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Hiroshi Inoue and More Than Melchisedech

Writer: Jon Nelson
Jon Nelson
Sep 29
1 min read

Updated: 6 hours ago

Painting of Melchizedek presenting bread and wine to Abraham, surrounded by attendants.

Hiroshi Inoue recently completed a Japanese translation of More Than Melchisedech (unpublished) and published this truly excellent commentary in a Japanese fanzine. The English translation below restores Lafferty’s original wording wherever Inoue quotes the novel. I agree with most of his argument, including his account of how the novels relate to the short stories. He lays it out with exceptional clarity.


Page 1 of Hiroshi Inoue’s commentary on Melchisedech Duffey, introducing the novel’s mysteries and Duffey’s many lives.
Page 2 of Inoue’s commentary, discussing time and the relationship among the three Argo novels.
Page 3 of Inoue’s commentary, connecting Duffey’s hidden years with the Argo sequence and parallel worlds.
Page 4 of Inoue’s commentary, considering Duffey’s magic and his resemblance to Lafferty.
Page 5 of Inoue’s commentary, exploring storytelling as magic and the reversal of imagined and real worlds.
Page 6 of Inoue’s commentary, discussing created characters, doubles and the human archipelago.
Page 7 of Inoue’s commentary, examining Duffey as the author’s double and the struggle to sustain the world.
Page 8 of Inoue’s commentary, discussing recurrent world endings and the novel’s alternative endings.
Page 9 of Inoue’s commentary, examining the future, indeterminacy and Duffey’s journeys outside ordinary time.
Page 10 of Inoue’s commentary, exploring competing futures, storytelling and the deception of time.
Page 11 of Inoue’s commentary, distinguishing time, eternity and aeon in the novel.
Page 12 of Inoue’s commentary, considering memory, Argo and the power of storytelling to overcome destruction.
Page 13 of Inoue’s commentary, discussing the urn of ashes, the Splendid Creatures and memory of Argo.
Page 14 of Inoue’s commentary, relating Argo’s voyage to earthly life, friendship and creative freedom.
Page 15 of Inoue’s commentary, connecting the novel’s imagined worlds with contemporary literature and visual art.
Page 16 of Inoue’s commentary, examining how Lafferty’s short stories and novels fit together.
Page 17 of Inoue’s commentary, contrasting empty mysteries with the deeper puzzles of Lafferty’s fiction.
Final page of Inoue’s commentary, reflecting on genuine mystery, false magic and the trilogy’s unfinished questions.
Diagram aligning the three Argo novels as simultaneous narratives with overlapping stories and endings.
Mirror diagram linking Lafferty, Duffey, their doubles and their created worlds.
Diagram of the present as a membrane between the past and competing futures in More Than Melchisedech.
Diagram distinguishing time, aeon and eternity and their relation to the human person.
Diagram connecting Argo’s voyage with Archipelago, earthly companions and possible futures.

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