Two Passages

Here are two passages from Lafferty on what it means to be called civilized. The first passage, from The Fall of Rome, contrasts Gothic workmanship with Roman prestige; the second, from Okla Hannali, contrasts Choctaw life with stereotypes of primitivism. To score Lafferty’s music, I've used a technique developed by Richard Lanham. Repeated expressions occupy the same column, and indentation shows the relations among clauses. This arrangement directs attention to how the argument develops through sentence construction. When readers call Lafferty oral, they often overlook how deliberately written it all is, at once strongly voiced and controlled.

In The Fall of Rome, notice how “better” becomes a refrain. Each concession to Roman superiority is narrower than the last, until “Yet” turns the Romans’ final supposed advantage into a defeat. The Okla Hannali passage develops its little argument through questions and replies. The two passages make a strong pair for studying Lafferty’s technique.

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