Fourth Mansions
Lafferty posits an aeons old global struggle for world domination between four groups represented as the Pythons, the Toads, the Badgers and the Unfledged Falcons. The Badgers are described:
“…even if I should tell you all about it you would regard us as a network of lodges or curious societies or comical conventions.”
[p. 60.]
“I try to live by certain norms, squarely as a square. One meaning of ‘norma,’ a norm, in Latin is a carpenter’s square.” [p. 62.]
“Some sort of lodge or society. Pretend to take themselves seriously, like the Baker Street Irregulars. I believe they also use a little esoterism such as may be picked up from the Los Angeles quakeries. They have titles and things. Pretend to divide the world into realms ruled by themselves.” [p. 95.] [repeated on p. 115.]
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In Chapter XI the main character is confined to an insane asylum referred to as “The Long House.” His stay is referred to in several places as a burial from which he is exhumed. Although “Long House” is explained as Australian rhyming slang (“long and lazy” is “crazy”) the chapter is prefaced by a quote from Ecclesiastes 12. This Biblical reference to death and the grave as a “long home” are significant in masonic symbolism.
Fourth Mansions. R.A. Lafferty. Bart Book, New York: 1988. Copyright 1969 ISBN: 1-55785-048-8 [paper, 252 pages]. |
