This Week in Google Alerts: R.A. Lafferty

Jerry Friedman · 17 Apr 2012, 17:06 · from 2012-April.txt.gz

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From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman)
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2012 10:06:28 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: (urth) This Week in Google Alerts: R.A. Lafferty
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>On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 4:13 PM, Marc Aramini marcaramini at yahoo.com> wrote: 
>>--- On Tue, 4/17/12, Daniel Petersen danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>And Tim Powers, two steps below Laff literarily, and?ONE BELOW?Wolfe,
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Oh no no.? Lafferty has "beautiful moments and bad quarters of an hour."
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>>>I think is very worth checking out for another highly original Catholic writer of wonderfully bizarre fiction.

I did like /Last Call/ a great deal.? Not /On Stranger Tides/ so much.
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>>Oh my!?Well, I will admit Lafferty is a genius, but his failure to sustain a long narrative
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Or even a short narrative.
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>>of such consistently high quality?definitely leads me to the opinion that Wolfe is the more disciplined and consistent writer.? Perhaps some of his stylistic explorations were more mundane, but ...........
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>>okay, different strokes for different folks. 

Apparently.
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>From: Daniel Petersen <danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com>
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>Heh, heh, knew I'd raise some hackles. ?I totally agree that Wolfe is the more disciplined writer (maybe also more consistent)
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No, Lafferty's pretty consistent, at least on the scale of fifteen minutes or more.
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> ?- it's just that Lafferty's fiction, at its best, speaks forth like something primal
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I'd have said the other way around.
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>- his main roots are oral and I think that might be what makes the main difference - that being the voice for his wildly unbelievable and amazing worldview. ?Also, though, the more you read him the more you realise the INCREDIBLE verbal control he often has - his best fiction is very tight and disciplined and exquisitely well honed and crafted - really surpassing the best of Wolfe I think. ?Wolfe definitely considered himself a significant step below Laff.
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I can only attribute this to modesty and a failure to outgrow youthful enthusiasm (much as I haven't outgrown Tolkien).
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>However, I have no qualms with people thinking them equal or reversed. ?I can't expect everyone to have the gifted insight into literature I (and Wolfe) possess. 

And Damon Knight, apparently.
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>-DOJP
>:) 
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Yep.
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Jerry Friedman

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