)</span></li>
<li style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Cranky Old Man from Tulsa</i> (Nonfiction) (1990)</span></li>
</ul>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">And I'd love more than many things (almost more than coffee itself) to read some of the unpublished Lafferty:</span></div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Esteban</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>First and Last Island</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Sardinian Summer</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>The rest of In a Green Tree</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Loup Garou</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">And of course many other</span><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">s</span></span></li>
</ul>
<h3 style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<div style="font-size: 18.72px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small; line-height: 17px; white-space: pre-wrap;">My Bookshelf:</span></div>
</h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small; text-align: center;"></span></b></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"></span></b><br /></span>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KmtwVENqHRs/UgM3Y7Se9GI/AAAAAAAAAHo/bnWq5fpQ-iQ/s1600/Lafferty_ReefsOfEarth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KmtwVENqHRs/UgM3Y7Se9GI/AAAAAAAAAHo/bnWq5fpQ-iQ/s200/Lafferty_ReefsOfEarth.jpg" width="118" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eqqRFvJSZaQ/UgM3-SlJ_mI/AAAAAAAAAHw/Efq6djv3O-0/s1600/Lafferty_SpaceChantey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eqqRFvJSZaQ/UgM3-SlJ_mI/AAAAAAAAAHw/Efq6djv3O-0/s200/Lafferty_SpaceChantey.jpg" width="116" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oDhmKTQgvKU/UgNBmK0jkBI/AAAAAAAAAKA/hpQqImV3zNs/s1600/Lafferty_PastMaster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oDhmKTQgvKU/UgNBmK0jkBI/AAAAAAAAAKA/hpQqImV3zNs/s200/Lafferty_PastMaster.jpg" width="120" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WRHow4erfZU/UgNBhbNocuI/AAAAAAAAAIs/P_v6qBKClM4/s1600/Lafferty_FourthMansions.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WRHow4erfZU/UgNBhbNocuI/AAAAAAAAAIs/P_v6qBKClM4/s200/Lafferty_FourthMansions.jpg" width="119" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2meyiXdqm_w/UgNBflj4QeI/AAAAAAAAAIA/bU9fo8kQ6Cs/s1600/Lafferty_900Grandmothers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2meyiXdqm_w/UgNBflj4QeI/AAAAAAAAAIA/bU9fo8kQ6Cs/s200/Lafferty_900Grandmothers.jpg" width="119" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pz1pHzXeHAo/UgNBomVIg8I/AAAAAAAAALM/uKG0jj99BgE/s1600/Lafferty_TheDevilIsDead.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pz1pHzXeHAo/UgNBomVIg8I/AAAAAAAAALM/uKG0jj99BgE/s200/Lafferty_TheDevilIsDead.jpg" width="126" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TtTd02ElLUo/UgNBocMkIbI/AAAAAAAAAK4/boNCacIZJQw/s1600/Lafferty_StrangeDoings.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TtTd02ElLUo/UgNBocMkIbI/AAAAAAAAAK4/boNCacIZJQw/s200/Lafferty_StrangeDoings.jpg" width="118" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-N7rtnFV5w_g/UgNBphyka3I/AAAAAAAAALc/1XstUQ4zjTg/s1600/Lafferty_TheFlameIsGreen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-N7rtnFV5w_g/UgNBphyka3I/AAAAAAAAALc/1XstUQ4zjTg/s200/Lafferty_TheFlameIsGreen.jpg" width="136" /></a></span><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-__9wEm0Fe8c/UgNBgEgiHuI/AAAAAAAAAIE/ATw276_RwVY/s1600/Lafferty_ArriveAtEasterwine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-__9wEm0Fe8c/UgNBgEgiHuI/AAAAAAAAAIE/ATw276_RwVY/s200/Lafferty_ArriveAtEasterwine.jpg" width="119" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rtoyA_S4AcU/UgNBpODm6MI/AAAAAAAAALI/Eoo-hHAIiY0/s1600/Lafferty_TheFallOfRome.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rtoyA_S4AcU/UgNBpODm6MI/AAAAAAAAALI/Eoo-hHAIiY0/s200/Lafferty_TheFallOfRome.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="138" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-O6MQHsH9Nh8/UgNBl2lLMDI/AAAAAAAAAL4/u03SxyO1Y4A/s1600/Lafferty_OklaHannali.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-O6MQHsH9Nh8/UgNBl2lLMDI/AAAAAAAAAL4/u03SxyO1Y4A/s200/Lafferty_OklaHannali.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="131" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RCteitFK0uY/UgNBg8pvo2I/AAAAAAAAAIw/gpgzTZXvKKk/s1600/Lafferty_DoesAnyoneElseHaveSomethingFurtherToAdd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RCteitFK0uY/UgNBg8pvo2I/AAAAAAAAAIw/gpgzTZXvKKk/s200/Lafferty_DoesAnyoneElseHaveSomethingFurtherToAdd.jpg" width="136" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jNV5xx9OthA/UgNBlVJqLjI/AAAAAAAAAJ4/aR2VKYmWO9w/s1600/Lafferty_NotToMentionCamels.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jNV5xx9OthA/UgNBlVJqLjI/AAAAAAAAAJ4/aR2VKYmWO9w/s200/Lafferty_NotToMentionCamels.jpg" width="131" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-11bHCswVB9M/UgNBhUIvIWI/AAAAAAAAAI8/U-m6l57OeQ8/s1600/Lafferty_FunnyfingersAndCabrito.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-11bHCswVB9M/UgNBhUIvIWI/AAAAAAAAAI8/U-m6l57OeQ8/s200/Lafferty_FunnyfingersAndCabrito.jpg" width="129" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-03bbgKV-Ozw/UgNBgSYW27I/AAAAAAAAAIU/4DWEveueSbE/s1600/Lafferty_Apocalypses.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-03bbgKV-Ozw/UgNBgSYW27I/AAAAAAAAAIU/4DWEveueSbE/s200/Lafferty_Apocalypses.jpg" width="120" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5Hrdrdpm84E/UgNBqqHAyWI/AAAAAAAAAL0/Wu7IyH0aC9I/s1600/NNLSKLPSS1983.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5Hrdrdpm84E/UgNBqqHAyWI/AAAAAAAAAL0/Wu7IyH0aC9I/s200/NNLSKLPSS1983.jpg" width="120" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CyxB199ppDE/UgNBqA6fAuI/AAAAAAAAALw/MqUheRNWcw0/s1600/Lafferty_ThroughElegantEyes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CyxB199ppDE/UgNBqA6fAuI/AAAAAAAAALw/MqUheRNWcw0/s200/Lafferty_ThroughElegantEyes.jpg" width="133" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Z90uwKKJiSc/UgNBh4mSmfI/AAAAAAAAAJc/UpiGLKltsS0/s1600/Lafferty_GoldenGateAndOtherStories.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Z90uwKKJiSc/UgNBh4mSmfI/AAAAAAAAAJc/UpiGLKltsS0/s200/Lafferty_GoldenGateAndOtherStories.jpg" width="133" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s8V-owCHbrE/UgNBiaSGKdI/AAAAAAAAAJM/eTvIlFkeWCk/s1600/Lafferty_LaughingKellyAndOtherVerses.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s8V-owCHbrE/UgNBiaSGKdI/AAAAAAAAAJM/eTvIlFkeWCk/s200/Lafferty_LaughingKellyAndOtherVerses.jpg" width="127" /></a><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OXUzo_fSH4c/V0iwVSXdh2I/AAAAAAAAEH0/7u7Xlm7MVEkC_L52JjAKjcvIwEfi3ZlHgCLcB/s1600/Lafferty_HeartOfStone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OXUzo_fSH4c/V0iwVSXdh2I/AAAAAAAAEH0/7u7Xlm7MVEkC_L52JjAKjcvIwEfi3ZlHgCLcB/s200/Lafferty_HeartOfStone.jpg" width="116" /></a><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8opiNgkztCs/V0iwdTv0NtI/AAAAAAAAEH4/BR6VOSZ8LjkChBzvI5KCUbsLDjonHtgLwCLcB/s1600/SNKNSTRS491983.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8opiNgkztCs/V0iwdTv0NtI/AAAAAAAAEH4/BR6VOSZ8LjkChBzvI5KCUbsLDjonHtgLwCLcB/s200/SNKNSTRS491983.jpg" width="123" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NVjhTWHMbEw/V0iwmJu1YrI/AAAAAAAAEH8/pasfHMl8bx0wK398vr6jiZk1mRIQ2e9PwCLcB/s1600/HLFSKJPTCK1984.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NVjhTWHMbEw/V0iwmJu1YrI/AAAAAAAAEH8/pasfHMl8bx0wK398vr6jiZk1mRIQ2e9PwCLcB/s200/HLFSKJPTCK1984.jpg" width="133" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rlK0w2NXS7Y/UgNBm13wk5I/AAAAAAAAAKc/WldksP1aO7g/s1600/Lafferty_RingingChanges.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rlK0w2NXS7Y/UgNBm13wk5I/AAAAAAAAAKc/WldksP1aO7g/s200/Lafferty_RingingChanges.jpg" width="118" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Uprf8FTNy5k/UgNBiDbefII/AAAAAAAAAJI/Mvs4LrKUXdw/s1600/Lafferty_ItsDownTheSlipperyCellarStairs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Uprf8FTNy5k/UgNBiDbefII/AAAAAAAAAJI/Mvs4LrKUXdw/s200/Lafferty_ItsDownTheSlipperyCellarStairs.jpg" width="127" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-w7eBTJljDcI/UgNBp9SNe4I/AAAAAAAAALg/JfUQif2I9gE/s1600/Lafferty_TheManWhoMadeModels.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-w7eBTJljDcI/UgNBp9SNe4I/AAAAAAAAALg/JfUQif2I9gE/s200/Lafferty_TheManWhoMadeModels.jpg" width="125" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FAYxwfA8W5s/UgNBn7e1P9I/AAAAAAAAAK0/MFiVIcZwolU/s1600/Lafferty_SlipperyAndOtherStories.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FAYxwfA8W5s/UgNBn7e1P9I/AAAAAAAAAK0/MFiVIcZwolU/s200/Lafferty_SlipperyAndOtherStories.jpg" width="124" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ydyObgfGa80/UgNBliWeqeI/AAAAAAAAAJ8/fvxE39coWJw/s1600/Lafferty_MyHeartLeapsUp-1-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ydyObgfGa80/UgNBliWeqeI/AAAAAAAAAJ8/fvxE39coWJw/s200/Lafferty_MyHeartLeapsUp-1-2.jpg" width="116" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bz7yCa6XZe8/UgNBjOR6YmI/AAAAAAAAAJY/FdvGW789UsE/s1600/Lafferty_MyHeartLeapsUp-3-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bz7yCa6XZe8/UgNBjOR6YmI/AAAAAAAAAJY/FdvGW789UsE/s200/Lafferty_MyHeartLeapsUp-3-4.jpg" width="121" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VVzg0y3vge8/UgNBjoqEeoI/AAAAAAAAAJk/6GZod4fQ8oE/s1600/Lafferty_MyHeartLeapsUp-5-6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VVzg0y3vge8/UgNBjoqEeoI/AAAAAAAAAJk/6GZod4fQ8oE/s200/Lafferty_MyHeartLeapsUp-5-6.jpg" width="120" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WpZg7lJIFlM/UgNBkhI96tI/AAAAAAAAAJs/fOz-Db0949A/s1600/Lafferty_MyHeartLeapsUp-7-8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WpZg7lJIFlM/UgNBkhI96tI/AAAAAAAAAJs/fOz-Db0949A/s200/Lafferty_MyHeartLeapsUp-7-8.JPG" width="126" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FIMQHwIO9BE/UgNBlv1ocMI/AAAAAAAAAKQ/nyYv3K64pJU/s1600/Lafferty_MyHeartLeapsUp-9-10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FIMQHwIO9BE/UgNBlv1ocMI/AAAAAAAAAKQ/nyYv3K64pJU/s200/Lafferty_MyHeartLeapsUp-9-10.JPG" width="120" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WnkyzRSv-0A/UgNBnEZRI2I/AAAAAAAAAKo/iVZReS_YYlM/s1600/Lafferty_SerpentsEgg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WnkyzRSv-0A/UgNBnEZRI2I/AAAAAAAAAKo/iVZReS_YYlM/s200/Lafferty_SerpentsEgg.jpg" width="148" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5ABYUm2IGoA/UgNBhGVYaMI/AAAAAAAAAIk/eKWX0GY6-Jk/s1600/Lafferty_EastOfLaughter.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5ABYUm2IGoA/UgNBhGVYaMI/AAAAAAAAAIk/eKWX0GY6-Jk/s200/Lafferty_EastOfLaughter.JPG" width="130" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3mp7pzscBfk/V0ixniXNjgI/AAAAAAAAEKI/IbxBP3S1Nt8dZwnLHVE3EGtTyrBgBcqBACKgB/s1600/THMNWHMDMD2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3mp7pzscBfk/V0ixniXNjgI/AAAAAAAAEKI/IbxBP3S1Nt8dZwnLHVE3EGtTyrBgBcqBACKgB/s200/THMNWHMDMD2013.jpg" width="148" /></a><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-k0pa-9gDf9c/V0ixnakoXSI/AAAAAAAAEKA/0F_n7aoRMBQXBxLrSfuKrNbkKQxCOsivgCKgB/s1600/THCLLCTDSH2014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-k0pa-9gDf9c/V0ixnakoXSI/AAAAAAAAEKA/0F_n7aoRMBQXBxLrSfuKrNbkKQxCOsivgCKgB/s200/THCLLCTDSH2014.jpg" width="148" /></a></span><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1WF5T7CaZts/V0ixnaQCJUI/AAAAAAAAEKI/qZVRAlr7UDI-OXD_mTw-gMh5lqA3cPtxgCKgB/s1600/THMNNDRNTH2016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1WF5T7CaZts/V0ixnaQCJUI/AAAAAAAAEKI/qZVRAlr7UDI-OXD_mTw-gMh5lqA3cPtxgCKgB/s200/THMNNDRNTH2016.jpg" width="148" /></a></span></div>
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Kevin Cheekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17615258563790520320noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2381454689166649574.post-75094702990680462802016-03-17T12:54:00.001-07:002016-03-17T12:54:24.335-07:00The French CollectionI recently received an email to my editor@feastoflaughter.org address from a French book collector asking if I'd be interested in purchasing his Lafferty collection. Alas, I cannot afford it, but he did encourage me to share his contact information with other Lafferty fans to see if someone would like to purchase it. Here are his collection and his contact information:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A great collection of R.A. Lafferty’s rarest books and booklets, some signed by the author, a lots of first and limited editions, all in pristine, mint or very good conditions.<br />To be sold in one lot :<br /><br />1. THE DEVIL IS DEAD – Dennis Dobson, London, 1978 (hardcover, jacket)<br />2. ARCHIPELAGO – Manuscript Press, Lafayette, 1979 (hardcover)<br />3. PASTMASTER – SFBC-Rapp & Whiting, London, 1968 (hardcover, jacket)<br />4. DOES ANYONE ELSE HAVE SOMETHING FURTHER TO ADD ? – Scribner’s, New York, 1974 (hardcover, jacket, signed)<br />5. AURELIA – Starblaze & Donning, Norfolk, 1982 (softcover)<br />6. OKLA HANNALI – Doubleday, New York, 1972 (hardcover)<br />7. STRANGE DOINGS – Scribner’s, New York, 1972 (hardcover, jacket)<br />8. HALF A SKY – Corroboree, Minneapolis, 1984 (hardcover, jacket)<br />9. THE FLAME IS GREEN – Corroboree, Minneapolis, 1985 (hardcover, jacket, signed)<br />10. SERPENT’S EGG – Morrigan, Bath, 1987 (hardcover, jacket)<br />11. LAFFERTY IN ORBIT – Broken Mirror, Cambridge, 1991 (hardcover, jacket)<br />12. NOT TO MENTION CAMELS – Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis, 1976 (hardcover)<br />13. ARGO – United Mythologies, Weston, 1990 (hardcover)<br />14. TALES OF CHICAGO – United Mythologies, Weston, 1992 (hardcover)<br />15. EAST OF LAUGHTER – Morrigan, Bath, 1988 (hardcover, jacket)<br />16. IRON TEARS – Edgewood, Cambridge, 1992 (softcover)<br />17. THE ELLIPTICAL GRAVE - United Mythologies, Weston, 1989 (softcover)<br />18. DOTTY – United Mythologies, Weston, 1990 (softcover)<br />19. PAST MASTER – Ace, New York, 1968 (pocket book)<br />20. THE REEFS OF EARTH – Berkley Medallion, New York, 1968 (pocket book)<br />21. FOURTH MANSIONS – Star books, London, 1969 (pocket book)<br />22. RINGING CHANGES – Ace, New York, 1984 (pocket book)<br />23. NINE HUNDRED GRANDMOTHERS – Ace, New York, 1970 (pocket Book)<br />24. STRANGE SKIES – United Mythologies, Weston, 1988 (booklet, signed)<br />25. THE BACK DOOR OF HISTORY – United Mythologies, Weston, 1988 (booklet)<br />26. CRANKY OLD MAN FROM TULSA – United Mythologies, Weston, 1990 (booklet)<br />27. TRUE BELIEVERS – United Mythologies, Weston, 1988 (booklet)<br />28. THE EARLY LAFFERTY – United Mythologies, Weston, 1988 (booklet)<br />29. THE EARLY LAFFERTY VOL.2 – United Mythologies, Weston, 1990 (booklet)<br />30. EPISODES OF THE ARGO – United Mythologies, Weston, 1990 (softcover)<br />31. MISCHIEF MALICIOUS – United Mythologies, Weston, 1991 (booklet)<br />32. HOW MANY MILES TO BABYLON – United Mythologies, Weston, 1989 (booklet)<br />33. PROMONTORY GOATS – United Mythologies, Weston, 1988 (booklet)<br />34. THE EARLY LAFFERTY VOL.2 – United Mythologies, Weston, 1990 (booklet)<br />35. FUNNYFINGERS & CABRITO – Pendragon, Portland, 1976 (booklet)<br />36. HORNS ON THEIR HEADS – Pendragon, Portland, 1976 (booklet)<br />37. THE MAN WHO MADE MODELS & OTHER STORIES – Drumm booklet #18, Polk City, 1984<br />38. LAUGHING KELLY & OTHER VERSES – Drumm booklet #11, Polk City, 1983<br />39. HEART OF STONE, DEAR & OTHER STORIES – Drumm booklet #12, Polk City, 1983<br />40. IT’S DOWN THE SLIPPERY CELLAR STAIRS – Drumm booklet #14, Polk City, 1984<br />41. MY HEART LEAPS UP CHAPTERS 1&2 – Drumm booklet, Polk City, 1986<br />42. MY HEART LEAPS UP CHAPTERS 3&4 – Drumm booklet, Polk City, 1987<br />43. MY HEART LEAPS UP CHAPTERS 5&6 – Drumm booklet, Polk City, 1987<br />44. MY HEART LEAPS UP CHAPTERS 7&8 – Drumm booklet, Polk City, 1988<br />45. MY HEART LEAPS UP CHAPTERS 9&10 – Drumm booklet, Polk City, 1988<br />46. SLIPPERY & OTHER STORIES – Drumm booklet #19, Polk City, 1985 (signé) </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The contact to mention is Laurent Blain (my name) at <a href="mailto:blainlaurent@wanadoo.fr">blainlaurent@wanadoo.fr</a> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I have photos of the books for those who would be interested by the collection.</span></blockquote>
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I'll take this post down once he sells his collection.<br />
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Happy shopping, everyone!Kevin Cheekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17615258563790520320noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2381454689166649574.post-23576006844887484912016-01-12T10:24:00.000-08:002016-01-12T10:24:52.195-08:00WooHoo! and Please!<i>Feast of Laughter Volume 3 </i>is here!<br />
<br />
As I say in the introduction, "Once was a phenomenon, twice was amazing, three times—we may just be onto something."<br />
<br />
This is a beast of a <i>Feast</i>. 342 pages of essays, stories, poems, letters, and artwork. A new front cover by Lissanne Lake and on the back cover, Lafferty's office door! It also has an interview with Harlan Ellison, who spends a dozen pages trying to explain just how much he loves Lafferty.<br />
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<i>Volume 3</i> has the best production quality and some of the best material of any <i>Feast of Laughter</i> yet. This came at the cost of time, stretching the deadline from November 7 to December 30 as the small army of Ktistec Press volunteers all neglected our families and day jobs to find time to assemble, edit, proofread, and produce this beast:<br />
<ul>
<li></li>
<li>Kevin Cheek</li>
<li>Gregorio Montejo</li>
<li>John Owen</li>
<li>Rich Persaud</li>
<li>Daniel Otto Jack Petersen</li>
<li>Anthony Ryan Rhodes</li>
</ul>
(I love seeing my name up there with these guys. If greatness can be measured by effort and outcome, they are among the greatest!)<br />
<br />
Rather than go on and on about how great this issue is, I'll let Michael Swanwick do the honors:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><i>Feast of Laughter</i></b> has to be one of the most extraordinary fannish feats of recent years. It's a full-length book/zine containing new and reprint essays, appreciations, letters, whatevers pertaining to the man who was easily the most original science fiction writer of the Twentieth Century -- <b>Raphael Aloysius Lafferty</b>.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
R. A. Lafferty, "Ray" as his friends called him, was, during his lifetime, recognized as one of the giants of the field. Now, alas, he's close to forgotten.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But not quite! Some of the great man's friends and admirers have been working hard to reignite Lafferty's reputation. This volume of <b><i>Feast of Laughter</i></b> is the third collection of Laffertiana and it is a must for all serious Lafferty fans.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: right;">
Michael Swanwick, <b><i><a href="http://floggingbabel.blogspot.com/2016/01/lafferty-lafferty-lafferty.html" target="_blank">Flogging Babel</a></i></b></blockquote>
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You can download a free PDF copy on the <a href="http://www.feastoflaughter.org/" target="_blank"><i><b>Feast of Laughter website</b></i></a>.<br />
<br />
You can also find it on Amazon:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>US: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Feast-Laughter-Appreciation-R-Lafferty/dp/0692586512">http://www.amazon.com/Feast-Laughter-Appreciation-R-Lafferty/dp/0692586512</a></li>
<li>UK: <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Feast-Laughter-Appreciation-R-Lafferty/dp/0692586512">http://www.amazon.co.uk/Feast-Laughter-Appreciation-R-Lafferty/dp/0692586512</a></li>
<li>FR: <a href="http://www.amazon.fr/Feast-Laughter-Appreciation-R-Lafferty/dp/0692586512">http://www.amazon.fr/Feast-Laughter-Appreciation-R-Lafferty/dp/0692586512</a></li>
<li>DE: <a href="http://www.amazon.de/Feast-Laughter-Appreciation-R-Lafferty/dp/0692586512">http://www.amazon.de/Feast-Laughter-Appreciation-R-Lafferty/dp/0692586512</a></li>
<li>ES: <a href="http://www.amazon.es/Feast-Laughter-Appreciation-R-Lafferty/dp/0692586512">http://www.amazon.es/Feast-Laughter-Appreciation-R-Lafferty/dp/0692586512</a></li>
<li>IT: <a href="http://www.amazon.it/Feast-Laughter-Appreciation-R-Lafferty/dp/0692586512">http://www.amazon.it/Feast-Laughter-Appreciation-R-Lafferty/dp/0692586512</a></li>
</ul>
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<b>And now for the plea</b>:<br />
<i>Feast of Laughter Volume 4</i> is coming up in just two months! I need everyone who has ever had anything to say about Lafferty to contribute. Dust off that old review, dig up that long-lost blog post, write something new and impassioned!<br />
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Given the timeframe, we'd like to try a section of Lightning Essays. Explain what Lafferty means to you in 400 to 600 words. Categories for Lightning Essays can include (but are not limited to):<br />
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<ul>
<li>Reviews</li>
<li>Essays</li>
<li>Personal recollections</li>
<li>Lafferty-inspired very short fiction or poetry</li>
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Send it all to <a href="mailto:editor@feastoflaughter.org">editor@feastoflaughter.org</a></div>
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Thank you!</div>
Kevin Cheekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17615258563790520320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2381454689166649574.post-48840380467934460362015-08-20T15:19:00.000-07:002015-08-20T15:19:45.351-07:00Yet Another Feast - A Call For ActionThe time is upon us to start assembling <i>Feast of Laughter Issue 3</i>.<br />
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We already have some amazing stories, essays, artwork, interviews, and reviews lined up. We need YOUR contribution. We need your original stories, your original essays, your original artwork, your original reviews, and your old and ancient and oft reprinted versions of the above. And if you've seen something online about Lafferty that you think ought to be reprinted, by all means suggest it. Try to reach out and get permission from the author to reprint it. The only real guideline is this: Share your love of Lafferty!<br />
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<b>Deadlines</b>:<br />
<ul>
<li>Expression of Interest: <b>Saturday, September 19, 2015</b> </li>
<li>Content complete: <b>Sunday, October 11, 2015</b></li>
<li>Publication: <b>Saturday, November 7, 2015</b> (Lafferty's 101st birthday!)</li>
</ul>
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<b>Contact</b>:</div>
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Email <a href="mailto:editor@feastoflaughter.org">editor@feastoflaughter.org</a> with all your ideas, submissions, stories, artwork, and daydreams of things you'd love to say about R. A. Lafferty, and even requests. </div>
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Share and be published! Join the growing phenomenon that is <i>Feast of Laughter</i>!</div>
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Kevin Cheekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17615258563790520320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2381454689166649574.post-52607231705506130942015-08-10T10:45:00.001-07:002015-08-11T09:05:34.586-07:00Why I Read New BooksAs science fiction fan and especially as a Lafferty fan, used bookstores are my constant comfort and often my greatest resource. I love exploring the stacks of used books, stumbling upon obscure treasures at bargain prices. I firmly believe books are to be read. The narrative does not expire after one person has read it, and the more people who have read a book, the more conversations and explorations of ideas it can spark.<br />
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As a father of 3 (2 in college), used bookstores and libraries are just about the only way I can afford to support my book habit.<br />
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There are some living, publishing authors for whom I make an exception of my borrowed and used book policy. I buy their books because I really like what they write. When I can, I buy new copies of their books because they are earning a living writing and publishing books. If I buy a really good secondhand copy, the bookseller makes a small sum. If I buy a new copy, the bookseller makes a small cut, the publisher makes a small cut, and the author gets paid! What a concept!<br />
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Authors like:<br />
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<ul>
<li><b>J Simon</b> I have been reading his stories for decades. I even had the joy of publishing his Lafferty-inspired story, “The Woman Who Wondered What Onions Think” in the first <i>Feast of Laughter</i>. Check out his enormously fun <i>Fossilized Gods</i> at <a href="http://majra.org/#fg1">http://majra.org/#fg1</a></li>
<li><b>Michael Swanwick</b> writes with both humor and erudition, and he is an unabashed Lafferty fan. I first discovered his writing in the <i>Periodic Table of Science Fiction</i> (just look for it—you will not regret the loss of time). He has just published his newest Darger & Surplus novel, <i>Chasing the Phoenix</i>. He blogs frequently at <a href="http://floggingbabel.blogspot.com/">http://floggingbabel.blogspot.com/</a></li>
<li><b>Michael Bishop</b> includes a deep sense of humanity in everything he writes, even when he is writing about the utterly alien. I recently discovered his writing when he graciously, gladly, gloriously offered us his Lafferty tribute, “Of Crystalline Labyrinths and the New Creation” for the first <i>Feast of Laughter</i>. In reading as much of his work as I could get ahold of, I discovered that I had read and been impressed by the depth of some of his stories in New Wave anthologies when I was a teenager, and more importantly that I was truly enjoying reading him today! My current favorites are his Philip K. Dick tribute, <i>The Secret Ascension (or Philip K. Dick is Dead, Alas)</i> and the truly incandescent <i>Transfigurations</i>. Check him out at <a href="http://www.michaelbishop-writer.com/">http://www.michaelbishop-writer.com/</a></li>
<li><b>Howard Waldrop</b> is a uniquely American voice, who should be classed with Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, and R. A. Lafferty in creating an American literature. I cannot say enough about his writing. Find and read “The Ugly Chickens” “Mary Margaret Roadgrader” “Willow Beeman” (which he graciously allowed me to publish in the second <i>Feast of Laughter</i>). Howard is also one of the nicest human beings anyone is likely to meet. That coupled with his glacially slow and painstaking writing process and his penchant for selling stories to the lowest paying markets (like <i>Feast of Laughter</i>) has nearly guaranteed him a future of crashing on friends’ couches. Would the universe collapse if we all rushed out and bought enough copies of his books to let him live in comfort? It’s a risk I am willing to take! His latest collection, <i>Horse of a Different Color</i> is available from Small Beer Press at <a href="http://smallbeerpress.com/books/2013/11/12/horse-of-a-different-color/">http://smallbeerpress.com/books/2013/11/12/horse-of-a-different-color/</a><br />Also, check out his collections <i>Things Will Never Be the Same</i> and <i>Other Worlds, Better Lives</i> still in print and available new from <a href="http://www.oldearthbooks.com/">www.oldearthbooks.com</a>.<br />Seriously, buy Howard's books. </li>
<li><b>Stephen Case</b> is a relatively new author I really enjoy. Again, I discovered his writing when he offered to let us published one of his reviews and a story in <i>Feast of Laughter</i>. I am really enjoying reading everything of his I can. Check out his <i>First Fleet</i> series of books. Check out his blog at <a href="https://stephenrcase.wordpress.com/">https://stephenrcase.wordpress.com/</a></li>
<li><b>Anne Hillman</b> has taken up the pen to continue her father’s Chee and Leaphorn detective series. Not only is this a continuation of a book series I have loved for decades, it turns out she is a good writer in her own right. Her website is <a href="http://www.annehillerman.com/">http://www.annehillerman.com/</a></li>
<li><b>Daniel Pinkwater</b> Read everything you can of his. You will be a better person for it. He is ostensibly a children’s author, and his books are aimed anywhere from the preschool audience to early teens. However, there is a depth and wry observation of our humanity in there that will help educate and enlighten any reader willing to let his word magic work. My favorites are his novels <i>Lizard Music</i>, <i>The Neddiad</i>, and <i>Bushman Lives!</i> He makes occasional announcements and answers readers’ questions at <a href="http://www.pinkwater.com/">http://www.pinkwater.com/</a></li>
</ul>
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The world of publishing is rapidly changing, and I do not know much about contracts and payment structures. I am sure there are plenty of players in the system who are out for themselves and who do not really care if the authors ever earn a single penny. However, without taking up arms in (and without devoting enough time to fully understand) this particular battle, I still feel it is better to support the authors I like. And the system does work to a degree. One friend of mine worked for twenty years writing a textbook. It has been gradually adopted by the biology departments of more and more universities, and he is now living far more comfortably than he was as a college professor trying to write his first textbook. To be honest, if he was paid fairly for the amount of effort and expertise he put into the book, he would be a millionaire many, many times over. On the other hand, Students are buying his book and he is getting paid. This is a good thing (though I may say differently when I see the bill for my son’s textbooks this fall).<br />
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For the most part, I will continue to hunt used bookstores and library sales for dirt-cheap used paperbacks of my favorites and perhaps new and future favorites. But when any of these authors publish something new, and when I happen to be able to afford a nice hardback, I will gladly shell out for a new book.<br />
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<br />Kevin Cheekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17615258563790520320noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2381454689166649574.post-51074684613736661802015-06-09T10:13:00.001-07:002015-06-10T13:21:20.209-07:00Quick Thoughts on Fourth MansionsLafferty's <i>Fourth Mansions</i> is my favorite book. It is the book I re-read most often, the book I enjoy the most, the book I draw the most encouragement from. There may be better books in the world, for instance I argue that <i>Okla Hannali</i> is both better written and more important. However, since I first encountered it, sometime around my 19th year, I have not found a book I enjoy reading more than <i>Fourth Mansions</i>.<br />
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On the other hand, there are many readers who do not resonate as strongly with the book. For some it takes two or three readings to catch on to what it is doing, and for some it will never click. I understand that every reader is different, and different aspects of Lafferty's writing resonate differently with each of us. However, I still ponder the mechanisms--the reason this book instantly hit all my resonant frequencies while leaving others cold.<br />
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One cause may be the way Lafferty plays with levels of metaphor so freely that it is not always apparent what is in the "reality" of the narrative and what is metaphorical. For example, in one scene Freddy Foley is trying to reach Biddy Bencher over a long distance:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
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<span style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif;"> Freddy called her up, not by phone. Other forms of communication had come onto him lately almost without his noticing them. He got her but could not get her attention. She was lounging on subterranean beaches and wild dogs were tearing her apart. “You’re missing pieces, you’re missing the best pieces,” she kept calling at the tearing dogs. “All you’re tearing off is the legs. Don’t any of you like the white meat?”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif;"> Freddy couldn’t get her attention that way. Finally he called her on the telephone and she answered on the fourth ring…</span><span style="font-family: garamond, 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px;"> </span></blockquote>
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I had no trouble with this passage. It's actually very funny. Freddy has been touched by the brain weave of the Harvesters and is in constant mental contact with everyone who is part of the weave or has also been touched by the weave. However the parts of consciousness connected by the weave are often a part of the person's subconscious, so the events that occur in the weave are more like the events in a dream. They are metaphorical and sometimes nonsensical in the same way that dreams are, but they do contribute to the tenor and the interpretation of the events happening in the "real" world of the book.<br />
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In this passage, Freddy has realized that because of the weave, he has powers of communication and insight that he'd never had before. He tries to use these powers to communicate with Biddy, but because she is a distractible and impulsive young lady with a rather lurid subconscious imagination, these abilities are useless. Freddy then has to use more normal or mundane means to reach her.<br />
<br />
In a way Lafferty is poking fun at his own invention. Most SF authors come up with a nifty gimmick, and it becomes the lynchpin for the narrative of the book. Consider Heinlein's <i>Time for the Stars</i> in which scientists discover telepathy between certain identical twins. That communication becomes the core of the narrative of interstellar exploration. Heinlein treats his invention with great reverence. Lafferty, on the other hand invents the brain weave, which has tremendous impact on the narrative and reveals the actions and motivations of the characters on several levels of consciousness, and then in this scene dismisses it as being superfluous and not very helpful--at least at that particular moment. In parallel, imagine if someone invented a way of connecting all the sources of knowledge and computing power over the world, and people mostly used it for posting pictures of their cats or what they ate for breakfast...<br />
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Once Freddy is touched by the weave, he slowly uses more and more of the capabilities it gives him. He sees in the dark, seeing with Harvester eyes, with Toad eyes, with Falcon eyes, with Patrick eyes. "One misses so much who uses one set of eyes." He gets updates from Miguel Fuentes and reports on his revolutionary movement--even drawing him accurately from memory without ever having seen him. He follows the battles and plots of the Harvesters. This allows the narrative to follow Freddy, but also to report in detail on all the other groups of characters who have become connected. However, many of the events come through the weave and are on a metaphorical level. The vision of Richard Bencher doing battle with the dragon or hydra that the weave has become is happening on a level that Bencher is not even consciously aware of. We never know if Biddy's demon boyfriend is a real demon of Hell or a metaphor for the energy of the weave--though I suspect it is intended as real. And then there's Bagley's dog-ape plappergeist, and the weave-inflected metaphor for the world in Michael Fountain's lectures.<br />
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I can imagine that some readers have trouble switching so quickly and so often between layers of metaphor and reality.<br />
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Everyone has their own particular mental and emotional structures, and everyone has their own patterns of Lafferty reading. I wonder if the way Lafferty's corpus resonates with a person is as individual as a fingerprint. For me, <i>Fourth Mansions</i> leaves the biggest mark.<br />
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<br />Kevin Cheekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17615258563790520320noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2381454689166649574.post-82408064207765605912015-06-02T11:04:00.000-07:002015-06-04T14:39:46.714-07:00When Fandoms CollideThis may come as a surprise (though it shouldn't), but I am a fan of many different authors. R. A. Lafferty is at the top of my list, but I am also rather ardent (and therefore perhaps dangerously boring in conversation) about Howard Waldrop, Ursula Le Guin, Barry Hughart, Tony Hillerman, Edward Abbey, Kurt Vonnegut, Richard Brautigan, etc. Depending on what I am reminded of in conversation, you may find me forcing a book by any of those authors into your hands.<br />
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Notice that I mentioned Waldrop and Le Guin first after Lafferty in that second sentence.<br />
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In a way Lafferty is a great unifier. His fans span the literary gamut from those of us who possess remarkably little talent but love to read to those who are Literary Giants. And yet, we all enjoy sharing our love of Lafferty, without acknowledging any kind of hierarchy.<br />
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As an ardent Lafferty fan, I have stumbled into being the editor of <i>Feast of Laughter</i>, our semiannual Lafferty fanzine ("bookzine" as Michael Swanwick called it). While this is the result of countless hours of dedicated work by some really talented and devoted people, of which I am only one contributor, I still get to claim the title. This has led to some truly neat things happening, and sometimes not happening but in really neat ways:<br />
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The other day, some months ago, I asked Lawrence Person if he could contact Howard Waldrop on my behalf asking permission to reprint "Willow Beeman," a deliberately Lafferty-esque collaboration by Steven Utley and Howard Waldrop. He gave me Howard's phone number.<br />
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Understand, I have loved Howard Waldrop's writing for decades, ever since encountering "The Ugly Chickens" in a copy of <i>Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year: Tenth Annual Collection</i> in the UNM Library sometime around 1984 or '85. He is very high up in my pantheon of literary gods. So it was with some trepidation that I called him the next morning. I was afraid I would be too much a smitten fan boy to sound like a professional editor. Yet when I started talking to Howard, he is such a genuinely kind person he immediately put me at ease. He was happy to spend an hour on the phone chatting about what Lafferty had meant to him, how Lafferty's writing had inspired him, telling me stories about Lafferty at conventions, and telling me the story of how he and Steven Utley had decided to write their Lafferty story. I have since had numerous phone conversations with him. He is always gracious, kind, and excited about helping preserve R. A. Lafferty's place in the literature of Science Fiction. And yes, we did publish "Willow Beeman" in <i>Feast of Laughter #2</i> this spring.<br />
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On another day a couple of weeks ago, I sent an impassioned rambling letter to Ursula K. Le Guin professing my love of her work and asking her to contribute something to <i>Feast of Laughter</i>. While this contact didn't work out anywhere near as amazingly as did my contact with Howard Waldrop, I did receive in the mail last night a very gracious hand written letter from her saying she was honored by our request and that she applauds our efforts to preserve Lafferty's writing. She doubts she will be able to write anything for us, but will keep it in mind. If you are going to turn someone down, that is the way to do it--with kindness, graciousness, and class.<br />
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That Lafferty's writing can unite so many talented, intelligent people shows the power of literature to eliminate barriers and bring us all together.<br />
<br />Kevin Cheekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17615258563790520320noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2381454689166649574.post-54312207668118049792015-04-07T11:52:00.001-07:002015-04-07T11:55:22.734-07:00Feast of Laughter 2 is Here!It's ALIVE!!<br />
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The new <i>Feast of Laughter</i> is here!<br />
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Download it from <a href="http://www.feastoflaughter.org/">www.feastoflaughter.org</a><br />
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or buy it from Amazon:<br />
<ul>
<li><b>US</b>: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Feast-Laughter-2-Ktistec-Press/dp/0692397469/">http://www.amazon.com/Feast-Laughter-2-Ktistec-Press/dp/0692397469/</a></li>
<li><b>UK</b>: <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Feast-Laughter-2-Ktistec-Press/dp/0692397469/">http://www.amazon.co.uk/Feast-Laughter-2-Ktistec-Press/dp/0692397469/</a></li>
<li><b>FR</b>: <a href="http://www.amazon.fr/Feast-Laughter-2-Ktistec-Press/dp/0692397469/">http://www.amazon.fr/Feast-Laughter-2-Ktistec-Press/dp/0692397469/</a></li>
<li><b>DE</b>: <a href="http://www.amazon.de/Feast-Laughter-2-Ktistec-Press/dp/0692397469/">http://www.amazon.de/Feast-Laughter-2-Ktistec-Press/dp/0692397469/</a></li>
<li><b>ES</b>: <a href="http://www.amazon.es/Feast-Laughter-2-Ktistec-Press/dp/0692397469/">http://www.amazon.es/Feast-Laughter-2-Ktistec-Press/dp/0692397469/</a></li>
<li><b>IT</b>: <a href="http://www.amazon.it/Feast-Laughter-2-Ktistec-Press/dp/0692397469/">http://www.amazon.it/Feast-Laughter-2-Ktistec-Press/dp/0692397469/</a></li>
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Thank you to everyone who contributed and thank you many millions of times over to the members of the Ktistec brotherhood who fought through the long creative (and occasionally combative) hours to bring this beast to life. It is far better in quality of production, writing, design, and even editing than the first book. It was truly a collaborative effort by all.</div>
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Check it out!<br />
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<br />Kevin Cheekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17615258563790520320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2381454689166649574.post-22290492201619246072015-03-05T15:45:00.000-08:002015-03-05T15:45:42.019-08:00Watch This SpaceThe stew is bubbling, the roast is in the oven, the drink is fermenting, and the desserts are baking. The second Feast of Laughter is due out on March 18.<br />
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Watch this space.Kevin Cheekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17615258563790520320noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2381454689166649574.post-13025932401216240772015-01-02T17:43:00.000-08:002015-01-06T15:20:48.574-08:00A Call to Action - Contribute to Feast of Laughter Issue 2Happy New Year everyone!<br />
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2014 has been been an enormous year for Lafferty Fans. It started with the arrival of <i>The Man Who Made Models</i> volume 1 of the complete short works of Lafferty published by The Centipede Press. November 7 was Lafferty's 100th Birthday, and also the publication date of the first issue of <i>Feast of Laughter</i> the new Lafferty fanzine (read book of essays, commentary, scholarship, and stories) published by yours truly and the magnificent people at the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/eastoflaughter/" target="_blank">East of Laughter</a> fan group on Facebook.<br />
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The first issue was an enormous success--far beyond our wildest dreams (see <a href="http://www.yetanotherlaffertyblog.com/2014/11/we-didnt-know-it-was-impossible-so-we.html" target="_blank">my blog entry</a>, <a href="http://ralafferty.tumblr.com/post/102837431377/a-printable-feast" target="_blank">Andrew Ferguson's entry</a>, and <a href="http://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/102840719081/a-printable-feast" target="_blank">Neil Gaiman's post</a>; go and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Feast-Laughter-Issue-Ktistec-Press/dp/0692324100/" target="_blank">buy it on Amazon</a>)!<br />
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Now it is time to focus on the next issue. We want to make the next issue even better than the first, learning from the few mistakes of first publication and attracting even more top quality content.<br />
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<b>Deadlines</b>:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Expression of Interest: <b>Saturday, January 31, 2015</b> </li>
<li>Content complete: <b>Friday, February 20, 2015</b></li>
<li>Publication: <b>Saturday, March 18, 2015</b></li>
</ul>
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<b>Contact</b>:</div>
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Email <a href="mailto:editor@feastoflaughter.org">editor@feastoflaughter.org</a> with all your ideas, submissions, stories, daydreams of things you'd love to write about R. A. Lafferty, and even requests. </div>
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<b>Questions</b>:</div>
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<ul>
<li><b>Q</b>: If I have a perfect idea that I can polish into an amazing entry, but I dream it up on February 1, am I out of luck until Issue #3?</li>
<li><b>A</b>: Most likely we can fit it into Issue #2. The January 31 deadline for expression of interest is a guideline to help know how much content to prepare for, and see if there are any synergies between topics from different writers, so I can coordinate conversation and work. Please be as thoughtful as you can, but if it absolutely ought to be in this issue, by all means submit it!</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b>Q</b>: Can I suggest essays by other bloggers, scholars, critics, and authors that ought to be included?</li>
<li><b>A</b>: Absolutely, that is where a huge amount of our content in Issue #1 came from. If you suggest it, be prepared to follow up by contacting the original author and requesting permission to include the content.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><b>Q</b>: Copyright?</li>
<li><b>A</b>: Absolutely respected on all fronts:</li>
<ul>
<li>1. Ktistec Press and <i>Feast of Laughter</i> is scrupulous in respecting copyrights for all material. We WILL obtain full permission to use any content before including it, unless that content is already in the public domain (see Andrew Ferguson's essay on <a href="http://ralafferty.tumblr.com/post/55382042501/49-the-six-fingers-of-time" target="_blank">"The Six Fingers of Time"</a>).</li>
<li>2. All authors retain copyright to their entries. </li>
</ul>
</ul>
</div>
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<ul>
<li><b>Q</b>: Do you pay for content?</li>
<li><b>A</b>: No. At this time, the Ktistec Press makes no money whatsoever. Our goal is to raise awareness of Lafferty's place in American literature and SF. To do that we want to reach as many people as possible, which means keeping the printed edition as inexpensive as possible. To this end, all of the content for <i>Feast of Laughter</i> is donated. Gleefully, joyously, jubilantly donated. Even Michael Bishop's story and Lissanne Lake's magnificent painting were donated with enthusiasm (and I am humbled by their greatness in so doing). </li>
</ul>
</div>
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<ul>
<li><b>Q</b>: Can I help format, edit, proofread, publish, etc?</li>
<li><b>A</b>: Yes, please!</li>
</ul>
</div>
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<ul>
<li><b>Q</b>: Where can I submit content?</li>
<li><b>A</b>: Email it directly to <a href="mailto:editor@feastoflaughter.org">editor@feastoflaughter.org</a> or post a request in the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/eastoflaughter/" target="_blank">East of Laughter</a> fan group on Facebook, and I will share a submissions folder in Google Drive with you where you can deposit your work.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><b>Q</b>: Do I have to laugh while submitting content?</li>
<li><b>A</b>: No, but if you don't, just keep it to yourself.</li>
</ul>
</div>
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Issue 2 of the feast is being prepared, and you are invited! Remember, it's a potluck affair. Take as much as you can consume, but bring something to share.</div>
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Thank you and bon appetit!</div>
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<br />Kevin Cheekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17615258563790520320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2381454689166649574.post-66125239676283083952014-11-24T15:33:00.002-08:002014-11-24T20:04:01.659-08:00We Didn't Know It Was Impossible, So We Did It.The impossible feast is served.<br />
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Once upon a time, a Lafferty fan named David Cruces created an R. A. Lafferty fan group on Facebook and named the group "East of Laughter." It is a great and active group of fans, with a growing and vocal membership.<br />
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One day, sometime in early October of this year the discussion in the group turned to Lafferty stories and essays reprinted in old fanzines. After much discussion of where to find these old 'zines, I piped up saying we should just create our own 'zine. I even offered a sonnet about Lafferty to serve as a first submission. A number of members leapt at the idea, promising new essays and proposing old essays to include.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
We proceeded apace, placing a few essays, more poetry, and a half-draft of a story in a shared folder. I had visions of a PDF 'zine circulated among fans, maybe reaching to 50 or even 70 pages--we were getting some good content. We decided on a name, <i>Feast of Laughter</i>, because firstly, it mimics the name of the group. Second, it resonates with Dan Knight’s Introduction to his magazine, "The Boomer Flats Gazette:"<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The table was prepared and the bar was stocked for as big a bash as ever was seen. There was something for everyone. A magical feast. Take as much as you want. Stuff your pockets and fill your purse. It would make no difference. There would be just as much when you were done as when you started. This is fish and loaves stuff. (Are not all good stories fish and loaves stuff by their very definition?)</blockquote>
And third, most importantly, laughter is a strong part of Lafferty’s storytelling. Can you read any of his stories without a deep belly-chuckle? Sometimes the more horrifying stories contain the strongest humor, and sometimes, like in “Hog Belly Honey”, every sentence is such a joy to read, you laugh yourself nearly comatose before half finishing the story.<br />
<br />
We decided to try to finish our submissions by October 31st, so I would have time to edit, proofread, and format the final file by Lafferty's 100th birthday on November 7th. This left us only three and a half weeks to assemble the content, but a lot had already been written.<br />
<br />
Then a couple of near miracles occurred: first, Michael Bishop joyfully, enthusiastically, jubilantly gave us permission to reprint his Lafferty-inspired story, "Of Crystalline Labyrinths and the New Creation" (a life long thanks to John Owen for contacting Michael Bishop and so eloquently requesting the story). Then Lissanne Lake, already famous among us Lafferty fans for her beautiful Lafferty book covers (especially Lafferty in Orbit) and famous to the world at large as a fantasy painter and illustrator, gave us her contribution, a stunning rendition in paint of Lafferty's story "Days of Grass, Days of Straw."<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kQ1w17ecRbg/VHOy2cxKFCI/AAAAAAAAAX0/7JTbEpG4nRY/s1600/Copy%2Bof%2BDays%2Bof%2BGrass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kQ1w17ecRbg/VHOy2cxKFCI/AAAAAAAAAX0/7JTbEpG4nRY/s1600/Copy%2Bof%2BDays%2Bof%2BGrass.jpg" height="320" width="243" /></a></div>
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<i>Days of Grass</i> by Lissanne Lake</div>
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<i>You can see a higher resolution scan of the painting at <a href="http://www.feastoflaughter.org/">www.feastoflaughter.org</a></i></div>
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Then the content really started rolling in. We figured out how to handle the copyright correctly to reprint "The Six fingers of Time," Andrew Ferguson agreed to give us his essay on "The Six Fingers of Time," more writers agreed to let us reprint seminal Lafferty essays they had published before, and David Morrow, a professional designer in Glasgow, Scotland agreed to design our cover from Lissanne's amazing painting. More essays and fiction were being written and submitted from a truly impressive cadre of fans.<br />
<br />
John Owen (again John Owen--somebody give him a gold star (or a gold asteroid, "Golden Trabant" reference anyone?)) had some experience self-publishing with Amazon and agreed to take us through the process with CreateSpace.<br />
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Things were falling into place Very Quickly and in Large Volume. I found myself staying up until sunrise on Halloween weekend--hey, if everybody was willing to work that hard, I owed it to them to put in some grand effort assembling their work. Much back and forth, much discussion in the East of Laughter Facebook group--thousands and thousands of comments (I am not exaggerating), Amazing proofreading work from Rich Persaud and John Owen and Noah Wareness among a small army of others. On Lafferty's 100th birthday, November 7, 2014, we had a website up with a complete copy of <i>Feast of Laughter, Issue 1</i>: <a href="http://www.feastoflaughter.org/">www.feastoflaughter.org</a>. Within a few days and a bit more midnight oil, we had our first edition available in paperback via Amazon.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5t4b-uLifnE/VHPAEdzZw-I/AAAAAAAAAYc/WiK6DhFAvtU/s1600/BackCover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5t4b-uLifnE/VHPAEdzZw-I/AAAAAAAAAYc/WiK6DhFAvtU/s1600/BackCover.jpg" height="320" width="209" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ixBSIKmXVmY/VHPAEREAqiI/AAAAAAAAAYg/dxfe6yex7bo/s1600/FrontCoverSmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ixBSIKmXVmY/VHPAEREAqiI/AAAAAAAAAYg/dxfe6yex7bo/s1600/FrontCoverSmall.jpg" height="320" width="209" /></a></div>
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<i>Feast of Laughter, Issue 1</i></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Feast-Laughter-Issue-Ktistec-Press/dp/0692324100/">Find it on Amazon. Buy it!</a></div>
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To say I was floored by how beautiful the final book came out would be an extreme practice of the art of understatement. I have been unable to contain myself. I keep giggling over it. And the giggling has only increased: by Day 2, we had sold enough copies to be #4 on Amazon's list of the 100 best selling books in the category "Science Fiction History and Criticism," beating out books about Middle Earth and Harry Potter (beating everything but some companion volumes to George R. R. Martin's <i>Song of Ice and Fire</i> books and a book about Hobbits). And then Andrew Ferguson posted a <a href="http://ralafferty.tumblr.com/post/102837431377/a-printable-feast">beautiful review on his Tumblr, "Continued on Next Rock."</a> And then Neil Gaiman bought our book and <a href="http://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/102840719081/a-printable-feast">blogged about it</a>!<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-izMJr4ymlv4/VHO9U0XHlzI/AAAAAAAAAYQ/CJrGGDo0q9k/s1600/FoL4AmazonBestSellers.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-izMJr4ymlv4/VHO9U0XHlzI/AAAAAAAAAYQ/CJrGGDo0q9k/s1600/FoL4AmazonBestSellers.png" height="283" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>Feast of Laughter</i> in Amazon's list of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/16288/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_b_2_4_last">Best Sellers in Science Fiction History & Criticism</a></div>
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I am still over the moon over this experience. I could never have imagined such amazing things could have happened from an offhand mention in a Facebook group. It is impossible that it happened so quickly. We radically exceeded our own expectations. There is a small army of Lafferty fans to thank for building this. It was a truly collaborative effort at "<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20071012204844/www.scifi.com/scifiction/classics/classics_archive/lafferty5/lafferty51.html">Slow Tuesday Night</a>" speed.<br />
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The Feast of Laughter is now a living periodical. We will publish two issues a year on November 7, Lafferty's birthday, and March 18, the day he died. Every issue will try to include:<br />
<ul>
<li>Essays about his writing.</li>
<li>Reviews.</li>
<li>Original fiction and artwork inspired by Lafferty.</li>
<li>At least one Lafferty story.</li>
</ul>
<div>
Our mission is to help raise Lafferty's profile and establish his place in American Letters, to bring Lafferty to a wider readership, and to do all of this while being scrupulous about copyright and permissions. That way we can keep working with authors and copyright holders for many years to come. The next four issues are being prepared, and you are invited to contribute. Leave a comment or contact <a href="mailto:editor@feastoflaughter.org">editor@feastoflaughter.org</a> with your ideas. </div>
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<ul>
<li><i>Feast of Laughter #2</i>: March 18, 2015 - deadline for interest: Jan 31, 2015, deadline for content, February 20, 2015.</li>
<li><i>Feast of Laughter #3</i>: November 7, 2015 - deadline for interest: September 19, 2015, deadline for content, October 11, 2015.</li>
<li><i>Feast of Laughter #4</i>: March 18, 2016 - deadline for interest: Jan 31, 2016, deadline for content, February 20, 2016.</li>
<li><i>Feast of Laughter #5</i>: November 7, 2016 - deadline for interest: September 19, 2016, deadline for content, October 11, 2016.</li>
</ul>
</div>
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The next feast is being prepared, and you are invited. But it's a potluck affair. Take as much as you can consume, but bring something to share.<br />
<br />
Bon appetit!<br />
<br />Kevin Cheekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17615258563790520320noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2381454689166649574.post-89345852157944870652014-09-16T09:27:00.000-07:002014-09-16T09:27:10.560-07:00Dan-KtistecSearching around the web last night for references to "Pan-Ktistec" to perhaps get a gleam of where Lafferty came up with Epiktistes' name, I found quotes from <i>Arrive at Easterwine</i> and quotes from an August 2003 interview with Steely Dan for <i>Sound on Sound</i> magazine: <a href="http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug03/articles/steelydan.htm">http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug03/articles/steelydan.htm</a><br />
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And I quote:<br />
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"I can do a pretty nice defibrillation with the Ktistec machine," adds Becker, helpfully...</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />and<br />
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Given that Fagen and Becker live in New York and Hawaii respectively, one might expect them to have taken advantage of digital and Web-based technologies in their songwriting collaboration. Have they? If so, they don't seem keen to talk about it...</div>
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"We don't usually write music over the phone, like sending files and stuff," says Becker. "When we work over the phone we do it to write lyrics, and that works very well. Writing on the phone is a little like being in analysis, because you're not reacting to the facial expressions of the other person."</div>
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"But we can surmount that with the Ktistec machine," insists Fagen.</div>
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"We choose not to use the Ktistec machine sometimes. Having a great piece of technology doesn't necessarily mean you use it all the time. Some things are better done..."</div>
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"...in secret."</div>
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[...]</div>
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"We like to write music in the same room. It's hard enough to get anything done when you're eyeball to eyeball, let alone when you're at a distance. But that may change now that we have the Ktistec machine. Make sure you get the spelling correctly."</div>
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It's a wonderful interview--almost entirely nonsensical and laced with references to the Ktistec machine.<br />
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Who'd a thought Steely Dan were Lafferty fans? But listening to their sardonic, erudite lyrics, I guess it shouldn't be surprising.Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04415345283350861149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2381454689166649574.post-77997531872979051332014-06-08T23:41:00.001-07:002014-06-08T23:48:51.669-07:00In the BeginningWestern literature has a long tradition of riffing on the Bible, and Science Fiction with its constant exploration into the meaning of life and the future of our species has developed a strong tradition of riffing on the book of Genesis. Take for example the cycles of life in the Samuel R. Delany story, "The Star Pit." Take for example the opening of the Philip K. Dick novel <i>Humpty Dumpty in Oakland</i>: A mechanic walks in to open his shop in the morning:<br />
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<span style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif;">Here it began. He squinted and spat out the first stale breath that</span><br />
<span style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif;">hung inside the garage. Bending, he clicked on the main power. The dead</span><br />
<span style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif;">things creaked back to life. He fixed the side door open, and a little</span><br />
<span style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif;">sunlight came in. He advanced on the night-light and destroyed it with</span><br />
<span style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif;">a jerk of his hand. He grabbed a pole and dragged back the skylight.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif;">The radio, high up, began to hum and then to blare. He threw the fan</span><br />
<span style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif;">into wheezing excitement. He snapped on all lights, equipment, display</span><br />
<span style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif;">signs. He illuminated the luxurious Goodrich tire poster. He brought</span><br />
<span style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif;">color, shape, awareness to the void. Darkness flew; and after the first</span><br />
<span style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif;">moment of activity he subsided and rested, and took his seventh day--a</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif;">cup of coffee.</span></div>
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</blockquote>
You can't help but smile and at the same time think "Man, I wish I could write that well"<br />
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All of this is by way of introducing one of Lafferty's riffs on Genesis. The opening of the first chapter of <i>Archipelago</i>:<br />
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<span style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif;">All this begins in a southern city and at nine o'clock in the morning, the same hour at which the world was made. It was a Thursday, when originally man was not.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: garamond, 'new york', times, serif;">Indeed</span><span style="font-family: garamond, 'new york', times, serif;">, in these latter days there were few people in the streets and not many in the pubs. But beer was available (barley and hops had been made on the third day), and the morning had a freshness as in the earliest weeks of the world, as the older people remember them. A fast wind was driving the clearing clouds, and the pavements were wet. (When the world was first made it was as though it had just rained. </span><span style="font-family: garamond, 'new york', times, serif;">)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: garamond, 'new york', times, serif;">T</span><span style="font-family: garamond, 'new york', times, serif;">he first man in the world was drinking the first beer. He was Finnegan (not in name, but in self), and he looked at himself in the bar mirror. He saw for the first time that first face, and this was his appearance: he had a banana nose, long jumpy muscles along cheek and tempora, and a mouth in motion. He was dark and lean, like a yearling bull. His eyes had a redness that suggested a series of stormy days and nights, were not previous days and nights impossible. He was a little more than half Italian and a little more than half Irish, as was Adam his counterpart in a variant account. </span></div>
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After which, all you can do is just sit and laugh and admire.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-edPFzv4LXFQ/U5VYwPOfy0I/AAAAAAAACCg/PYZ_NKQBt_M/s1600/Archipelago.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-edPFzv4LXFQ/U5VYwPOfy0I/AAAAAAAACCg/PYZ_NKQBt_M/s1600/Archipelago.jpg" height="320" width="224" /></a></div>
<br />Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04415345283350861149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2381454689166649574.post-7631239331720293482014-06-08T12:34:00.001-07:002014-06-08T14:31:27.914-07:00An Act of Great Kindness About a year and a half ago, I noticed brand new copies of <i>East of Laughter</i> and <i>Serpent's Egg</i> for sale on the site of an English books store, Cold Tonnage Books (<a href="http://www.coldtonnage.com/">www.coldtonnage.com</a>), for £5.00 GBP, so I ordered them.<br />
<br />
I'm working in California now, and commuting home to Albuquerque on the weekends. The other day I brought <i>Serpent's Egg</i> with me to read on the flight. However, I left it in the airport or on the airplane! Arrrghh! I had only made it about 3 pages into the book.<br />
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I looked on Cold Tonnage's site and they still have copies for £5.00, so I ordered another. It arrived yesterday. The first thing I noticed when I opened the package was a note on top of the book:<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vqGCGP-Iht0/U5S32HMcChI/AAAAAAAACBk/6JJfMTRWSkg/s1600/ColdTonnageSerpentsEggNiceNote.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vqGCGP-Iht0/U5S32HMcChI/AAAAAAAACBk/6JJfMTRWSkg/s1600/ColdTonnageSerpentsEggNiceNote.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In what I can only describe as an act of great kindness to a complete stranger (me), they had given me the signed limited edition!<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8aaY4llaLOM/U5S4OKbLQxI/AAAAAAAACBw/Qe5NhTSQIvE/s1600/ColdTonnageSerpentsEgg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8aaY4llaLOM/U5S4OKbLQxI/AAAAAAAACBw/Qe5NhTSQIvE/s1600/ColdTonnageSerpentsEgg.jpg" height="320" width="180" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FA_qozCkCJY/U5S4OLiA3fI/AAAAAAAACBs/6DubJGYJoA0/s1600/ColdTonnageSerpentsEggSignedPage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FA_qozCkCJY/U5S4OLiA3fI/AAAAAAAACBs/6DubJGYJoA0/s1600/ColdTonnageSerpentsEggSignedPage.jpg" height="320" width="180" /></a></div>
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The only way I know to respond to this (beyond sending them a very nice thank you note, which I am doing) is to pass on some form of Lafferty-related kindness.</div>
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I have an extra copy each of <i>Past Master</i> and <i>Strange Doings</i>. If any of you need a copy of either, I will be very happy to give it to you. Leave a comment, drop me a note on the East of Laughter Facebook group, or e-mail me. I'll get your address and send it to you. </div>
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And check out Cold Tonnage's web site. They several more Lafferty books--some at very good prices. As they ship from England, shipping to those of you in the UK and EU ought to cost less than shipping from America.</div>
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Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04415345283350861149noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2381454689166649574.post-70060765730443796652014-05-19T23:15:00.000-07:002018-12-12T06:40:24.140-08:00The Man Who Made Models 4: Square and Above Board"Square and Above Board" is a fun story. It is a story about betrayal, greed, double crossing, and the question of weather the good guy can win in the end, or if he is doomed to lose to those more conniving--all of this mixed with Irish folk magic and some down-home, mid-western millionaires.<br />
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It is the story of two men, Midas Muldoon and Christopher Kearny who are vying over the affections of one woman, Bridie Caislean. One signature element of Lafferty style is in the introductions of the two main characters. He introduces them by describing their names, their inner and outer characters, and the games of strategy they excel at. Watch closely while reading these introductions. Every (carefully chosen) word foreshadows the final double-cross and denouement of the story.<br />
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The story has some typical Lafferty fun with names:<br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Midas Muldoon had been given his curious name by his father Croesus Muldoon, a confidence man who always swore that he would finally live and die in a great stone castle. And he did die in a great stone castle of sorts, one on the outskirts of McAlester, Oklahoma."</span></blockquote>
However, in this case he is a little more explanatory than I am used to. I imagine this was an earlier story of his, because he qualifies and explains his statements, while in the stories contained in collections like <i>Nine Hundred Grandmothers</i>, <i>Strange Doings</i>, and <i>Ringing Changes</i>, he lists off his wildly appropriate names without preamble or postscript.<br />
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In fact, "Square and Above Board" didn't really grab me on first reading. Typical of Lafferty, it was better the second time through, but it still felt to me that after the careful set up in the first four pages, the rush to the conclusion was forced and hurried. The events all fall into place as they must from the foreshadowing in the beginning, but they seem too convenient, and not really enough of a struggle. Lafferty concludes the story in a fairly standard plot-arc--itself unusual for his oeuvre, but provides almost an outline of the plot only. I found myself wishing for more outrageousness and less explanation--less plot, even.<br />
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The castle on the outskirts of McAlester, OK - known as The Oklahoma State Prison</div>
Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04415345283350861149noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2381454689166649574.post-10439265477689987532014-04-28T19:57:00.002-07:002014-04-28T19:57:52.383-07:00The Man Who Made Models 3: The Hole on the Corner<div>
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<span style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif;">"Homer Hoose came home that evening to the golden cliche: the unnoble dog who was a personal friend of his; the perfect house where just to live was a happy riot; the loving and unpredictable wife; and the five children; the perfect number (four more would have been too many, four less would have been too few). "<span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></span></blockquote>
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This may be a long, rambling response to a tight, compact story. The story has so many elements within it, it is hard to keep any discussion of it as short as the story itself.<br />
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"The Hole on the Corner" is unarguably one of Lafferty's great works. It is one of my three favorite stories, along with "Narow Valley" and "Days of Grass, Days of Straw." This is a Lafferty in high form--a linguistic and situational tour-de-force comprised of equal parts deep philosophy, quantum physics, surreal elements, high humor of the laugh and fall out of your chair variety, and several other parts that I lack the vocabulary to describe or perhaps even the wisdom to recognize. It also introduces some of his stylistic tricks that became part of his stock in trade over the next decades.<br />
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Among the signature Lafferty elements in this story are:<br />
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<li>Compressed story telling - he fits a tremendous amount of story and sub-story into sixteen fast-turning pages.</li>
<li>Using archetypes to save time on setting and character development. </li>
<li>Lafferty children - a whole topic in and of themselves--unflappable and always right, reacting to the outrageous as if humdrum.</li>
<li>Unrealistic dialog. </li>
<li>Side characters who know everything - two of them in this case: Dr. Corte knows more than the reader, and good old double-domed Diogenes Pontifex (who was refused membership in the Institute of Impure Science because of the "minimal decency rule"), who does indeed know everything relevant to the story. </li>
<li>The question of perception and identity - we might really not be who we think we are, and are we really qualified to know if we aren't?</li>
<li>A touch of horror hidden under the humor.</li>
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And many, many more. </div>
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First, consider the opening paragraph. Lafferty invokes a powerful sense of normality and even a whiff of nostalgia, along the lines of a Bradbury Green Town, Illinois story. I often accuse Lafferty of substituting archetypes in place of his characters to save time on character development. By telling us this was the golden cliche, he is telling us we already know this scene, just pull the particulars out of our own memories (or out of our collective unconscious--a concept he riffs on a little later in the story)<br />
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And of course, by adding the aside about why five children is the perfect number, he tells us that he will be narrating this story with a wink and a grin--watch for the rug being pulled out from under our feet.<br />
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Quick aside here, are the reactions of the dog upon Homer's returns home a deliberate play on The Odyssey and the old dog that recognizes Odysseus when he returns disguised by Athena as an old beggar? It is a powerfully evocative though overused cliche in literature now, but do all current iterations look back all the way to Homer? (The existence of <i>Space Chantey</i> would imply so in Lafferty's case).<br />
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Nat! of the <a href="http://www.mulle-kybernetik.com/RAL/" target="_blank">Lafferty Devotional Page</a> holds up "The Hole on the Corner" as an example of the surreal, and in some ways it is. However, by first having us identify so strongly with homer in the first paragraph by calling on all our memories an associations to populate and paint the story, Lafferty may be pointing to our daily lives as a bit surreal.<br />
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<span style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif;">"Homer had a little trouble with the doorknob. They don't have them in all the recensions, you know; and he had that off-the-track feeling tonight. But he figured it out (you don't pull it, you turn it), and opened the door. "<span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></span></blockquote>
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Admittedly he puts us on warning here that the story is about to take a turn into alternate realities, but who hasn't had that "off-the-track" feeling from time to time? Who hasn't experienced those odd moments--almost the reverse of deja-vu when the world seems suddenly strange and slightly unfamiliar?<br />
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The idea at the heart of the story seems to be that we as people don't really pay much attention to things--that we rely on familiar associations to fill in the details (as he relies on us to do in fleshing out his stories) and, as Diogenes informs us, "nobody goes by the visual index except momentarily." That is why no-one can tell the difference between the two Homers--they look exactly alike except for how they look--even though on has hooves, green skin (which is OK "as long as it's kept neat and oiled") and tentacles instead of hands ("Oh boy, I'll say!" according to Regina). Lafferty's implying we fail to notice details. If our loved ones were replaced by monsters, we might not notice if they somehow seemed the same.<br />
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It is also a resoundingly funny story. From son Robert's dialog with Regina:<br />
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<span style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif;">"'Where'd you get the monster, Mama?' son Robert asked as he came in. 'What's he got your whole head in his mouth for? Can I have one of the apples in the kitchen? What's he going to do, kill you, Mama?' </span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif;"> 'Shriek, shriek,' said Mama Regina. 'Just one apple, Robert, there's just enough to go around. Yes, I think he's going to kill me. Shriek!' </span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif;"> Son Robert got an apple and went outdoors."<span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></span></blockquote>
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To Dr. Corte's description of the analyst who analyzes the analysts who analyze the analysts as "tops in his field." And just about everything about Diogenes Pontifex is both exaggerated and uproarious.<br />
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There are elements of horror hidden under the humor. The story opens with a monster coming home and appearing to devour his wife, and ends with the protagonist being eaten by a giant spider. Admittedly these are classically horrifying events, but as a reader I was laughing too hard to notice. That's one thing I've often noticed in Lafferty's stories, he writes with such ebullience and good humor, that the violent, gruesome, and grotesque elements slide by without my really noticing them. It took me several readings to cotton on to just how scary the ending really is, even though it is in plain sight.<br />
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In that way, this is a story that rewards repeated re-reading. No matter how often I look into "The Hole on the Corner" there's always more depth to be seen.<br />
<br />Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04415345283350861149noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2381454689166649574.post-59737230127770281752014-04-21T20:23:00.003-07:002014-04-21T20:25:17.438-07:00The Man Who Made Models 2: The Six Fingers of Time<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"He began by breaking things that morning." </span></blockquote>
Bill Hader, in his much appreciated NYT article mentioned the first line of "The Six Fingers of Time" as an example of how engaging Lafferty Lunacy is. But in a way, what we have here is Lafferty in classic SF mode. This appears to be a simple story with a simple--almost Twilight-Zone-like twist at the end. Except that it isn't.<br />
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On one level, it is a very easy story, told in a prose style that is much more straightforward than some of Lafferty's more ebulliently effervescent efforts. The story proceeds and we keep guessing about 1/2 step ahead of the main character, but Lafferty still manages to surprise and delight us at the end. If that were all there is to this story, it would be a very good story. <br />
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But there is much more to the story. On another level, it is a story about ultimate temptation and choices. It asks if a man, Charles Vincent, the protagonist, is moral enough to choose faith and humanity when offered a chance to be a lord of time--to live a life as long as his mortal soul's and to therefore have power over time and fate--if only he'll chose to ally with certain powers that "smell of the pit". Ultimately Vincent chooses to reject the shadowy and perhaps demonic forces and to wrest that power from them for humanity. It is a valiant if doomed effort. On this level, it still uses the SF trope of the one clever man pitted against an organized army that holds all the cards in its hand. In the standard version of that story line, the one clever man succeeds, but in Lafferty's story, they continue to hold all the cards--beginning, middle, and end.<br />
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And on yet another level, it is the story of the forces that beset humanity. He hints at a conspiracy, far older than Humanity and far older than Humanity's current bargain with God in the Garden. This conspiracy lives on in vestigial form in modern Humanity--in this story taking the form of a mutation for six fingers on the hand. The members of this conspiracy claim that by right of prior occupation, they are exempt from such concepts as good and evil, salvation and damnation. The idea of a prehistoric, genetic conspiracy of an older race against mankind is the nexus of <i>The Devil is Dead</i> and <i>Fourth Mansions</i>. It seems to underlie a large portion of Lafferty's work, with the message that as humans we are beset, but we may just have the creativity, energy, and faith to overcome and eliminate these conspiracies.<br />
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"The Six Fingers of Time" was an early work of Lafferty's, finished in 1959, and first published in 1960. Consider the state of Science Fiction in 1960. Standard "Golden Age" storytelling was still dominant. Shows like The Twilight Zone were just getting started with admittedly very good writing and perhaps a sting in the tail. And here Lafferty gives us a story that is one on level a fun, easy story about a man learning a trick and being tricked in the end. On another level it is a battle within a human soul between temptation and ethics, and on another level, it is the introduction to an ongoing examination of the forces that metaphorically beset us , Mankind, in our journey toward spiritual evolution.<br />
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So the opening line of the story, I think applies very well to Lafferty's writing in general: "He began by breaking things."<br />
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By a combination of circumstances that Andrew Ferguson covers on <i><a href="http://ralafferty.tumblr.com/post/55382042501/49-the-six-fingers-of-time" target="_blank">Continued on Next Rock</a></i>, "The Six Fingers of Time" is one of two Lafferty stories in the public domain. It is available on Gutenberg here: <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31663" target="_blank">http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31663 </a></div>
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Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04415345283350861149noreply@blogger.com1