Dammit, fat man, I will ask questions and I won't hide.....I'm not stupid. That's only the permanent impression I leave.

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?

"I forget a lot of the people, and mix the others up before you get around to them again," said Doll.

For all of his truth-stretching and reality-bending, Lafferty writes as one with authority. A reader may either submit or rebel. There is no question of any reader ever subjugating the text. It is too wild, too free, and always too wildly and freely in control of itself. It controls you.

Often immoderate in its reckless refusal to plot straight, drunk on its own stories within stories, The Devil is Dead is a heady book.

I, the poor reader, don't pretend to understand what just happened. Even if Lafferty does more or less tie everything up in the end and put a bow on it.

I don't understand. But I submit. 

Because there is the fragrance of something bright and true under the shambling doubling uncertainties. Finnegan is a character estranged from himself. And in his estrangement we might recognize a share of something in ourselves, a yearning for wholeness. And there are glimpses of potential wholenesses in the communion of characters that happens frequently in the second half of the book (and not so infrequently in the first.)

This is not a review. I rarely do reviews. This is an almost-immediate post-read ramble. A small raving attempt at grasping this book from one possible angle.

"a joyous death to you all!"

All the Stories

ISFDB lumps all short fiction into the same list. All I've done here is take the ISFDB data (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?36) and reproduce it with the stories sorted into the three standard short fiction categories of Short, Novelette, and Novella. I'd be interested to see word counts for the novels. I don't think that many of them are much longer than long novellas.

191 Shorts

The Wagons (1959)

The Ugly Sea (1960)

Saturday You Die (1960)

Adam Had Three Brothers (1960)

Day of the Glacier (1960)

Other Side of the Moon (1960)

Long Teeth (1960)

Beautiful Dreamer (1960)

McGonigal's Worm (1960)

Try to Remember (1960)

The Polite People of Pudibundia (1961)

In the Garden (1961)

All the People (1961)

The Weirdest World (1961)

Aloys (1961)

Rainbird (1961)

Seven-Day Terror (1962)

Dream (1962) also appeared as:

Variant Title: Dreamworld (1962)

Sodom and Gomorrah, Texas (1962)

The Transcendent Tigers (1964)

Name of the Snake (1964)

What's the Name of That Town? (1964)

Mad Man (1964)

Pig in a Pokey (1964)

The Man with the Speckled Eyes (1964)

Slow Tuesday Night (1965)

Guesting Time (1965)

In Our Block (1965)

Hog-Belly Honey (1965)

Nine Hundred Grandmothers (1966)

Golden Trabant (1966)

Among the Hairy Earthmen (1966)

Narrow Valley (1966)

Primary Education of the Camiroi (1966) also appeared as:

Variant Title: The Primary Education of the Camiroi (1966)

The Man Who Never Was (1967)

The Hole on the Corner (1967)

Thus We Frustrate Charlemagne (1967)

Ginny Wrapped in the Sun (1967)

Land of the Great Horses (1967)

Camels and Dromedaries, Clem (1967)

Polity and Custom of the Camiroi (1967)

The Ultimate Creature (1967)

One at a Time (1968)

Maybe Jones and the City (1968)

How They Gave It Back (1968)

McGruder's Marvels (1968)

This Grand Carcass (1968) also appeared as:

Variant Title: This Grand Carcass Yet (1968)

Cliffs That Laughed (1969)

Configuration of the North Shore (1969)

Entire and Perfect Chrysolite (1970)

Hands of the Man (1970)

Ride a Tin Can (1970)

Old Foot Forgot (1970)

About a Secret Crocodile (1970)

The Cliff Climbers (1970)

Condillac's Statue, or Wrens in His Head (1970)

Interurban Queen (1970)

All Pieces of a River Shore (1970)

Been a Long, Long Time (1970)

Sky (1971)

Nor Limestone Islands (1971)

When All the Lands Pour Out Again (1971)

Groaning Hinges of the World (1971)

The Man Underneath (1971)

Enfant Terrible (1971)

All But the Words (1971)

Boomer Flats (1971)

Bubbles When They Burst (1971)

Eurema's Dam (1972)

Once on Aranea (1972)

A Special Condition in Summit City (1972)

Rang Dang Kaloof (1972)

Dorg (1972)

In Outraged Stone (1973)

The Ungodly Mice of Doctor Drakos (1973)

The Wooly World of Barnaby Sheen (1973)

Four Sides of Infinity (1973)

Barnaby's Clock (1973)

Symposium (1973)

The Two-Headed Lion of Cris Benedetti (1973)

The Hellaceous Rocket of Harry O'Donovan (1973)

Rogue Raft (1973)

Parthen (1973)

Ghost in the Corn Crib (1973)

The World as Will and Wallpaper (1973)

Seven Story Dream (1973)

Days of Grass, Days of Straw (1973)

By the Seashore (1973)

And Name My Name (1974)

The Most Forgetable Story in the World (1974)

The Man with the Aura (1974) also appeared as:

Variant Title: Tom O'Shanty's Aura (1974)

And Mad Undancing Bears (1974)

And Read the Flesh Between the Lines (1974)

Royal Licorice (1974)

Endangered Species (1974)

For All Poor Folks at Picketwire (1975)

Great Day in the Morning (1975)

Old Halloweens on the Guna Slopes (1975)

The Skinny People of Leptophlebo Street (1975)

Fog in My Throat (1976)

Cabrito (1976)

Horns on Their Heads (1976)

Funnyfingers (1976)

Love Affair With Ten Thousand Springs (1976)

The Hand with One Hundred Fingers (1976)

Oh Tell Me Will It Freeze Tonight (1976)

Assault on Fat Mountain (1976)

Puddle on the Floor (1976)

Berryhill (1976)

Oh, Those Trepidatious Eyes! (1977)

Brain Fever Season (1977)

Thou Whited Wall (1977)

Fall of Pebble-Stones (1977)

Bequest of Wings (1978)

Bright Coins in Never-Ending Stream (1978)

Splinters (1978)

Bright Flightways (1978)

Oh Tell Me It Will Freeze Tonight (1979)

Rainy Day in Halicarnasses (1979)

Almost Perfect (1980)

Phoenic' (1980) also appeared as:

Variant Title: Phoenic (1980)

Lord Torpedo, Lord Gyroscope (1980)

And All the Skies Are Full of Fish (1980)

The Only Tune That He Could Play (1980)

Crocodile (1980)

New People (1981)

In Deepest Glass (1981)

You Can't Go Back (1981)

Golden Gate (1982)

Six Leagues From Lop (1982)

Great Tom Fool or The Conundrum of the Calais Customhouse Coffers (1982)

Thieving Bear Planet (1982)

Square and Above Board (1982)

Ifrit (1982)

Calamities of the Last Pauper (1982) also appeared as:

Variant Title: Calamities of Last Pauper (1982)

One-Eyed Mocking-Bird (1982)

Marsilia V (1982)

Make Sure the Eyes Are Big Enough (1982)

Tongues of the Matagorda (1982)

This Boding Itch (1982)

Company in the Wings (1983)

What Big Tears the Dinosaur's (1983)

Unique Adventure Gone (1983)

Snake in His Bosom (1983)

Posterior Analytics (1983)

Pleasures and Palaces (1983)

Jack Bang's Eyes (1983)

Haruspex (1983)

Heart of Stone, Dear (1983)

The End of Outward (1983)

And You Did Not Wail (1983)

Bird-Master (1983)

Faith Sufficient (1983)

In the Turpentine Trees (1983)

The Last Astronomer (1983)

Pine Castle (1983)

Two For Four Ninety-Five (1984)

Of Laughter and the Love of Friends (1984)

The Effigy Histories (1984)

I'll See It Done and Then I'll Die (1984)

The Ninety-Ninth Cubicle (1984) also appeared as:

Variant Title: 99th Cubicle (1984)

And Some in Velvet Gowns (1984)

The Doggone Highly Scientific Door (1984)

Oh Whatta You Do When the Well Runs Dry? (1984)

The Man Who Made Models (1984)

John Salt (1985)

All Hollow Though You Be (1985)

Ewe Lamb (1985)

Slippery (1985)

Magazine Section (1985)

Junkyard Thoughts (1986)

Inventions Bright and New (1986)

Something Rich and Strange (1986)

Along the San Pennatus Fault (1986)

Gray Ghost: A Reminiscence (1987)

The Story of Little Briar-Rose, A Scholarly Study (1988)

Task Force Fifty-Eight and One Half (1988)

Rain Mountain (1988)

Rainy Day in Halicarnassus (1988)

Promontory Goats (1988)

Le Hot Sport (1988)

The Man Who Lost His Magic (1989)

Holy Woman (1990)

Maleficent Morning (1990)

Apocryphal Passage of the Last Night of Count Finnegan On Galveston Island (1990)

The Casey Machine (1990)

Buckets Full of Brains (1991)

Anamnesis (1992)

I Don't Care Who Keeps the Cows (1994)

Goldfish (1996)

There'll Always Be Another Me (2003)

33 Novelettes

Through Other Eyes (1960)

The Six Fingers of Time (1960)

Snuffles (1960)

The Pani Planet (1965)

The All-At-Once Man (1970)

Frog on the Mountain (1970)

Continued on Next Rock (1970)

Encased in Ancient Rind (1971) also appeared as:

Variant Title: Incased in Ancient Rind (1971)

Ishmael Into the Barrens (1971)

World Abounding (1971)

And Walk Now Gently Through the Fire (1972)

Scorner's Seat (1973)

Mud Violet (1973)

Flaming Ducks and Giant Bread (1974)

Mr. Hamadryad (1974)

Animal Fair (1974)

Rivers of Damascus (1974)

Or Little Ducks Each Day (1975)

Heart Grow Fonder (1975)

Three Shadows of the Wolf (1975)

Smoe and the Implicit Clay (1976)

Selenium Ghosts of the Eighteen Seventies (1978)

Quiz Ship Loose (1978)

The Man Who Walked Through Cracks (1978)

St. Poleander's Eve (1979)

The Funny Face Murders (1980)

The Forty-Seventh Island (1980)

Bank and Shoal of Time (1981)

Flaming-Arrow (1985)

Episodes of the Argo (1990)

Hound Dog's Ear (1991)

Happening in Chosky Bottoms (1995)

The Emperor's Shoestrings (1997)

1 Novella

From the Thunder Colt's Mouth (1975)

Rainbird

"In 1830 he first put on the market his Red Ball Pipe Tobacco, an aromatic and expensive crimp cut made of Martian lichen."

This great redemptive recoil

 (Illustration by Victor Ambrus, from a children's version of Tales from the Arabian Nights by James Riordan)

“Of the series of Golden Boys, of which Harun Al-Rashid seems to be a recurring unit in several but probably not all of the chains, I will say that they are pseudo-Golden-Boys,” Spy Alexander was continuing his discourse. And yet he seemed a little bit shaken by the near encounter he’d had with his head. Ah well, spies are taught to keep their heads at all times. “Only one of them was the Golden Boy, the Boy-King; but he was imitated both before and after the fact by these lines of pleasant imposters. The swift and sudden pleasures encountered by all persons in the presence of the pseudo-Golden-Boys is bait; and we are the fish who take it. I believe that all of them stem from hell. But here I must impose something that strains my Christian faith. For we militant Christians of Astrobe believe in only one hell. But the Moslems of Gaea-Earth, and other persons on other worlds, subscribe to from seven to nine hells. I believe that the fakery of the Golden-Boy-lines stems from one of the usually easy-going hells of the Moslems. It is evil, of course, and it is set in the direction of ultimate evil. But it will hardly arrive at that ultimate in this aeon, and probably not in the next. 

“The Golden Boys have no adult form, not the pseudo ones, not even the True One. Christ Himself of Gaea-Earth was not made man: he was made boy. And as a Boy, but perhaps under the appearance of a Man, he was executed, with a fantastically powerful recoil that shook Gaea in root and branch. The Lords of a more easy-going hell believe that they can ape this great redemptive recoil: and they shoot their bolts, their Golden-Boy arrows, one after the other. There it is, Essindibad and his good wife! If you have followed me this far, you have followed me five-eighths of the way to hell. Do you think you might follow me a little bit further?”

One of the few reviews of Sindbad: the Thirteenth Voyage available at present can be found here: http://ferretbrain.com/articles/article-264. It's a good review. (The same author has written of The Devil is Dead here: http://ferretbrain.com/articles/article-240.html). One big reservation that Arthur B, the reviewer, has is the novel's "unsympathetic treatment of Islam." But I just don't see it.

As Arthur notes, the buckets of blood and severed heads are there at the instigation of Harun, who has been clearly shown to be something-other-than-human (see p. 37 and other places). Sindbad denies that Harun could be a Ghul (known for drinking blood and mentioned in the Arabian Nights) but Harun himself suggests that the blood is for drinking (p. 38). That there is a wink here only shows that Lafferty, like his devil Harun, is playing with the tropes of the Arabian Nights. Lafferty is obviosuly delighting in the beheadings and the buckets of blood.

Any tension between Lafferty's novel and Islam is already present as a tension between the Arabian Nights and Islam. As I understand it, the 1001 Nights has never been all that popular officially in Islamic cultures. According to Robert Irwin, "Even today, with the exception of certain writers and academics, the Nights is regarded with disdain in the Arabic world. Its stories are regularly denounced as vulgar, improbable, childish and, above all, badly written." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Thousand_and_One_Nights#In_Arabic_culture)

"Vulgar, improbable, childish and, above all, badly written" sounds like just the sort of thing that Lafferty would cherish!

Interestingly, beyond riffing on the Nights, Lafferty is writing a Secret History (in the sense that Tim Powers' novels are Secret Histories; related, Powers has also been charged with culture insensitivity in his treatment of Islam in his excellent Drawing of the Dark). Besides the fantasy setting, many of the events and characters have a basis in reality. One clear indication that Lafferty is not knee-jerkedly "Islamophobic" (which shouldn't even be an issue considering his obvious affection for the "Moslem monk [who] immediately recognized that they [the 1001 Nights] were thumpingly good adventure espionage blood-and-thunder yarns) is his appreciation of 8th and 9th century Baghdad and its culture. Lafferty is very positive about the reigns of al-Amin and al-Mamun even if he fictionalizes a conflict between them for the purposes of his story.

Lafferty is very much willing to "hang out" with Muslim characters and enjoy their company. Lafferty's raucous joy at beheadings and blood-drinking may seem insensitive or offensive. I can't help, though, but to think that these descriptions are given out of enthusiastic appreciation and not any phobia or hatred. Then again, maybe I'm defending Lafferty because I share in his cultural insensitivity, blinded by my Western-Christian-Anglo background.

Arthur speculates that "Lafferty, a devout Catholic, would be made decidedly uncomfortable by a book in which the investiture of a new Pope involved mass bloodshed, or in which Catholicism is written off as a historical accident." But I doubt it. Lafferty was a fan of Rabelais. I'm sure that he was familiar with the Decameron. Lafferty was of thicker skin than Arthur gives him credit for. Lafferty was, after all, published in Dangerous Visions. He was familiar with the SF New Wave and all of the attacks on crumbled Christendom that those young wanna-be rebels could muster. I'm sure that he had read Moorcock's "Behold the Man" without pulling out all of his hair. Then again, he does appear to have lost all of his hair later in life!

There probably is something, at least, to the idea that Lafferty privileges the perspectives of characters like the Astrobean Christian spy Alexander that I started this post with. When I read the above, I felt like I had finally stumbled onto one key into the book and understanding what the conflict was that had attracted so many intergalactic spies to Baghdad. It is the battling of an attractive counterfeit vision. It's important to note that Lafferty does side with the view that this vision is counterfeit. It's also worth pausing to reflect that he acknowledges and respects it as attractive.

Further along, it is revealed that "All of these dubious spirits and devils were imprisoned in the interior of one one world, Gaea-Earth.." Sindbad's mission is to prevent the release of these Evil Spirits so that they may not carry their plague out to other planets. As this is revealed, the plot seems to sharpen and I was prepared for an epic conflict. And we do get a very intense (and amusing) battle between dragons belching demons and Sindbad and the others.

But, SPOILERS.

Sindbad fails.

Okay, I didn't try too hard to keep from spoiling that from anyone reading this. Because, you know what? Even though I was disappointed as everything comes to a fizzle, a re-reading of the first chapter reveals that Lafferty repeatedly mentions exactly what the mission was and that it was technically a failure. I felt smart for teasing it out and then felt bested when my expectations were thwarted. But, if I had been paying attention, Lafferty had already clearly set out what he was doing in the very first chapter.

There's more to write, but I'm afraid that I've waited too long since reading Sindbad. Maybe I'll read it again sooner rather than later. As it has settled, it has become my favorite Lafferty novel. Partly, this is due to the playfulness of Lafferty's writing and story structure. Mostly, though, it's because Sindbad is a thumpingly good adventure espionage blood-and-thunder yarn.

And time is the one thing we have plenty of.

I've been a little burnt-out on new sf the past month. Last week, I started pulling older anthologies off of the shelf and treating myself to older stories before bed. One of these anthologies is Aldiss's Galactic Empires Volume 1.

There's not much about Lafferty's "Been a Long, Long Time" on the surface that would mark it out as "galactic empire" material. Aldiss's choice is appropriate nonetheless as he uses the story at the beginning of his anthology to ease the reader into huge vistas and enormous unravelings of time.

From the first "sundering Dawn" and the accompanying war in heaven through the million billion cycles that follow, Lafferty's sly little short conveys the passing of time as something at once brief ("Quite a while after this" is used as a segue between the moment of creation and "one afternoon at a news-stand in Los Angeles") and mightily tremendous. 

( "Then it all collapsed.

  The stars went out, one by one, and billion by billion. Nightmares of falling! All the darkened orbs and oblates fell down into the void that was all bottom. There was nothing left but one tight pod in the void, and a few out of context things like Michael and his associates, and Boshel and his monkeys.

  Boshel had a moment of unease: he had become used to the appearance of the expanding universe. But he need not have been uneasy. It began all over again.

  A few billion centuries ticked by silently. Once more, the pod burst into a shower of sparks that traveled and grew. They acquired form and spin, and life appeared again on the spot specks thrown off from those sparks.

  This happened again and again."  )

The story is a dressed-up math joke, riffing on probabilities and monkeys typing with a little bit of angelology ribbing thrown in. It works perfectly and I could see it easily placing in a "probability" themed anthology (if someone hasn't done this, it should be done). If you'd asked me if it belonged in an anthology about "galactic empires," I'd've told you that you're nuts. But Aldiss is a genius anthologist for placing this as the first story in his anthology. "Been a Long, Long Time" relaxes readers into million billion cycles with a grin. Now, the grim lords of space and time can impose their wills on epochs and event horizons and we know not to take them all too seriously. Blasters and jet packs ready, I'm hankering to save a scantily clad galactic princess or two. Let the other monkeys worry about randomly reproducing high culture.

Well, it's a living, and living in Magic Baghdad is worth everything.

One of the best parts of Sindbad: The 13th Voyage is how the narrative of Essindibad Copperbottom is hijacked by John Thunderson, the time-traveling Chicagoan youth who attempts to make a better Sindbad of himself than the original Sindbad. During one of these Thunderson episodes, our young hero visits the ninth century electronics shop of one Cut-Rate Electronics Sam. I love the following exchange because Lafferty so perfectly captures the magic of Magic Baghdad. At the same time that I’m loving this printed story, I feel spurred on to get out in the streets and dance and argue.

“Do you think we could set up an electronic age here, Sam? Set up a real electronic age and get rich from it?”

“To be in Baghdad is to be rich already. And there’s no need for a canned, electronic life when there’s a real life to be had. Why should we can music when good live musicians and singers are to be had for almost nothing everywhere? Why should we can personal dramas when the very streets are loaded with personal dramas, comic, weird, goulouche, anything you want? Why print fiction or fact when there are professional story-tellers plying their craft on every corner, and when there are heralds howling out the news on the quarter-hour? Why should we can dancing when the gamins dance and run all the time, and the very stones dance to the flute music? Why should we can ‘talk shows’ when wherever one or more persons are gathered together in Baghdad there is a talk show superior to the canned ‘name persons’ variety? Why should we broadcast weather reports when the weather is always perfect? No, Thunderson, electronics here may sometimes serve for making better mousetraps and the analogs of them, but for little more. I can, for instance, make an electronic invisibility cloak that will be better than the locally-made traditional invisibility cloaks. In a city where every citizen has from three to thirty invisibility cloaks, there is always room for a better one. I can make good electronic voices like the one I made for your wife Blue Moon here. And in a place like this where the people like to be able to change their voices as often as they change their robes, there is business to be had in ‘voices’. I make good ‘aura modification kits’, and here every person from the Caliph on down likes to have a selection of magic auras to use. And I am pushing a line of ‘electronic practical-joke kits’. And then there are all the ‘charms’, to make one person hate another, for instance. Or to make a person look like a donkey without him knowing that there is any change in his appearance. And electronic charms are simply more efficacious than are non-electronic charms. Well, it’s a living, and living in Magic Baghdad is worth everything. I don’t know what effect the change in Caliphs will make.”