Thinking again about Monego's essay , which I mentioned a few days ago, and it occurred to me that one probable source for the Harvesters in Fourth Mansions  is Theodore Sturgeon’s More Than Human  (1953), a landmark work of mid-century science fiction. This must have occurred to others, though I haven't seen it discussed. Sturgeon’s novum reimagines evolution acting on the communal mind through Homo Gestalt , a multi-person organism formed by marginalized individuals who lea

Yes, I believe that there will be a coming of Christ, an actual physical appearance, comprising the eternal incarnation, redemption, and resurrection. So did Christ believe this and repeated it many times. It is to be believed literally, down to every jot and tittle of every letter. Those who have had visions of the Coming (the First and Second coming are non-sequential aspects of the same event and are neither first nor second), those who have had apparently authentic vision

“On the Joys and Trials” is an unpublished speech Lafferty prepared in March 1982 for the Oklahoma Library Association Conference. It was to be delivered on April 23 of that year. The typescript, preserved at the University of Tulsa, shows his working method. He wrote, typed the text, and destroyed the scaffolding. The pages have a handful of handwritten corrections, running word counts in the margins, and a cover sheet noting the occasion. But it is special. It is the ful

Recovery (which includes return and renewal of health) is a re-gaining—regaining of a clear view. I do not say ‘seeing things as they are’ and involve myself with the philosophers, though I might venture to say ‘seeing things as we are (or were) meant to see them’—as things apart from ourselves. — J. R. R. Tolkien, On Fairy-Stories Lafferty disliked Tolkien’s work. Even so, Tolkien is useful for thinking about the Lafferty stories that center on recovery. In “When All the Lan

Short post. Quickly sketched thoughts. Gregorio Montejo (I assume) has posted an essay on Fourth Mansions . It is worth reading. Vastly stronger than his first one. I’m unconvinced that the Alumbrados serve as direct source material for the novel, though I wish they did; even so, the direction he points to by using them is sound. I may well change my mind if I find any evidence that convinces me. Part of the reluctance is that the Pythons need to be integrated into the Four

“Are we still dangling on the thread, or has the thread been broken even before the official act (soon to be proposed) to break it ? The Ancient Instruction was to go to All Nations. But we are not the Nations. We are something different. The Promise was that the Transcendent Thing would endure till the End of the World. But we are not the World. We are quite a different world, and no promise was ever given to us.” “Nine snakes in my head! I won’t!" Thomas shouted. "It is not

In such a context . . . the values of being are replaced by those of having. The only goal which counts is the pursuit of one's own material well-being. The so-called "quality of life" is interpreted primarily or exclusively as economic efficiency, inordinate consumerism, physical beauty and pleasure, to the neglect of the more profound dimensions . . . of existence. . . . Within this same cultural climate . . . interpersonal relations are seriously impoverished. The first to

The main character in “Snake in His Bosom” is Emil Fuerst, who owns a world-renowned security firm (“Safety Fuerst”). Lafferty’s story has three characters. It can be enjoyed literally as a story about a life-or-death game with betrayal: so, first, the plot, told straight. On the day of the story, Fuerst is playing what he calls a Hunter-and-the-Hunted game with a master burglar known as Gatto. It is a duel meant to test his security system and Gatto’s cunning. The setting is

"Panic Flight" is an early, unpublished Lafferty story that satirizes science fiction before Lafferty cast his lot in with it. The only comments on the story speculate that it failed to sell because the market was unwilling to be twitted by an unknown upstart. More likely, the story did not sell because it is oddly unbalanced and not very good. It wants to do too much with too little. On the one hand, there is the lampooning of science fiction language. This sits at the front

“In any case the Apollonius story is not just a series of ‘and thens’: it drives us on toward a conclusion which restates the theme of the opening. At the beginning Apollonius encounters a king who is living in incest with his daughter, so that his daughter is also his wife: at the end Apollonius himself is a prince united with his lost wife and daughter. The story proceeds toward an end which echoes the beginning, but echoes it in a different world. The beginning is the demo

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. — Genesis 1:6 Then came the clear instant . . . when it was shattered completely and the blue sky was seen supreme. The unpatterned primordial water in "Love Affair with Ten Thousand Springs"  has me thinking about Lafferty’s short story "Encased in Ancient Rind,” a pretty gloomy piece in the felix culpa  tradition. Both the Fall and the Flood have already happened

“Do you understand what had to be done? The world had to be unvoided; the chaos had to be unchaosed; the spoil had to be unspoiled; and it must be continued. Everything has to be patterned and structured, continuously. That is the real beginning: the patterning." And Lafferty’s story, "Love Affair with Ten Thousand Springs," is pretty characteristic of him, about a man who loves springs and their "pegeids" (analogous to naiads). They are all imperfect, and the pegeid at the c

Simon Frakes stood there with his grin that was a caricature as a cartoonist might have drawn it. He was there. Then only his grin was there, mocking them in the empty air. "I’m sure that I know that grin from somewhere," Professor Dodgson mumbled. Ah, but memory is a cat-like thing. It creeps away soft-footed, and is gone. "If you do not believe this, then you will not believe anything," said the grin of Simon Frakes. Then the grin itself vanished, and that was the last that

“I become a transparent Eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintances—master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance.”— Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature The attempt to see into the world of Karl Kleber was almost a total failure. The story is told of the behaviorist who would study the chimpan

Following my request for a review of the materials, the University of Tulsa’s McFarlin Special Collections has updated its archival record: https://utulsa.as.atlas-sys.com/subjects/3870 https://utulsa.as.atlas-sys.com/subjects/4411 A word about this. The photograph of the Holocaust denial letter in the Antisemitism section was not reproduced from the University of Tulsa Special Collections, but comes from another source. Lafferty’s carbon of the letter is archived at Tulsa. S

A short post on a curiosity. Lafferty wrote a sequel to “Quiz Ship Loose” that has never been published. The work survives in an intermediate stage. His handwritten notes and a complete typed version exist, though he never polished it. The story is typed on lined notebook paper, a sure sign of a first-typed draft. Had Lafferty wanted to save the story, he would have next typed it out on carbons. For whatever reason, he abandoned it. In “Hooligs,” we again meet the crew of Qu

“But if I want to murder somebody, will it really be the best plan to make sure I'm alone with him?” Lord Pooley's eyes recovered their frosty twinkle as he looked at the little clergyman. He only said: “If you want to murder somebody, I should advise it.” — G. K. Chesterton, “The God of the Gongs”  "Seven Story Dream" (1961) centers on a delusional, self-exculpatory fantasy that recasts a murder victim as art. Two years before Lafferty wrote it, he had already written a sto

The professor looked at his watch, looked at his schedule, saw that he still had a little time before his final class, glanced at the final entry in the book, "I love you, Emily," smiled, closed the small notebook, and put it in his pocket. "Women have a satirical turn of mind," he said to his companion. "What? Are you sure?" the companion asked. "Blenheim denies it, and the evidence in Creager is doubtful. And Pfirschbaum in his monumental monogram Satire und Geschlecht  has

“But we haven’t any wings, father,” Job Salto protested. “You have feathers, and feathers are certainly an intimation of wings. Some of you even have a few elbow-feathers. I will call them pinion-feathers, and perhaps your elbows will have turned into wing-pinions by tomorrow.” But Darwinism and all the denials that make it up does give silly and evil answers; and it is guilty of Mistakes of Interpretation against dozens of sciences as well as against the Word of God. — unpub