Talk:Fourth Mansions

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[edit] The Meaning of the Novel

In Interior Castle the castle is a metaphor for a soul (hence the word "interior" in the title, I suppose). The different rooms or "mansions" are different states of the soul. In the middle of the castle the soul would be in the purest possible state, which equals Heaven. The whole thing is a metaphor for the soul's journey towards Heaven, which journey isn't linear, and may involve going through the same rooms or states many times.

My question is, on what basis is Lafferty's Fourth Mansions about what this Wikipedia article claims it to be? My take would be, though I haven't read the book in a while, that Foley represents the everyman (or woman) in a journey towards Heaven, and the four types of creatures are metaphors for different states of the soul. But of course almost everything in Lafferty is more than just metaphor: it's multi-dimensional multi-functional symbol. 88.148.149.48 18:02, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

No, Foley is a representative of humanity. Remember, it's a historical view of humanity: he mentions the French revolution and a bunch of other examples. (This is more obvious if you read his more historical novels; The Devil is Dead is another novel on the same theme as Fourth Mansions but less accessible - for example, it shares some characters with The Flame is Green.) I don't think it's a soul's journey; for example, how would one become a python and then a toad? It would seem difficult to become a badger then a falcon, or vice versa. --Gwern (contribs) 00:20 12 December 2006 (GMT)