Past Master

I made the mistake of actually trying to read one of Lafferty's more difficult novels, NOT TO MENTION CAMELS. A more logical place to start would be either LAFFERTY IN ORBIT and NINE-HUNDRED GRANDMOTHERS. Both are good places to start begin to fathom what Lafferty is all about. However, both are short-story compilations, and if you don't like short stories and feel you want to experience a novel, then you should try PAST MASTER, which is easier to follow and more focused than NOT TO MENTION CAMELS. Although I said that NOT TO MENTION CAMELS is a 'satisfying read' on a previous review, PAST MASTER is by far better and has more food for thought. Lafferty's off-beat style is easier to grasp and the book, which seems to be something of an allegory, and feels more complete and more thought-out. And, best of all, Lafferty conjures of up some haunting images and passages that I'll treasure in my mind for always (having read NINE HUNDRED GRANDMOTHERS I can vouch that he does this particularly well). In all, this is a probably now one of my favourite novels and I recommend it heartily to anyone who wishes to discover 'the madman' Lafferty.

My favorite Lafferty novel is Fourth Mansions, but this is a close second. Indelible images and ideas from these two books have forever penetrated my brain. I didn't have any good idea of who Thomas More was when I first read Past Master, other than that he had written Utopia and had perhaps meant it to be ironic. Since then, every bright idea for the future is tagged "utopian" (dark visions like Blade Runner are called dystopias). After seeing the film of the play of A Man for All Seasons, about Sir Thomas More VS King Henry VIII, I'd think of that character when reading Past Master. But not much background is necessary to get the story, such as it is. A future utopia is falling apart, and its leaders ask a computer to find the perfect ruler. With Laffertarian irony, it turns out to be the man who coined the term "utopia" (or popularized it), the mediaeval scholar Thomas More. Astrobe, the utopia, however, is only sustained so long as people believe in it. Or at any rate, mechanical wolf-like killers are dispatched to eliminate those who lose their belief in the Astrobe dream. The tone, however, is rollicking, with black (noir) humor, and much of the book would be at home on Futurama. Lafferty trumps himself by relating the story through the eyes of Thomas More, a stranger in this strange land. "Lafferty has the power to ignite fire behind your eyeballs," Roger Zelazny noted (or something like that). Laffertarians who've only sampled the short stories, get ready for the full-length ride of Past Master.

Past Master takes a rejuvenated Thomas More and places him in a future community which corresponds to his own Utopia. This is a novel full of heavy ideas; perhaps more than it can support; but there is a huge amount here to reward somebody who gives the book the attention it demands.