Hiroshi Inoue recently completed a Japanese translation of More Than Melchisedech (unpublished) and published the following sharp commentary in a Japanese fanzine. It's well worth reading. Translated into English with Lafferty's text inserted.

My impression A totally crazy story! Three Homers and two Reginas, not to mention the kids. Once again, the author takes aim at science, this time at the depth psychology of Carl Gustav Jung. The archetype theory, already exploited countless times in science fiction, is taken to absurd extremes here. The funniest part: the kids don't bat an eye when Homer, the monster, tries to devour their mother. This act, which Regina finds exceptionally enjoyable, is perhaps the author'

Raphael Aloisius Lafferty’s most interesting work, however, takes place on the distant planet Camiroi and is titled “Primary Education of the Camiroi” (1970). A group of Earth teachers visit to study the school system. Informality rules Camiroi (“any citizen of Camiroi competent to perform any task on the planet”), and to form a Parents-Teachers Association, the Earthlings must randomly select the first passers-by. Once the Association is formed, they tour the schools (privat

The main challenge for a newcomer wishing to visit the "reactor" is the regimen. The event lasts three days. The organizers recommend preparing for around-the-clock work, just like in science fiction writer Raphael Lafferty's short story "The Long Night From Tuesday to Wednesday." The goal of the all-night vigil is the same as in the story—to live several lives in one night. At the same time, the designers of the "knowledge reactor" immediately disclaimed responsibility for t

Philippe Curval: Haven’t you noticed, on the other hand, that a large number of works appearing in general literature collections claim to be science fiction but are absolutely not? Pierre Versins: It is indeed a new phenomenon. Science fiction novels have always been published everywhere. In the past, people would say: this is a philosophical tale, not science fiction, don’t be fooled; now, they try to make people believe the opposite. Except for people like Dino Buzzati or

This might be a rather far-fetched analogy, but Lafferty’s style is somewhat similar to that of Seabozu, the ghost monster that appeared in episode 35 of the tokusatsu drama Ultraman (the original series), titled “Monster Graveyard” (directed by Akio Jissoji, written by Mamoru Sasaki). As anyone who has seen this episode knows, Seabozu is a monster with a grotesque appearance, with its exposed skeleton, and is known as a “ghost monster.” However, Seabozu did not appear on Ear

“Seven-Day Terror” is one of those Lafferty stories that everyone seems to enjoy. It first appeared in the March 1962 issue of Worlds of If and belongs to Lafferty’s early series about the precocious and cheerfully dangerous Willoughby children. This time, nine-year-old Clarence constructs a “disappearer” from a beer can and two pieces of red cardboard. His experiment wreaks havoc on cats, fire hydrants, automobiles, houses, and finally a grocer. Now for some extreme Lafferty

“I’m Marco Rixthaler,” the young man said. “I am the son of the eminent Melchior Rixthaler.” — Aurelia Thinking about Aurelia and her crash landing a few weeks ago put me in mind of one of Lafferty’s best translations, his version of a poem by Fernán Caballero, the pseudonym of Cecilia Böhl de Faber. She was one of the most important Spanish writers of the nineteenth century. Born in Switzerland, she became associated with Spain, especially Andalusia, whose customs, landscape

There are persons with a strong interest and affection for themselves and themselves alone. There are persons with a strong interest and affection for the world about them, and for its furniture and people. So far as I know, these are the only two sorts of people there are, and the difference between these two sorts is very deep. It would seem that the persons of the first sort, having no real interest in other persons at all, would not be interesting to those other persons e

It is like starting a big bird off to fly, and it all comes apart in your hands. — Archipelago When Lafferty titled his translations, he chose Vogelsprachenkund, a word that appears several times in his work and informs “Bird-Master,” one of his great stories. In Friedrich Rückert’s “Aus der Jugendzeit,” the phrase Vogelsprachekund means something like “knowing the language of birds” or “versed in bird-speech.” Rückert addresses the child’s mouth as full of unconscious wisdo

"There is no way that I myself can be hurt. I am beyond that. I can be killed, but I cannot be hurt. I have a 'Home Free' certificate. And how does one get such a thing? One reaches out the hand, and it is given. If you don't have such a ‘Home Free’ entitlement, it is only because you didn't hold out your hand for it. People of my governorship, if I were to give you hard sayings you would try to figure them out and perhaps fulfill them. Because I give you easy sayings, which

Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) was one of Lafferty’s favorite poets. At one point, he wrote to Sheryl Smith about his experience translating him, saying, "I didn't know you translated Heine. So did I when I was a young person. So did Henry James when he was young, and Maurice Baring, and Lord Acton. Heine avoids the hoppety-hop himself, but most of his translators fall into it. I did." Heine’s “The Grenadiers” (written c. 1816) is a lyric about loyalty, honor, and the pull of nat

Goethe's "Erlkönig" (1782) is a classic of weird poetry. It tells a story about a father riding through the night with his child. The child believes he is being lured away by the supernatural Erlking. The poem has two obvious readings: on one, the child is seeing a real supernatural presence; on another, he may just be sick, fevered, frightened, and dying while the father keeps explaining everything away as fog, rustling leaves, and wind. The child is having a visionary exper

The aim here is to create a record of Lafferty’s translations and an episodic account of Dotty, so what follows is inevitably a bit disjointed. If it has a center, it is in the way poetry remains a constant throughline in Lafferty’s artistic life. People like to say Lafferty wrote tall tales, but in a real sense, he wrote prose poems. Before Lafferty turned to professional writing in 1957–1958, one of his hobbies was translating poetry. (I’ll include a list of his translation

This post is prickly and polemical. Deliberately so. The Science Fiction Encyclopedia and its online iteration are important resources that I have relied on for years. The entry on R. A. Lafferty falls short. For many readers, it will be their first critical encounter with Lafferty’s legacy. And because the Encyclopedia is bounded by science fiction as a genre, it imposes limits that cannot account for him. Even on its own terms, however, it trips over itself. Below are five