I've read the first four chapters of Fourth Mansions. It surprised me by feeling the most instantly familiar of all of his novels so far.
I should probably wait until I'm done with the novel instead of rambling and speculating. But here's a particularly unpolished ramble just the same.
The Harvesting/Brainweaving reminded me of the esp circles in Bester's Demolished Man and of Simak's recurrent theme of psychic development as the next stage in human evolution/development. I can't think of more specifics off the top of my head, but this was one prominent thread of the Campbell era. Surely, Lafferty is in some way responding to this, no, even if it's not primarily what he's up to? Yea? Nay?
Beyond the psi premise is the secret society of jolly defenders of the world. This immediately makes me think of Blaylock especially and also Powers, both of which often use such groups or recurring mythological characters operating under the radar of everyday recognition and happy to be behind the scenes. This idea of folks involved in secret realities is at least traceable back to Charles Williams and his supernatural thrillers with ordinary characters getting swept up into archetypes and arcane activities. And it probably goes back further to Arthurian myths and further back yet. What large part of this am I ignorant of?
I'm just thinking aloud, throwing this out there in the hopes of engaging someone (is blogging a step toward brainweaving?)
Past Master is a mashup of political thriller and utopia and Renaissance farce/morality tale.
Space Chantey is a mashup of the Odyssey and Space Opera.
Reefs of Earth is a mashup of Twain-like boyish Americana, tall tale, and alien invasion.
The Devil is Dead is a mashup of sailor story, Irish bender, and Neanderthal race relations.
Sindbad is a mashup of The Arabian Nights and pawn shop electronics and spy thriller.
So, it's part of Lafferty's style to adopt and adapt and make new. He anticipated remix culture. Because all of Western Culture was remix culture before it was flattened and stifled and silenced. The samples beneath his tracks are always present, always audible, yet the result is never that we fault Lafferty for stealing from Western Culture. Our ears are opened to hear the reverberations of all of Lafferty's gloriously mashed-up musical project working its way back in time, seeding itself in Western Culture as Western Culture, picking up the everlasting refrain of life and death and new life. Every seed Lafferty has sown shall die, into the past and into the future. Then life and stories will be possible again. Odysseus might make his way home if he can remember the tune to the Lay of Roadstrum. Arab caliphs yet await the stories from Chicago that will restore their kingdoms.
What is Lafferty adopting and adapting and making new in Fourth Mansions? Is it a mashup of 50s sf esp with Arthurian defenders with a literalized metaphor of spiritual ascent? And/Or something else that I'm missing?
It's also a mashup of Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle and conspiracy theory. It basically does more with eons-deep conspiracies against common man than the Illuminati trillogy does, in less space, and with a whole lot more fun!
ReplyDeleteJohn, sometimes you annoy me. You have far too much genius crumbling out of your ramblings. I can't cram as much insight into crafted essays. It's not fair, is what I'm saying.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I would guess it's pretty safe to say that Laff's psi-fi here is at least in part a response to those who were already doing that at that time in SF. I don't know if he's also drawing on other sources for this trope.
In some ways, I often find Powers to be Lafferty for a mainstream audience. All the wild mad numinosity and weavework, but in a pop-literary prose that's eminently readable and digestible. Nice to hear someone mention Charles Williams and Powers in the same breath too - I wondered if I was stretching it a bit when I did that last year: http://ridethenightmare.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/30-days-of-halloween-day-22-vampires.html .
But I hadn't thought of connecting Laff himself back to Williams, especially via Fourth Mansions, an obvious candidate now that I think of it. That's a very exciting thought. I recently discovered that Lafferty read C. S. Lewis and enjoyed his works. This makes me wonder if he ever mentions reading C. Williams.
Now what strikes me as interesting in regard to the question of whether 'secret realities' stories go back before modern times, is that I almost wonder if it doesn't so much. It might be the case that the fullness of reality only went into hiding in modern times. Before that, all the 'principalities and powers' were more out in the open, part of the worldview and experience fabric of all peoples' lives. These supernatural and preternatural things became 'secret' only in the comparatively recent 'flat' age. We have the flatteners to thank for this whole fascinating genre! This fits with Laff's sense that when you suppress (or 'edit' out, as he says toward the end of FM) the full reality, it comes back to have its revenge on you, usually in grotesque form.
Having said all that, perhaps there were sorts of 'secret realities' stories in older times, I don't know. Certainly Gnosticism was a philosophy of this in a way, and I guess ancient 'mystery cults' were tapping into such notions. But I don't know that there was much narrative of this kind - since most of the narratives put their gods and monsters and miracles and magics out in the open.
Your mashup descriptions of those five novels is brilliant! That needs to be a blurb on something! And what you're saying about Laff adopting and adapting, remixing, is so insightful. Considering Kevin's comment above, it's hard to pithily sum up what kind of mashup FM is - there are so many elements. A mashup of Interior Castle with investigative conspiracy psi-fi and... [I'm trying to think of one word or short phrase to sum up the whole Patricks and supernatural guardians sort of element - I'm not sure Arthurian is right].
Incidentally, you mention 'literalized metaphor' - that's how 'magical realism' (especially that of Salman Rushdie) is sometimes described. I've long said Laff's Fourth Mansions is maybe his most thoroughly magical realist work.
And now Gregorio (over at the East of Laughter Facebook group) has offered up yet another mashup possibility for Fourth Mansions: 'Among other things, it's an anti-panentheist slapstick comedy.'
ReplyDeleteI think slapstick and farce might actually be very important categories to put the work in. All Laff's stuff is comical in one sense or another, to one degree or another, but FM strikes me as particularly farcical in some respects, sometimes just right down at the level of the prose style. (I think I recall a wonderful description of men 'boiling' out of a car to do something rough and raucous.)
I've never had the impression the Illuminati were a fun bunch of guys. Then again, Swedenborg's pretty sombre, and Blake made high comedy of his work in Marriage of Heaven and Hell. The kind of imaginative recombining Lafferty does here has roots in Rabelais, the Roman satirists, Aristophanes, Euripides, whatever sources he's drawing on for his ideas and themes. Notions of secret history hidden within the accepted history of our world (and of secret motivations animating people's actions, sometimes unbeknownst to them as well as others) are there directly in the titles of works like The Cloud of Unknowing, so I suspect there are many roots beside contemporary ones for Lafferty's ideas here. (I lent the book to a friend many years ago, who told me in exasperation that Lafferty had comprehensively included all the archetypes of mythology in one mashup--as if this were an unpardonable excess.
ReplyDeleteKevin, I was opaquely referencing Teresa's Castles with my "literalized metaphor" comment. I was thinking of the Harvesters plots to usher in a new evolutionary moment as a misguided attempt at ascending to something greater, a dark parody of Teresa's spiritual ascent.
ReplyDeleteYes to the conspiracies. I haven't finished the book (I've only progressed one more chapter since this post), but I suspect that Lafferty is not a believer in bad conspiracies only; there may also be good conspiracies. Or no?
Daniel,
ReplyDeleteYou are too kind. I often feel like I should be developing ideas further and supporting what I've said instead of just spewing out more and more ideas. It is hard work to give a structure to half-thoughts. I rarely do that hard work. The hard work shows in your posts even as you make it seem effortless.
I had forgotten about your mention of Williams in your Powers post. (I linked to that blog of yours back before Halloween but I never went back and re-read the posts myself. I'm bookmarking it right now so that I'll do so!)
I was introduced to Powers and Blaylock through Ross Pavlac's Christian Fandom Recommended Reading List. Back in '98 or so. (I had a reversion of sorts in college at this point, returning to a faith that I had abandoned or at least thought that I had abandoned; I found Pavlac's list as I was searching the still strange and new Internet for ways to reconcile my love of science fiction with my love of Jesus Christ. The two seemed to fit but I didn't know how they fit. I'm still working this out; Lafferty helps.)
As I read both Blaylock and Powers, I found that I disagreed with Pavlac's assessment, but I have always been grateful to him for putting those two on my radar.
http://www.christian-fandom.org/readlist-pavlac.html
Now I'm going to quote a big chunk of your comment:
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Now what strikes me as interesting in regard to the question of whether 'secret realities' stories go back before modern times, is that I almost wonder if it doesn't so much. It might be the case that the fullness of reality only went into hiding in modern times. Before that, all the 'principalities and powers' were more out in the open, part of the worldview and experience fabric of all peoples' lives. These supernatural and preternatural things became 'secret' only in the comparatively recent 'flat' age. We have the flatteners to thank for this whole fascinating genre! This fits with Laff's sense that when you suppress (or 'edit' out, as he says toward the end of FM) the full reality, it comes back to have its revenge on you, usually in grotesque form.
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That all is excellent and I'm going to re-read that paragraph several times. I do think that you're on to something and I'm glad I put up this post just to see that comment. I will definitely give this much thought.
That said, what was at the back of my mind was 2 Kings 6:8-23, especially 15-17.
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When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. And the servant said, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” He said, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
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“Reality” is always richer than we experience it to be. An undefended city has chariots of fire all around if only we could see. The real ruling powers of any locality may very well be the Patricks. If only we could see.
The mashup descriptions of the novels are my half-baked thoughts toward an essay on Lafferty and the Canon. Again, it’s easy enough for me to throw out these suggestions. The hard work is yet to be done.
As for “literalized metaphor,” I did not know of the Magic Realism connection. As I wrote above, that phrase was my not very clear way of describing what I thought Lafferty was doing with Teresa’s Interior Castles. But I’m glad to hear of this connection. I don’t have much experience with “Magic Realism.” My older sister (ten years older) tried to get me to read Marquez and Borges back when I was still an impressionable youth, but I was too busy reading science fiction. :-)
Martin,
ReplyDeleteYes, those roots in the satirists are there. The Rabelais connection makes me happy. And I hope to get the chance to explore it further. As devout as Lafferty always was (and I don't doubt this,) he couldn't hold in (at least in print) the belly laugh at all of the everything. Lafferty was nothing if not earthy, physical, solid, even gaseous. I think that we tend to think of Lafferty as an old man because that's when he appeared on the scene. But that's probably wrong. Lafferty was always a lusty *young* man into his old age.
Thanks for the reference to Cloud of Unknowing. I think that you're on to something. Lafferty seemed to be concerned with knowing an unknowing and unknowing knowings. There is definitely a mysticism there even if we have trouble unpacking it.
Slight correction/clarification:
ReplyDeleteI think that it is precisely because Lafferty was devout that he couldn't hold in the belly laughs at the all of the everything.