NINE HUNDRED GRANDMOTHERS
Ceran Swicegood was a promising young Special Aspects Man.
But, like all Special Aspects, he had one irritating habit. He
was forever asking the question: How Did It All Begin?
They all had tough names excepct Ceran. Manbreaker Crag,
Heave Huckle, Blast Berg, George Blood, Move Manion (when
Move says "Move," you move), Trouble Trent. They were
supposed to be tough, and they had taken tough names at the
naming. Only Ceran kept his own - to the disgust of his
commander, Manbreaker.
"Nobody can be a hero with a name like Ceran Swicegood!"
Manbreaker would thunder. "Why don't you take Storm
Shannon? That's good. Or Gutboy Barrelhouse or Slash
Slagle or Nevel Knife? You barely glanced at the
suggested list."
I'll keep my own," Ceran always said, and that is where he made
his mistake. A new name will sometimes bring out a new
personality. It had done so for George Blood. Though the hair
on George's chest was a graft job, yet that and his new name
had turned him from a boy into a man. Had Ceran assumed
the heroic name of Gutboy Barrelhouse he might have been
capable of rousing endeavors and man-sized angers rather than
his tittering indecisions and flouncy furies.
Thus begins the title story in
R. A. Lafferty's
Nine Hundred Grandmothers, one of the best anthologies
of sciffy short stories ever published.
My first memory of Raphael Aloysius Lafferty is picking up one
of his paperbacks in a bookstore in the mid-1970s, turning it
over, and seeing a Harlan Ellison blurb singing the praises of
"that madman Lafferty!" I really can't compare him to other writers as
he's sui generis in (and out of ) the genre. His mixture of wit, satire, fractured
reality and humor hasn't been replicated by anyone else with
whom I'm familiar. His story titles alone should warn you that
you're not dealing with some genre hack, e.g. "Ginny wrapped
in the sun," "Snuffles," "Thus we frustrate Charlemagne,"
"Hog-belly honey," "The hole in the corner," and "What's the
name of that town?"
Lafferty wrote 200 short stories and over a dozen
novels from his
first piece sold in 1959 to his retirement from writing in 1980
due to a stroke. He suffered a bad stroke in 1994 and is
also rumored to have Alzheimer's, although he's alive as of this
writing. He didn't start writing until after the age of 45, which
may explain some of the qualities in his writing you don't find
in younger writers. Other significant facts - from a
brief fan bio - include that he never drove a car,
drank (heavily until he started writing at which point he cut back),
and read and memorized Grolier's "History of the World" at the
age of ten.
He's always been more recognized and respected by
writers than fans, although he's in no way some dry-as-dust
who wrote inscrutable, esoteric prose. Indeed, his prose reads
as easily as does Wodehouse's or Thurber's (and was probably
written just as painstakingly to make it so). I envy those who
are going to dip into 900 Grandmothers
or any other Lafferty for the first time.
I should also warn those who think that the wack fantasies churned
out by Pournelle et al. (about military supermen saving civilization
from the fatal mistakes of deluded liberal scientists) are the
apotheosis of the field should avoid Lafferty like the plague
(although I'll be happy to help any ambitious Pournelle fans
with any of the big words or tricky concepts they'll find in
Lafferty).
posted by Steven Baum
5/12/2000 04:06:32 PM |
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