(urth) Apocalypses

[Daniel Otto Jack Petersen]

*Ecumenical RAL was not.*

Don't count him out too quick on that - ever read his 'Ishmael into the
Barrens' (similar in theme to 'And Walk Now Gently Through the Fire')?
 ('Ishmael' is collected in Four Futures, edited by Asimov.)  There's a
surprising Christian-Jewish-Muslim counterculture community united in
theism against the dystopian secular state of the story.  I think this kind
of thing comes up a few more times in his body of work.  It's one of the
many examples throughout his fiction of a profound generosity in tension
with an equally profound antipathy toward his ideological adversaries.  (To
be honest, I think you find something similar in Wolfe at an intellectual
rather than emotional level:  he doesn't show antipathy, I think - quite
the reverse.  But he seems to have some ideas of what 'right doctrine'
(orthodoxy) is.  He just argues for it very, very subtly and open-endedly
and in deep, deep conversation with 'heresy' and 'infidelity'.  Really,
Laff did as well - he's just more cantankerous.)

By the bye, my Lafferty blog gets its name from the story 'And Walk Now' in
case people hadn't picked up on that:  The Ants of God Are Queer
Fish<http://antsofgodarequeerfish.blogspot.co.uk/>
.

-DOJP


On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 4:19 AM, Matthew King <automatthew at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mar 28, 2014, at 8:39 PM, "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <danldo at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > The Good Fish are, of course, Catholics...for what that's worth in this
> particular hunt.
> >
>
> One might more generally say they are members of the body of the Christ.
>  Except it's Lafferty we're talking about, on a Gene Wolfe mailing list, so
> yes, probably Catholics.  Ecumenical RAL was not.
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-- 
Daniel Otto Jack Petersen
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