'It was all very clear, for being in the middle of a mystery' - A Greeting for the Christmas Season from R. A. Lafferty

The candle molders were busy.  Candle molders?  Yes, ten at least of them were working away there, or ten thousand.  And full ten thousand bees brought wax to each of them.  There would be very many candles burning through the white evening and the white night and on into the white dawn.  Then these weren't ordinary candle molders or ordinary bees?  No, no, they were the extraordinary of both; they had reality clinging to them in globs of light.  Events gathered into constellations.

One using words wrongly  or in their usual way might say that everything had taken on a dreamlike quality.  No, but it had all lost its old nightmarish quality.  It had all taken on, not a dreamlike quality, but the quality of reality.

There was, of course, the acre of fire, the field of fire.  This acre was large enough to contain all that needed to be contained:  it is always there, wherever reality is.  There are tides that come and go; but even the lowest ebbing may not mean the end of the world.  And then there are the times and tides of clarity, the jubilees, the sabbaticals.  There is reassurance given.  The world turns in its sleep, and parts of the world have moments of wakefulness.

Ten million bees had not brought all the wax for that acre of fire, and yet it was a very carefully structured fire in every tongue and flame of it.  It was the benevolent illumination and fire of reality.  It was all very clear, for being in the middle of a mystery.  White night turned into white dawn; and the people all moved easily into the fire, their pomposities forgiven, their eyes open.

The Mysterious Master and Maker of the Worlds came again and walked upon this world in that Moment.  He often does so.  The Moment is recurring but undivided.

No, we do not say that it was Final Morning.  We are not out of it so easily as that.  But the moment is all one. Pleasantly into the fire that is reality then!  It will sustain through all the lean times of flimsiness before and after.

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

Thoughts on Lafferty's East of Laughter, Part 1 of 2

‘All of you are marooned East of Reality, and you are questing to find your way back to Reality … I myself love to play Quests.’

-R. A. Lafferty, East of Laughter (1987), p. 63

Renewed Mythology for a Diminishing World

R. A. Lafferty’s speculative fiction novel East of Laughter is a ‘Quest for Reality’ by a special group concerned about the un-detailed nature of the modern world, right down its empty-seeming atoms. It is a quest for a new narrative or new metaphor that can give real life and meaning back to the modern world, a world that has lost its mythology and is therefore barely rasping out its existence on a thin gruel of mere ‘facts’. The novel portrays this as an urgent quest because the world is in danger of total unreality—that is, in danger of ending, and, more importantly and most of all, of not beginning again.

The Atrox Legend

‘This is an article by Mr. Delany in the Dublin Docket that the Mayor of Port Erin read out loud to the citizens of the three towns as they breakfasted on Old Cow Stew.

‘“The world is being strangled by lack of input. It’s as simple as that. The silliest (but at the same time the only) explanation for the world being in such straits is that the input, till the last day or two, was funnelled by a group of mythological creatures (Seven Scribbling Giants), and that now it is failing. The silliest (but at the same time the only) seriously proposed remedy so far, is that we should provide surrogate mythological figures (neo-scribbling giants, perhaps) to begin generating input again.

‘“It has been stated (falsely) that it is the business of science to get answers to the static question What?, but this is not correct. It is the business of science to answer the kinetic question: What seems to be going on anyhow? This requires science carefully to analyze the several subjective wrappers that enclose every what in the world. If the subjective wrapper is a mythological one, why should we take exception to it? If a giant named Atrox Fabulinus and six fellow giants are felt to have been writing the world heretofore, then let us at least examine the Atrox legend.

‘“Atrox Fabulinas was a fifth century Irish Giant who sailed with pirates in his youth. He was captured by Roman-Goths in a salt-water scuffle off the coast of Spain, and he was handed on from slave market to slave market. Then a Pannonian Gothic Kinglet (Flavius Placidius Valentinianus) sent out his seneschal to buy two specified slaves for him, the sweetest-tempered giant who could be found, and the most imaginative scribe who could be found. The seneschal was surprised to find, at the very first slave-market, not only a giant who could write, but also one who was both sweet-tempered and outstandingly imaginative. The Gothic Kinglet was delighted, and he told Atrox to sit down and write the history of he world. ‘It has already been done several times,’ Atrox said. ‘I didn’t know that,’ the Kinglet answered, ‘the history of the world from its beginning until doomsday has already been written?’ ‘Not so,’ Atrox admitted, ‘only from the beginning of the world until now.’ ‘Then sit down and write the history of the world from now until doomsday,’ the Kinglet said, ‘and how long will it take you?’ ‘Till doomsday,’ Atrox answered. So then the world began to receive futuristic input. And now it cannot get along without.

‘“Why am I, the renowned Daniel Delany, top scientist and scholar, jabbering such nonsense as this in print? For this reason: When we wade into the treacherous waters of reality, science serves us remarkably well at first. When we wade out where the waters of survival are ankle-deep, science is our staunch friend. When we wade out where the waters of survival are more than arse-deep, forget your science! Latch onto something more aerated, something with more flotation to it. And we are suddenly, without knowing how it happened, chin-deep in the waters of survival, and the cross-currents are quite tricky. We must find New Giants, or we must drown.”’

-R. A. Lafferty, East of Laughter (1988), pp.112-113

A Reader’s Guide to Science Fiction on R. A. Lafferty:

‘R. A. LAFFERTY is possessed—a madman, a wild talent. He has created a grammar and syntax all his own, virtually a language all his own, despite the fact that taken one by one all the words he uses are English. One simply cannot begin a Lafferty story and mistake it for anyone else’s.

‘To detail the speculative elements or plots of his major novels would be meaningless, since plot, while undisputably present, has little or nothing to do with Lafferty’s charm and appeal. The speculations are toss-offs, believable in context but not real extrapolation. His novels are: Fourth Mansions, Past Master, The Reefs of Earth, The Devil is Dead, Space Chantey, Arrive At Easterwine, The Flame is Green, Strange Doings, Not to Mention Camels, and Apocalypses. They vary considerably, but the basic theme of Lafferty’s work is power: mental, physical, or political. The end result of his style is the complete annihilation of the fabric of reality.

‘In Lafferty’s world there are strange forces at work. Aliens studying Earth life who know that the planet will kill them. A corporation that leases miracle-makers and god-effects. People who are identified only by the color of their auras. Mindweaves that cause earthquakes. Killing machines that are activated by treasonous thoughts or actions, as defined by the machine. Land masses that appear and disappear at whim. Umbrella men who can change reality.

‘Lafferty’s world is not always comfortable, since he takes particular delight in subtly twisting the meanings of words. His world is usually delightfully absurdist, and often bristling with pins to prick the soap-bubbles of whatever you hold sacred. Lafferty is fun, sophisticated, and utterly insane.

‘(There is no one who writes like R. A. Lafferty, so if you like one of his books, find some more.)’

- A Reader’s Guide to Science Fiction (1979) by Baird Searles, Martin Last, Beth Meacham, and Michael Franklin, pp. 97-98

We Must Find NEW GIANTS, or We Must Drown

“The world is dying of anemia, you know, for lack of input.”

“The world is doomed unless it can find new input to revivify its bloodstream.”

-R. A. Lafferty, East of Laughter, p. 109

An article by Mr. Hennessee from the Dublin Docket:

“The world is being strangled to death by lack of input.’ (p. 110)

“It is the business of science to answer the question What?, but it is not the business of science to answer the questions How? and Why?” (p. 111)

An article by Mr. Delany from the Dublin Docket:

“The world is being strangled by lack of input.” (p. 111)

“It has been stated (falsely) that it is the business of science to get answers to the static question What?, but this is not correct. It is the business of science to answer the kinetic question: What seems to be going on anyhow? This requires science carefully to analyze the several subjective wrappers that enclose every what in the world. If the subjective wrapper is a mythological one, why should we take exception to it? If a giant named Atrox Fabulinus and six fellow giants are felt to have been writing the world heretofore, then let us at least examine the Atrox legend…

“Why am I, the renowned Daniel Delany, top scientist and scholar, jabbering such nonsense as this in print? For this reason: When we wade into the treacherous waters of reality, science serves us remarkably well at first. When we wade out where the waters of survival are ankle-deep, science is our staunch friend. When we wade out where the waters of survival are more than arse-deep, forget your science! Latch onto something more aerated, something with more flotation to it. And we are suddenly, without knowing how it happened, chin-deep in the waters of survival, and the cross-currents are quite tricky. We must find New Giants, or we must drown.”

-pp.112-113

An article by Mr. Monroney from the Dublin Docket:

“In this horrifying emergency, I can only advise, as a scientist and man-of-letters: Be brave, be hopeful, Do Nothing.” (p.113)

“The failure of worldwide input is only the failure of grace.” (p. 118; said by Father Joseph Kirkpatrick from the Scottish coast.)

“Do you believing in Giants?” Jane Hunting-Horn Chantal asked [Father Kirkpatrick].

“Of course I believe in giants…

“I mean the Writing Giants who write the world?”

“They would have no power if it were not given to them from above… Be cheerful all, and walk in the Faith and the Light.” (pp. 118-119)

They Learned that a Quest for Reality is Possible

‘Several of them were like pigs in clover all that Monday. Oh, how they did pack it in! They were gluttons for all the facts and pseudofacts that could be found in the catacombs and libraries and the storied countryside of the Parisi villa near Sora in the middle mountains of Italy. They wined and dined, and they exuberated in the wonderful air that was itself like wine, specifically the wonderful red Pramnian wine.

‘But they did receive several warnings during the day that all was not right.

‘“Atrox is sulky, Atrox is furious,” said an old lady of the neighbourhood, Gioia di Sotto La Montagna, “and when Atrox is both sulky and furious, somebody always dies in a bloody scandal.”

-R. A. Lafferty, East of Laughter (1988), p. 54

‘But the extended Group of Twelve did begin to get a grasp on reality that afternoon and night. They learned, from sources not completely suspect, that the world is indeed built on a substratum of reality, that there is a genuine and ringing reality beneath all things, that there are favored places and circumstances where everything is endowed with detailed reality, even the interiors of atoms. They also learned that they themselves were outside of reality, that they had never touched it at even one point, but that sometimes they came close. They were imbrued, all through their happy suppertime and into the night hours, with an almost-happy philosophy. They hadn’t yet come to the centrality of the philosophy, but they found themselves more and more on the near fringes of it as they discussed and reveled and studied. They learned that a quest for reality is possible.’

-East of Laughter, pp. 55-56

“You know so much mother, do you know what quest we are on?”

“Yes. All of you are marooned East of Reality, and you are questing to find your way back to Reality. So you have come to the Castle originally named East of Laughter though now the name has generated simply to Gaire or Laughter. And yet we are still somewhat to the East of the thing itself. I myself love to play Quests.”

-East of Laughter, p. 63

What We Are Smelling is Cosmic Fraud

“What we are smelling is cosmic fraud,” Leo Parisi said. “Everything is composed of ninety percent of nothingness, and when we come down to the smallest units of it, it is composed of more than ninety-nine percent of nothingness. I seem to remember old physics texts in which more than fifty sorts of sub-atomic particles were mentioned. But nobody remembers such texts or particles now. There is something wrong. The whole world should not have forgotten things so pertinent and so fulfilling.”

…

“And we intuit the need for fifty, at least, of them,” Solomon Izzersted said with real wonder in his ugly little voice. “Why aren’t the particles there? – for they aren’t.”

“It’s the same with musical notes,” Perpetua Parisi said sadly… “Open up a musical note and you’ll find that it’s ninety-nine percent empty,” Perpetua said. “I still don’t understand how they’re so pretty when they’re so empty.”

“There is something else,” said Solomon Izzersted. “Both myself and my alter ego John Barkley Towntower, as well as Jane Chantal and Hilary Ardri and Hieronymous Talking-Crow have noticed it and been spooked by it. We feel that we do not really live in the United States, we the only supposed Americans in this group. We feel that instead of really living in the United States, we are living in somebody’s very sketchy and imperfect idea of what the United States is like.”

-R. A. Lafferty, East of Laughter (1988),pp. 47-48

The ghost of Alexander the Great: “You worried about the detailed unreality of small units. But it is in these smallest units that these unrealities begin, and then they spread to the larger units. One adage for you then: reality is not something that one has the right and title to. It is something that must be earned. And I never spent much time in unreal lands. If you conquer one such land, what have you conquered? And if you die there of the unreality disease, you are really dead.”

“Alexander,” asked Hieronymous Talking-Crow, “can a land that was once unreal later become real?”

“I don’t know, Hieronymous, I just don’t know. You are talking about your America, I suppose. I just don’t know.”

-East of Laughter, p. 53