The Re-Doomer Who Wrangles for Us a Second and Better Doom (wishing you a Laffertian Good Friday)

Know that religion is a repetitious act or it is nothing. The “re” is the holy prefix, since nothing is successful the first time. It must be forever the “re,” the returning, the restructuring, the re-lexion, the reconstitution, the building back from defeat. We will rebuild in the dark and in the light; we will work without ceasing.

Even our mysterious Maker was the Re-deemer, the re-doomer who wrangles for us a second and better doom, the ransomer, the re-buyer, the re-d-emptor. We are sold and we are ransomed, we are lost and we are found. We are dead and we are re-surrected, which is to say “surged up again.”

-R. A. Lafferty, 'And Walk Now Gently Through the Fire' (1972)

Sacred Visions (1991).  Contents:  Gus / Jack McDevitt -- Pope of the Chimps / Robert Silverberg -- Curious elation / Michael Cassutt -- Trinity / Nancy Kress -- Saint Theresa of the aliens / James Patrick Kelly -- Our lady of the endless sky / Jeff Duntemann -- Seraph from its sepulcher / Gene Wolfe -- Case of conscience / James Blish -- Xorinda the witch / Andrew Greeley -- Canticle for Leibowitz / Walter M. Miller, Jr. -- Quest for Saint Aquin / Anthony Boucher -- Walk now gently through the fire / R. A. Lafferty.

Stop Reading this and Go See The REAL R. A. Lafferty Blog!

Continued on Next Rock (this is the link to the blog - click on it without delay!)

I don't have words for how exciting this is.  The author of this blog is Andrew Ferguson.  He is the first person to write a scholarly paper on Lafferty and he is due to be Lafferty's first biographer relatively soon.  (The biography to be published within a few years from now, I believe.)  I know first hand from reading his academic works on Lafferty and from email correspondence and from his contributions to the discussions on this fan-blog that there is no living person who knows as much gritty, juicy, exciting detail about Lafferty's life and bibliography than this dedicated young scholar.  He is also the foremost interpreter of Lafferty, performing highly sophisticated academic pyrotechnics in his scholarly papers on Lafferty.  They will make your head spin with their intellectual rigour and utterly delight you with the insight and enlightenment they bring to a reading of Lafferty's hyper-exotic and ultra-inimitable fiction.

I'm sorry I've kept you so long with my paltry recommendation!  Go forth from here and read the REAL Lafferty blog...

Continued on Next Rock...


[it's the same link twice - for emphasis!]

Raphael Aloysius Lafferty (1914-2002)