Consensus Reality and Enniscorthy Sweeney
- Jon Nelson
- Mar 18
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 21
When people talk about The Three Armageddons of Enniscorthy Sweeney, two words inevitably come up: consensus reality. Ask what it’s about, and the answer will likely be the same—consensus reality. But to me, that is like saying Moby-Dick is about whaling or The Sound and the Fury is about Yoknapatawpha County. True. That can't be wrong.
Here is something that might be wrong. What does the book say about consensus reality?
On my reading, Lafferty skewers it. He presents consensus reality as absurd and dangerous, particularly through Enniscorthy. His influence—along with the pseudo-memories of his wife, Mary Margaret—are about the malleability of perception and the manipulation of history, collective and personal. Doctor Devonian’s theories mock intellectualism’s attempts to simplify social reality, while the Armageddon Cults and war games critique humanity’s obsession with catastrophe and its detachment from consequences. Captain Nemo’s uncertain existence illustrates what happens to personhood when the line between reality and fiction is erased—what he calls the Who-am-I? Who-am-I? syndrome.
I am Captain Nemo, the Detective, and my assignment is to protect the composer of music and creator of operas, Enniscorthy Sweeny, from the murderous kindness of a creature named Marshal Mosco. That is all that I can tell you about myself, and the reason is that it is all that I know. I have the mind-scrub characteristic, as have most of us nonorganic web persons. Every time I go on a case or am assigned to a new task, all previous cases are scrubbed from my mind to give me clarity and room to operate. This gives us web persons efficiency which we always need because of our general lack of substance. This gives me myself a lot of uneasiness and fear also. I suffer from the Who-am-I? Who-am-I? syndrome.
The "Holy Smoke" motif satirizes the way people rationalize and accept grotesque realities. The book isn’t just about consensus reality but about the dangers of letting collective belief override truth, the human tendency toward destructive irrationality, and how art itself will not protect you from either.
I wish that discussions about Lafferty sounded more like this: Moby-Dick and The Sound and the Fury are about forces we can’t control—whether it’s nature or the past—and the price we pay for letting them consume us. That claim won’t set the world on fire or even earn you a "B+," but at least it says something.
Current notes:
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