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To Slay the Folks and cleanse the land
And leave the World a Reeking Roastie
High Purpose of the Gallant Band
And six were Kids and one A Ghostie.
A child's a Monster Still Uncurled
The World's a Trap, and None Can Quit It-
The "Strife Dulanty" With the World
Was Mostly that They Didn't Fit it.
No Setting For the Gallant Brood
In Sacred Groves of Yew or Lindens
They Found a Hold More Near Their Blood
A Mountainful of Murdered Indians
A Brazen Clash of Helm and Greave
Fit Subject for Heroic Chantey
The Battle Joined That Could But Leave
Or Altered World or Dead Dulanty. This is no poem nor rhyme, but each line is a chapter from the book: "Reefs of Earth" by R.A. Lafferty Concerning R.A.Lafferty( A question I sofar did not find or get an answer to.) >> Lafferty How come R.A. Lafferty does not really have a place among the best known American writers? >> translations Germans have translated practically all of his work. Eight of his books are translated to Dutch.Two short stories made it to Finnish. In order to be translated in Dutch a writer must have somehow a best-selling reputation, if not they wouldn't bother for such a small language region.In Dutch S.F circuits people think that nothing that came after has been able to match this weird and extraordinary oeuvre. I 'm no real S.F. fanatic, but I think whoever likes language, whoever likes to have a mindboggle-time and a lot of fun would love to read this. R.A.L. twists and turns different layers of realities and juggles with time, space, history, philosophy, words , dialogues. Witty. If not genius then very ingeneous. I read three in English sofar and found three Dutch translations, dating from the seventies, in second hand bookshops here.I read one of the translations; it lost quite some magic in the process. I mean to read them all in English. (with thanks to one of your well read people who put me on his trail) What is his actual status among well known writers right now? ( I could not find anything on him in the AWAD archives sofar)
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Egad--I love that the titles rhyme, and indeed do make a poem or what could be one, but. Oh mercy, what doom and gloom! I'll see if I can find anything on him...
Edit: Google gives a lot of sites! Here's a quote from one of them:
And at the time he was working in a genre all of his own, the field saw him as one of us, so much so that he was nominated for the Hugo Award four times, for the Nebula Award seven times and for the Philip K. Dick Award as well. He received the Hugo Award in 1973 for his short story "Eurema's Dam," and later on, when he was no longer writing, the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1990. During the end of his life, small press publishers championed him, and for that we must all be grateful.
He never wrote on anything but a manual typewriter, and he never learned to drive, but still, he drove us to see new visions of science fiction and fantasy. Speaking of his own work, he said that the life of a writer was like "dropping rose petals down the Grand Canyon and listening for the landing."
And a "devotional" site:
Reading a Lafferty story is a full body experience. After a few sentences your brain goes into hyperactivity, your belly is aching from laughter and you might need to reach for the aspirin jar soon, because like all good drugs his stories tend to leave you with a headache.
I'll have to look up his works next time I'm at the library--apparently they're not all gloom and doom. Thanks!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Ah , be not mistaken. His little twists are extremely, utterly hilarious.
Read your Edit.Thanks. He's worthy of a good revival.
"apparently they're not all gloom and doom."
>(*_*) they are not at all gloom and doom....
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O.K. I make an exeptional double post and give this one a last shot. One more day of possible extra attention.(As I agree with the writer of this fragment) In praise of; given by a pusillanimous person.
Raphael Aloysius "Ray" Lafferty, the self-described "cranky old man from Tulsa, Oklahoma," is a genius: I state that flatly. He is one of the eminent English-language writers of, at the very least, the twentieth century--yet he remains little known, little read, and much misunderstood and underappreciated. Indeed, much of his oeuvre exists only in very limited print runs of cheap paper chapbooks.
As the thoughtful will deduce, the problem is that Lafferty is not an easy writer. That problem is exacerbated by the fact that under superficial consideration he looks easy; were he as obviously complex as, for example, James Joyce (and, of course, were he not "just" an SF&F author), readers and critics would likely have made some effort to look beneath the hood to see what was what; but because his works can, by the careless, be taken for ordinary stuff, his complexities--of both language and meaning--end up dismissed as just nonsensically bad ordinary writing. As a thirsty drinker expecting the taste of a soda pop might well spit out in disgust a mouthful of vintage brut champagne, so might an SF reader expecting typical SF reject vintage Lafferty.
Last edited by BranShea; 04/09/08 02:12 PM.
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I've read Lafferty, and truly enjoyed his work. Many of his shorts are readily available in SF compilations. Thanks for reminding me--I should go dig up some more of his works. 
tempus edax rerum
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Ha, one woman pro!
I'm on my way to collect all seperate vintage books.
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