Richard's Reviews > Fourth Mansions

I re-read the book just recently.

3.5 stars.

It had amazing ideas and was better than Past Master till page 170. Then it lost my interest when it got bogged down in too much that I couldn't comprehend. I like following tangents but after a while, when there is too much and it seems like Lafferty is just bringing together a bunch of loose ends and piling one aspect on top of many others, I couldn't stay into it.

The premise and mystery are wonderful. Fred Foley is a reporter who has noticed that one man Carmody Overlark resembles facially a man who existed 500 years ago and wants to figure out whether he is the same man as 500 years ago; since 2 years ago, there was oddly no resemblance. Then there is a group of 7 people who psychically weave themselves together to try to evolve themselves to humanity's next point in evolution with some wacky science. Then there are the patricks, also known as badgers who are guardians of sort. Then there are the falcons also known as the revolutionaries.

I was interested in all of Lafferty's four groups 3/4s in. The points that shined in the book were the brain weavers, the mystery regarding Overlark and certain moments like Fred Foley's first encounter with a dr who tries to undermine his sanity and the mystery surrounding the death of an inventor (the death scene was done quite well).

It was when the Overlark mystery was somewhat resolved with a confrontational reveal where it fell apart for me. Too many loose ends come together. There is just some big battle with happenstance after happenstance and perhaps I wasn't following it well enough but I wasn't invested enough after a while to try.

The concepts are what make this great. Lafferty presents unique ideas for human evolution, where we are presently in that evolutionary scale and creates great conspiracies that run against that evolution. He also charges the book with great interpersonal conflicts that at times had me on the edge of my seat. The different characters that live outside the castle are differentially defined but I felt in particular that the falcon was inserted in points where he was peripheral yet connected to the main action in a way that created too much distance to get to know the character. Also, his revolutionary stance was complex, so complex I couldn't grasp it. That is somewhat Lafferty's style in the novels. I recognize the similarities to Past Master as there were big battles there too but in Past Master, the narrative seemed to take a structured overarching course to the end which I liked as each chapter had its focus. Here, the late chapters had many foci and the end seemed to tie things together quickly and unsatisfyingly for me. There was a Lafferty story the ending reminded me of called I believe Some of Velvet Gowns. The theme of takeover worked well in that short but not here for some reason.