/lit/ - Literature

Whats the difference between the 2 cover versions on kindle? Why does one cost almost double of the other one?

Although this book didn't convince me to become an antinatalist, I found it very entertaining. It's was a kinda rambly, but fun retrospective on the devleopment of pessimistic thought in philosophy, literature, and media. Got me interested in reading Mainlander only to find out that this guy isn't translated in english.

>>12578627

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>>12578646
What

He's seen therapists and taken hefty doses of meds most of his life, desu. In one interview he talks about showing his therapist drafts of his Conspiracy book to see what the doctor had to say about it. But the doctor stayed on a clinical level and instead of giving his opinion he wanted to know about how Ligotti felt while writing it, effect he thought it'd have on him after writing him, etc.

>>12578627
Different publishers. The original edition with the black cover was from Hippocampus press. The rights lapsed or something and now Penguin reprinted it with the smoking clown cover. Of course Penguin can afford to put out cheaper books.

>>12578627
>>12578729
Forgot to add: the Penguin edition has a new foreword and it's been revised by the author, but it's largely the same text.

>>12578617
Started to read the first couple pages. Does it start getting really depressing at some point or is he just being an edgelord for 200 pages?

>>12578617
This guy needs a chin.

>>12578805
the second one.

>>12578729
>>12578643
I think Ligotti is just a narcissistic actor who has been putting on this act all his life. Like the frowning goth adolescent in an otherwise prim family photo, just instead as an over-intellectualized boomer. This book is a measured tantrum.

Parts of it are extremely defensive, a lot of the time he spends slamming optimists (also fake-pessimists/crypto-optimists) for being deluded.
For motivating his arguments he hides behind thin excuses that he is trying to "sublimate" himself because it is more comfortable.

It's knotted and twisted and meritlessly self consistent in the same way Dostoevsky's underground man is. The reader is too disengaged at this point to pay attention to any insight he might have.He seems like a pain in the ass to be around. I bet all his friends (if he has any) are as bad as him or worse.

The book is at least a learning experience for doomers to stop being miserable pussies who make everything around them more awful. I could go on about the book but now I am starting to sound like Ligotti.

>>12578627
the penguin cover has a more flamboyantly edgycore cover

>>12578646
hahaha

>>12579105
>I could go on about the book but now I am starting to sound like Ligotti.

huh. thats funny innit

>>12578617
>No point to life
>The self doesn't exist so you can't die or escape ever
>so now I'm just gonna sit around being sad and anxious

He's like almost enlightened except he's just desperately holding on to all his bad thoughts. He's mourning the loss of things that never existed. Meaning is just word that discreetly describes something. There's meaning to the shape of a hammer or a book trying to give a certain message but the universe is too massive and complex for such a word to make any sense when applied. So people fail and then decide to dedicate their life to being sad. Nice

>>12578643
Ligotti isn't a pessimist he is a nihilist and there are some very important distinctions between them

Ligotti... More like Ligotti DEEZ NUTS

>>12579317
I've not read his book yet but everyone says he's an anti-natalist, is he not arguing for negative utilitarianism?

>>12579572
Despite what marketers would have you believe Ligotti's antinatalism isn't anything more than a aesthetic, it isn't explored nor expanded upon, It's just there.

>>12578617
So does he believe God is evil or something?

>>12579572
He does make negative utilitarian points. Like that suffering is the default as happiness is fleeting due to brain chemistry.

>>12579572
He mentions Negative Utilitarianism directly and agrees with it.

The vocabulary in this book is fucking nuts. Ive tried to finish this book twice in my life and I always ended up getting burned out by page 100 because I got tired of lookin up a word every two sentences. Anyone else faced this problem?

>>12579956
yeah its a pita.

>>12579993
>its a pita

what?

>>12580002
a pain in the heiny

>>12579956
Kindle is good for this, just tap the word and it gives you a definition

>>12579956
>The vocabulary in this book is fucking nuts.
I would see how you might have to look up philosophical terms if you haven't read any philosophy before, even though he often times gives concise explanations for the philosophical terms, but I didn't have any problems with the vocabulary whatsoever, and I'm a fucking brainlet, that to me is the weirdest complaint anyone would have about this book.

Pic related is a randomly picked paragraph and pretty similar to the rest. The only word I can see as needing looking up would be suppurating? Maybe collocation, but it's clear from the context.

>>12578617
The guy was a cult of personality on the back of a false economy for a ling time. His books selling for a fortune online because your were actually buying them from his and his hangers on. Hes a sad case. Ex post punk goth, bought into every thing that that entails, Lovecraft worship, Coil, etc etc Got old. Got fat. Boohoo all that stuff I dug for a minute wasnt real so nothing is real. Became edgelord. Maintained circle jerk of small vanity press “writers” and book nerds who noth bought heavily into the myth of the writer as if that whole pose wasnt just another religion. Etc predictable etc.

>>12579956
You are a literal brainlet, the vocabulary in this book is babby's first

>>12581104
The only words I don't know in this is suppurating and collocation and I can infer from context what they mean.

>>12578617
Boring as fuck, going in circles about how everything is hopeless. Gave up after reading only about 1/3 of the book.
>Inb4 finish it
No thanks. I'd rather not be a chinless wet noodle sad sack beta.