tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.comments2023-07-05T03:51:31.577-04:00I WANT A DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF THE THINGtrawlermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05540909996117280033noreply@blogger.comBlogger97125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-18312699653469775262020-07-15T04:00:56.816-04:002020-07-15T04:00:56.816-04:00It really is all about fishing. It would be nice t...It really is all about fishing. It would be nice to travel all over the world and fish for multitudes of different kinds of fish but in reality we are talking budget. In reality we're talking about the best fishing vacation on a budget. <a href="https://kayakfeature.com/how-to-get-fish-smell-out-of-the-house/" rel="nofollow">How To Get Fish Smell Out Of The House?</a><br />Andy_Designhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05491579250604996175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-82648842427420441112020-04-12T07:16:08.022-04:002020-04-12T07:16:08.022-04:00There is a lot of information out there concerning...There is a lot of information out there concerning the best time to be on the water fishing. There are various "apps", books, and subscriptions that show you the most likely times that fish will be feeding, thus showing you the best fishing times. The problem with most of these solutions to determining the best fishing times is that they cost money, in some cases quite a lot of money. <a href="https://kbfishing.com/the-cheapest-fishing-reels-to-buy-in-2020/" rel="nofollow">best fishing reels</a><br />L E G E N D Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13259264065708419364noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-61310846034873142702019-10-26T08:22:09.326-04:002019-10-26T08:22:09.326-04:00You know your projects stand out of the herd. Ther...You know your projects stand out of the herd. There is something special about them. It seems to me all of them are really brilliant! <a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/2qgpIMfXyfrAvs5vjVFYMy" rel="nofollow">Airplane Noise</a>Herbert M. Reedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11779630473262924298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-6323914683206619432019-04-11T19:44:30.015-04:002019-04-11T19:44:30.015-04:00More Lafferty on Heinlein:
"Even Heinlein (t...More Lafferty on Heinlein:<br /><br />"Even Heinlein (this is hard to believe, and yet you'll stumble over instances of it) has patches of good humor and near funniness that croak out in another voice than his regular one."<br /><br />"For these are the heroes laying down the rules for their own accounts. The shape and resolution of the Science Fiction Story most especially, and of most human stories, is heroic. It is Homeric, Howardian, and Heinleinlich Heroic, and there is a hundred thousand year long parade of heroes to reinforce the form and shape."<br /><br />"Campbell had such writers as Van Vogt, Heinlein, Asimov, Horace Gold, Sturgeon, Ron Hubbard, Hal Clement, Russell, Simak, Kuttner, Bester, Sheckley, Del Rey, de Camp, Poul Anderson, and fifty others who were and are indistinguishable from one another. And the named ones are said to be the best (really most of them weren't) not the worst of the Campbell writers. But none of them were very good. It wasn't just that the Emperor hadn't any clothes. He hadn't any skin even. He was plain obscene."trawlermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05540909996117280033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-23881913328835316042018-08-07T17:40:06.714-04:002018-08-07T17:40:06.714-04:00Bummed I missed this post back when it was written...Bummed I missed this post back when it was written! Great thoughts all. One contribution: the theme of suffering in Arrive at Easterwine is perhaps broached in the appearance of the saint character (or whoever he is) Easterwine himself that comes in toward the end asking if some sick world can be brought to him for healing. (Roughly. Not gonna look it up right now.)Daniel Otto Jack Petersenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07278782665152906956noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-5397135048908026582017-09-16T11:05:55.681-04:002017-09-16T11:05:55.681-04:00Andrew,
A few brief responses....
The only diff...Andrew, <br /><br />A few brief responses....<br /><br />The only difference between this post as is and as it originally was in my phone's text editor (where I wrote it during a slow moment, using a bluetooth keyboard) is that I deleted 1 Peter 4:19 from the top of it when I copied it over! Re-reading before posting, I realized that I intuited a relationship between suffering and creation being present in Easterwine, but I couldn't remember anything clearly from the novel (my one and only read of it was already over a year ago) to support a reading of those who suffer. Neither did I want to spend any time developing an idea of "the will of God" or "committing one's soul to doing good" in relation to the novel. So, yeah, very, very rich stuff there, and connections to be made. I was too lazy to do any of it.<br /><br />Not to Mention Camels has actually wormed its way into my head as one of my favorites. It is a fierce book. What I wrote above was supposed to be slyly funny and I had meant to include a hyperlink on my own text linking to Chris Merle's excellent find: https://twitter.com/clmerle/status/506243023442038785<br /><br />You might have missed my recent post on NtMC (and some more discussion in the comments with Daniel). I'd love it if you added any thoughts there..... http://failingevenbetter.blogspot.com/2017/06/youll-add-to-it-yourself-in-your-death.html<br /><br />As for the Jenson article, I probably agree with you. I'm sympathetic towards the narrative vs. nihilism thread of it, but I do think that he's sometimes simplistic in his engagement with literature (treating realism and ignoring fantastika) and history. Besides a basic LitCrit course in college with a handful of introductory readings, my knowledge of PoMo theory is mostly secondhand. But in that regard, I've been most influenced by guys like Peter Leithart (my favorite living theologian) and James Smith (whose Desiring the Kingdom was a breath of fresh air to me), both of whom have been much more friendly toward and embracing of (select strains of) Postmodernism(s). I haven't read any Latour, but I do know a little of his work from the times that Leithart has mentioned him on his blog. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/leithart?s=bruno+latour<br /><br />Bill,<br /><br />You know I love your work! You are definitely an inspiration in the way that you deeply, personally connect to the text, especially in the way that you re-read and re-read, allowing the text to transform you, and then engaging with it in your own outburst of visual creation.trawlermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05540909996117280033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-19484368554768746442017-09-12T03:02:18.052-04:002017-09-12T03:02:18.052-04:00Also, your Albert the Alligator reminded me of ano...Also, your Albert the Alligator reminded me of another Epikt picture I made, which is loosely based on Albert. <br /><br />https://www.flickr.com/photos/giveawayboy/26508213756/<br />Bill Rogershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08093586317659933419noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-11857748082107823402017-09-12T02:57:59.191-04:002017-09-12T02:57:59.191-04:00What a great post. I'm glad my art could inspi...What a great post. I'm glad my art could inspire someone in any way. But frankly, I'm blown away by how well you convey your thought even if you describe it as only poking and plodding. Thanks for posting!Bill Rogershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08093586317659933419noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-32613269172274009112017-09-10T22:24:01.468-04:002017-09-10T22:24:01.468-04:00I'm working back into it! =) Just acclimating ...I'm working back into it! =) Just acclimating to a new job, among other things. <br /><br />The (world-)creative impulse in Lafferty is obviously very strong, and I think you're right to seize on "ktisis". One thing that struck me in a cursory look (unfortunately no time to follow up just now): the form "ktistes" is used only once in the Bible, in I Peter 4:19— "Therefore let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to doing good, as to a faithful Creator." The epi- will change it a bit, but I still find it fascinating first that it's rough Peter who Lafferty pinches from here, rather than any of the more literarily polished apostles; and second that it's in the specific context of divinely appointed suffering.<br /><br />As to the rest, I don't at all think Not to Mention Camels is a bad book (not my favorite but really remarkable in its look at media and celebrity culture), but it is one that was meant to speak more directly to an audience of science fiction readers than any other, and in that perhaps it was destined to fail.<br /><br />The Argo cycle will be great for a treatment of alcohol used and abused, although none of it will surpass The Devil Is Dead. If anyone ever gets around to publishing In a Green Tree, there will be a surplus of material there.<br /><br />East of Laughter is a magnificent novel, one of my favorites. Of course, I tend to think his early '80s run of novels (composition date not publication) is probably his best: EoL, Serpent's Egg, Sindbad, Klepsis.<br /><br />Your First Things article is 404'd; fortunately there's an extensive Wayback: https://web.archive.org/web/20160809234247/https://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/03/how-the-world-lost-its-story<br /><br />I find the Jenson article, like much commentary Christian and otherwise on post/modernism, to be almost willfully obtuse and as or more despairing than the caricature of the modern he decries. There's plenty of other takes (including Catholic! Bruno Latour to name just one!) on postmodernism that sees a lot more room in which to work; Lafferty is obviously among that ilk——he's indubitably as or more cranky as Jenson, and yet his works sing with hope and constructive purpose (if after a bit of judicious dismemberment). That's an aesthetic we need even more today than when Lafferty was writing; may we all find it resound in our own lives and work!drewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16041903590665426891noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-65159109919273630192017-06-27T19:30:04.534-04:002017-06-27T19:30:04.534-04:00I love all of these lists. :-)I love all of these lists. :-)trawlermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05540909996117280033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-44346705692858280782017-06-27T17:44:16.955-04:002017-06-27T17:44:16.955-04:00Daniel, you're thinking of Chapter 14 of The D...Daniel, you're thinking of Chapter 14 of The Devil is Dead. It's one of my favorite things in all of Lafferty's work.<br /><br />As for the French fans, I think that they cannot resist the Cannes World that Lafferty includes in the nine pleasure worlds, where basically live participatory films run at all times.<br /><br />The Spanish fans? I think that they're just quicker than us to love and accept their devils.trawlermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05540909996117280033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-73520820250048880582017-06-27T14:51:45.093-04:002017-06-27T14:51:45.093-04:00Oops. Posted mine before I saw that Bob had posted...Oops. Posted mine before I saw that Bob had posted his. My first is his last! Not surprising at all. This happens frequently among Lafferty fans.Daniel Otto Jack Petersenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07278782665152906956noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-60890781270286399652017-06-27T14:49:15.517-04:002017-06-27T14:49:15.517-04:00Impressed you guys have both read My Heart Leaps U...Impressed you guys have both read My Heart Leaps Up. I've got those chapbooks but still haven't got round to reading them. I'm quite sure I would have by now if it was in a nice bound edition. <br /><br />I'm still saving Sindbad as the last (published) sf novel by Lafferty that I still haven't read.<br /><br />Anyway, I want to be a joyful fool too!<br /><br />Alas, after assembling the below extremely arbitrary list, I've found this is not as much fun as I anticipated. It's almost impossible for me to make this list. Almost every one of these moves far up and down the list from moment to moment as I reconsider and reconfigure.<br /><br />1. Annals of Klepsis<br />2. The Reefs of Earth<br />3. The Devil is Dead<br />4. The Three Armageddons of Enniscorthy Sweeney<br />5. Past Master<br />6. Arrive At Easterwine<br />7. Fourth Mansions<br />8. Okla Hannali<br />9. East of Laughter<br />10. Space Chantey<br />11. Where Have You Been, Sandaliotis?<br />12. Aurelia<br />13. Not to Mention Camels<br />14. Archipelago<br />15. Serpent’s Egg<br />16. The Flame is Green<br />17. More Than Melchisedech<br />Daniel Otto Jack Petersenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07278782665152906956noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-12347542980391760202017-06-27T14:17:51.108-04:002017-06-27T14:17:51.108-04:00OK, I'll play.
1. Past Master
2. Fourth Mansio...OK, I'll play.<br />1. Past Master<br />2. Fourth Mansions<br />3. Okla Hannali<br />4. Archipelago<br />5. The Devil is Dead<br />6. The Reefs of Earth<br />7. Space Chantey<br />8. Arrive at Easterwine<br />9. Enniscorthy Sweeney<br />10. Sandaliotis<br />11. No to Mention Camels<br />12. Annals of Klepsis<br />Apart from the first five, my memories are not particularly clear; I read them a long time ago. At the moment I'm more than half way through "More than Melchisedech", and finding it rather disappointing. It won't break into my top five.Bob Newmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03421070157549422261noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-43005147313590443632017-06-27T13:45:00.036-04:002017-06-27T13:45:00.036-04:00As with your comments on FB, I love your thoughts ...As with your comments on FB, I love your thoughts in the main post here, John. You've nailed it with the observation about lack of community. I hadn't noticed that. There's a sardonic satire of community as with so much else in NtMC. I can't remember if it's those eight around Evenhand that I'm thinking of (not gonna look it up just now), but there's that part where these Lords (I think) are named and they're something like Mut, But, Wut, Dut, Lut, etc. So opposite of the wonderfully diverse and fulsome cast of character names you usually get clustering into Lafferty's yarns. There's a part in one of his novels (I want to say it's Annals of Klepsis) where he mentions that there were fifty people associated with something. Then the narrator kind of shrugs his shoulders and decides to list all fifty! And it's a total pleasure to read! (He does something along these lines at one point in Okla Hannali as well and gives a brief defense of the practice.)<br /><br />Also, your mention of NtMC's popularity in Spain reminds me that I've yet to correspond with a French fan of Lafferty who didn't say NtMC was Lafferty's masterpiece. I suspect he really hit a distinctly European chord with this one! Daniel Otto Jack Petersenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07278782665152906956noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-45054031954342648342017-06-27T13:01:25.245-04:002017-06-27T13:01:25.245-04:00Sure is joyful to be a fool, isn't it!Sure is joyful to be a fool, isn't it!Kevin Cheekhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17615258563790520320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-31963624190745220892017-06-27T13:00:31.516-04:002017-06-27T13:00:31.516-04:00I suspect Okla Hannali may be his best novel, but ...I suspect <i>Okla Hannali</i> may be his best novel, but my favorite is still (still, even after deep-ending into int for LaffCon2) <i>Fourth Mansions</i>. <br /><br />My ranking would be utterly arbitrary after position 2, and merely reflect my whim and mood of the moment. Of course, I've never let that stop me: <br /><br />1. <i>Fourth Mansions</i><br />2. <i>Okla Hannali</i><br />3. <i>Arrive at Easterwine </i><br />4. <i>The Devil is Dead</i><br />5. <i>Space Chantey</i><br />6. <i>Past Master</i><br />7. <i>The Fall of Rome</i><br />8. <i>My Heart Leaps Up</i><br />9. <i>Archipelago</i><br />10. <i>The Reefs of Earth</i><br />11. <i>The Three Armageddons of Enniscorthy Sweeney</i><br />12. <i>The Flame is Green </i><br />13. <i>Half a Sky </i><br />14. <i>Where Have You Been, Sandaliotis? </i><br />15. <i>Sindbad: The Thirteenth Voyage</i><br />16. <i>Annals of Klepsis</i><br />17. <i>Serpent's Egg</i><br />. <br />. <br />. Kevin Cheekhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17615258563790520320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-9413545528459023522017-06-27T12:15:43.117-04:002017-06-27T12:15:43.117-04:00I've read seven of the novels you mentioned an...I've read seven of the novels you mentioned and Okla Hannali, which I can't praise enough.Bill Rogershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08093586317659933419noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-251580525545941712017-06-27T11:06:02.302-04:002017-06-27T11:06:02.302-04:00Daniel: I squirmed during that part. For all the g...Daniel: I squirmed during that part. For all the grotesquery I had encountered in Lafferty by then, I wasn't prepared quite for that! The novel *is* funny as well as horrific. But I suspect even Lafferty wondered if he'd gone too far indulging hellish imagination. And it's not so much about any particular depiction, but perhaps the more soulish movement of sardonic lampooning to the point of genuinely devilish meanness (hatred?). I dearly love NtMC - one of my all time faves by Laff - but something about it didn't sit totally right with me somehow. But another reading may make me feel very differently.<br /><br />Me: I think that uneasiness is the point.<br /><br />I wish that FB had a spoilers tag.<br /><br />Spoilers to follow.... (though, to be fair, as is almost always the case with Lafferty, he tells you the end in the beginning)<br /><br />One of my favorite movies is Alfred Hitchcock's Rope. It's the story of two young men who commit the "perfect murder" and then throw a dinner party on top of the corpse (inside of a crate in their apartment). The audience knows from the beginning that these two men have acted wickedly and continue to act wickedly. Yet, as the film plays out, because they are our protagonists, every time some thing occurs that may jeopardize their deadly game and reveal their crime, the audience so relates with these two individuals that they don't want these men caught, even though they do.<br /><br />I think that something similar is at work in NtMC. The protagonist, (for simplicity's sake I'll call him) Pilgrim, is immoral, wicked, evil. But since Lafferty has privileged his perspective, we slowly come to identify with him. Especially after the (anti)climax in which he makes his way to the Nine Worlds. We know that he will not repent and deserves hell, yet we keep hoping for redemption for Pilgrim. We keep hoping that he'll be saved from hell by some slim margin. (The most heartbreaking moment in the book to me is the Plugs from Suggs joke that Pilgrim can't understand is funny; even when he has made motions toward positive behavior, his motives are selfish and he cannot understand others. He has no sense of humor.) We're used to our protagonists winning something, for there to be some slim happy resolution. We don't even want our antiheroes to fail.<br /><br />The horror of the book, in the end, is that Pilgrim does not change. He reaps what he has sown. Lafferty makes us feel that all the more viscerally by having us like the man by the end of it all, and even feel sorry for him.<br /><br /> I also think that the book is an extended riff on the first kind of person that Lafferty mentions at the beginning of Moth-Eaten Magician.<br /><br />Daniel: I love your interpretation above, John. I hope that's the case. It seems plausible, but again I need to re-read it. I don't know that I so much identified with Pilgrim, thus whether I really empathised. I love your connection to the passage in 'Magician' and I think you're spot on. It's such a telling observation from Lafferty (and fits various presidents and celebrities and so on so well). Yet that could surely never be the whole story of even the most noxious narcissist. It potentially locks a person into their defining character flaw, without nuance or narrative prequel. It takes incredible skill to write a truly sympathetic (yet critical) portrayal of a truly repulsive, wicked person. Whatever Lafferty achieved or didn't with NtMC, I'm not sure he achieved that. I'm dying to know why Lafferty himself scribbled that it was a 'terrible, terrible, very bad book' (or something along those lines) when he signed someone's copy. I always think of Aurelia as his more generous sequel to the same themes of Camels. Yet I'm so very glad he wrote Camels the way he did, as it sets up the more gracious Aurelia so perfectly.<br />trawlermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05540909996117280033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-10883052037542487612017-06-27T11:05:45.523-04:002017-06-27T11:05:45.523-04:00I'm also going to copy and paste my FB post fr...I'm also going to copy and paste my FB post from yesterday (with Daniel's comments) here since I'm not exactly known for being a stable FB presence:<br /><br />G.K. Chesterton reviews R.A. Lafferty's Not to Mention Camels:<br />That is, I fancy, the true doctrine on the subject of Tales of Terror and such things, which unless a man of letters do well and truly believe, without doubt he will end by blowing his brains out or by writing badly. Man, the central pillar of the world must be upright and straight; around him all the trees and beasts and elements and devils may crook and curl like smoke if they choose. All really imaginative literature is only the contrast between the weird curves of Nature and the straightness of the soul. Man may behold what ugliness he likes if he is sure that he will not worship it; but there are some so weak that they will worship a thing only because it is ugly. These must be chained to the beautiful. It is not always wrong even to go, like Dante, to the brink of the lowest promontory and look down at hell. It is when you look up at hell that a serious miscalculation has probably been made.<br /><br />http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/nightmare.html<br /><br />"For there is nothing so delightful as a nightmare-when you know it is a nightmare."<br /><br />If NtMC isn't a straight-up horror novel, then I don't know what is.<br /><br />At first, I thought that it was Dark. Then I realized how fun and funny it is.<br /><br />(A scene I'll never forget early in the book of a child being murdered and fed into a shredder is one such moment of high hilarity.)<br /><br />Darkly funny. Terribly funny. Maybe even Grimly funny.<br /><br />The book ends on a note of pure horror. And yet it's still so damned amusing that it demands a horrified chuckle.<br /><br />trawlermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05540909996117280033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-42840732095473744472017-04-26T14:31:00.545-04:002017-04-26T14:31:00.545-04:00I would add one more quote:
“THERE IS A holiness...I would add one more quote: <br /><br />“THERE IS A holiness in a whole person or a whole world,” the patrick Croll said. “The veriest monsters inside us may be sanctified. They were put there by Him who is ‘Father of Monsters’ also. What right have we to cut them out of us? Who are we to edit God? We cut strong things out of ourselves and suppress them, and the rocks and clouds will give birth to them again. We dry up our interior fountains and they gush out again, exteriorly and menacingly. We cannot live without monsters’ blood coursing through us. Only to the whole person is life worth living and death worth dying. Here in Fourth Mansions we must be whole or we must be nothing.”<br /><br /><i>Fourth Mansions</i> - pp. 208-209Kevin Cheekhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17615258563790520320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-15250453969535633412016-11-01T14:06:27.860-04:002016-11-01T14:06:27.860-04:00Good work tracking these down! You can see at once...Good work tracking these down! You can see at once why Wolfe so highly valued Lafferty's approval, and yet also why so few publishers might have sought him out for blurbs... drewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16041903590665426891noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-81234401306233606062016-04-16T09:11:19.531-04:002016-04-16T09:11:19.531-04:00I read The Wild Knight and Other Poems a few month...I read The Wild Knight and Other Poems a few months ago.<br />https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12037trawlermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05540909996117280033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-36103467199038444032016-04-16T09:05:28.618-04:002016-04-16T09:05:28.618-04:00Lafferty:
It is worth preserving as a remnant of...Lafferty:<br /> It is worth preserving as a remnant of that early era when there were giants on the earth. And, if it is preserved, someday someone will gaze into the old kerosene-powered receiver and cry out in astonishment in the words of the Greatest Bard: "—what poet-race shot such Cyclopean arches at the stars?"<br /><br />-from "Selenium Ghosts of the Eighteen Seventies"trawlermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05540909996117280033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-27735992977866976032016-04-01T07:08:17.174-04:002016-04-01T07:08:17.174-04:00Sounds intriguing, to say the least.Sounds intriguing, to say the least.Bill Ectrichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14957393680007486942noreply@blogger.com