4 ms·

Are you saying that he writes in a style that fits Japanese culture? I looked at his wikipedia page and it looks like his influences are irish/catholic/native a

by mojoe 12y ago

Are you saying that he writes in a style that fits Japanese culture? I looked at his wikipedia page and it looks like his influences are irish/catholic/native american tall tales. Do you know how he got popular in Japan? In any case he looks interesting, thanks!

walterbell 12y ago
> Do you know how he got popular in Japan? No idea, I've wondered about that as well. He read/spoke about a dozen languages and sort of blazed his own trail. For some reason, his stories received Japanese translations and awards, http://hc2.seikyou.ne.jp/home/DrBr/index.html http://hc2.seikyou.ne.jp/home/DrBr/index.html His work was difficult to find for the last 20 years, but last week all of his short stories became available as an ebook.
lobster_johnson 12y ago
I don't think it's necessarily because of any particular fit, it's just those odd "big in Japan" [1] phenomena where an artist reaches a higher celebrity status in a foreign country, especially in Japan. Lafferty is closer in style to authors like Vonnegut, Dick, Burroughs and Murakami than to more classical scifi writers. Lafferty is an oddity. If you think Vonnegut is a bit of an oddball — that digressive, chatty, ironically self-referential style is not for everyone — then Lafferty is something else again. His writing sometimes borders on schizophrenic ramblings, mixing baroque allegory with Vonnegutian tall tales, flamboyant artifice (Wes Anderson comes to mind, but also Borges) and broad vaudeville comedy, with no attention to realism. However, beneath the oddball exterior is a rather thoughtful humanist. His most well-known novel, Past Master, is masterpiece in which politicians from the future kidnap Thomas More to help fix their utopian society. It sounds like something Alfred Bester (who was also into this sort of colourful, balls-to-the-wall storytelling) could have written, but goes off in an unexpected direction. If you want to read only one thing by Lafferty, I think it should be the short story "Thus We Frustrate Charlemagne", one of the finest time-travel paradox stories ever written. It's short, can be read in its entirety on Google Books [2]. (Edit: Actually, Google Books' preview skips two pages, not sure if it's possible to get them.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_in_Japan_(phrase) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_in_Japan_(phrase) [2] http://books.google.com/books?id=Y_FoU_KMOmkC&pg=PA171&lpg=PA171&dq=thus+we+frustrate+charlemagne&source=bl&ots=C8LJ3mM0ga&sig=uwlD52BdXB5Fsefwe7hJmPW0f0U&hl=en&sa=X&ei=AtpmVMifBrjbsATG84LQAw&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=thus%20we%20frustrate%20charlemagne&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=Y_FoU_KMOmkC&pg=PA171&lpg=P...
- walterbell 12y ago
  Try https://sites.google.com/site/thebooksofsand/the-man-who-talled-tales---r-a-lafferty https://sites.google.com/site/thebooksofsand/the-man-who-tal...
  - lobster_johnson 12y ago
    Awesome, thank you!

by mojoe 12y ago

walterbell 12y ago

> Do you know how he got popular in Japan? No idea, I've wondered about that as well. He read/spoke about a dozen languages and sort of blazed his own trail. For some reason, his stories received Japanese translations and awards, http://hc2.seikyou.ne.jp/home/DrBr/index.html http://hc2.seikyou.ne.jp/home/DrBr/index.html His work was difficult to find for the last 20 years, but last week all of his short stories became available as an ebook.

lobster_johnson 12y ago

I don't think it's necessarily because of any particular fit, it's just those odd "big in Japan" [1] phenomena where an artist reaches a higher celebrity status in a foreign country, especially in Japan. Lafferty is closer in style to authors like Vonnegut, Dick, Burroughs and Murakami than to more classical scifi writers. Lafferty is an oddity. If you think Vonnegut is a bit of an oddball — that digressive, chatty, ironically self-referential style is not for everyone — then Lafferty is something else again. His writing sometimes borders on schizophrenic ramblings, mixing baroque allegory with Vonnegutian tall tales, flamboyant artifice (Wes Anderson comes to mind, but also Borges) and broad vaudeville comedy, with no attention to realism. However, beneath the oddball exterior is a rather thoughtful humanist. His most well-known novel, Past Master, is masterpiece in which politicians from the future kidnap Thomas More to help fix their utopian society. It sounds like something Alfred Bester (who was also into this sort of colourful, balls-to-the-wall storytelling) could have written, but goes off in an unexpected direction. If you want to read only one thing by Lafferty, I think it should be the short story "Thus We Frustrate Charlemagne", one of the finest time-travel paradox stories ever written. It's short, can be read in its entirety on Google Books [2]. (Edit: Actually, Google Books' preview skips two pages, not sure if it's possible to get them.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_in_Japan_(phrase) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_in_Japan_(phrase) [2] http://books.google.com/books?id=Y_FoU_KMOmkC&pg=PA171&lpg=PA171&dq=thus+we+frustrate+charlemagne&source=bl&ots=C8LJ3mM0ga&sig=uwlD52BdXB5Fsefwe7hJmPW0f0U&hl=en&sa=X&ei=AtpmVMifBrjbsATG84LQAw&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=thus%20we%20frustrate%20charlemagne&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=Y_FoU_KMOmkC&pg=PA171&lpg=P...

walterbell 12y ago
Try https://sites.google.com/site/thebooksofsand/the-man-who-talled-tales---r-a-lafferty https://sites.google.com/site/thebooksofsand/the-man-who-tal...
- lobster_johnson 12y ago
  Awesome, thank you!