When Does Ligotti Get Good?

[Anonymous No.16781032]

I see him constantly talked about here. He's supposed to be one of the best contemporary writers, let alone the best horror writer. I've picked up his collected short stories by Penguin Classics, which has placed Ligotti as the only living author to have a Penguin Classics book.The prose is lacking and the ideas aren't enough to carry it either. I hated "The Frolic" because it seemed overly predictable and tainted with Batman's Joker (the main antagonist sounds and talks like an autistic Joker). I'm reading Les Fleurs and it has a problem with overly antiquated codes, awkward sentences, and high-flown phraseology. Should I read more and endure the Songs of a Dead Dreamer until I get to Grimscribe?

[Anonymous No.16781257]

I read him in translation and decided he had lost much of his charm, but it turns out he was boring from the start.

I'd recommend his "The Conspiracy Against the Human Race" - that shit is genuinely scary if you think about it, after reading it for the first time I felt hollow for a week or two

[Anonymous No.16781274]

>>16781257
It's good to see I'm not the only one. Maybe short stories are not his best medium. But that would be concerning because he's highly praised for them...

I'll be sure to check those out next. They sound promising.

[Anonymous No.16781317]

>>16781032
I was also disappointed by that book, although I think there are some good stories in it. Also a fair share of edgy trash. Can't remember the name, but a story about a guy going to a small town where there's some obscure festival in progress.

I got the book after the reading the story Red Tower thanks to some anon, so I can at least recommend that.

[Anonymous No.16781349]

>>16781032
Songs of a dead dreamer was his first work and therefore has all the trappings of debut derps. His prose was affected by Lovecraft in this particular collection and i have increasingly found Ligotti submerging his talents whenever he pays homage to him, even though all his Lovecraft homages are critically acclaimed (Horror critics are the lowest level of trash in lit criticism, so make of that what you will).
If you don't like SOADD move on to Grimscribe. Grimscribe is one of his best and one of the best horror collections, one of the best short story collections even. The style there is vintage Ligotti. I have read both the collections and finishing up on Noctuary and TG rn, i will just take a look and get back to you with the best stories in SOADD. I had the same problems as you do so you might likely enjoy my suggestions. Hold tight anon...

[Anonymous No.16781488]

>>16781274
>>16781032
>>16781317
Here we go.

Soadd:-
Alice's Last adventure
Notes on the writing of horror: a story
Troubles of dr. Thoss (favorite)
Dr voke Mr veech
Greater festival of masks
Journal of JP drapeau
Music of the Moon

These are the best imo. I think you guys are really underrating his fiction, in terms of depth, Ligotti is Pynchon compared to most other acclaimed horror writers both past and present. In fact i read this collection with Pynchon's V. and was never jarred a bit in switching. Ligotti's fiction has a lot to chew on and could match the absolute congestion of philosophy history and digressions that is V. The trick is to give his story a thought before you move on to the next, trust me you will see why he is so fucking acclaimed as a fiction writer. It took me 3 readings in a period of 6 months to fully appreciate 'Troubles of dr. Thoss' and how subtly Ligotti was playing with the form.

As for prose, all stories past the sect of idiot have really readable prose and is largely unaffected by Lovecraft.

[Anonymous No.16781507]

>>16781257
Disagree strongly. Conspiracy against the human race is largely a retread of the ideas he has explored in his fiction. Its just a lot more accessible and a lot more direct and for people who couldn't make sense of his fiction. Its also nothing new, all his ideas are better expressed in philosophers whom Ligotti gets his view from. He can't write non-fiction without sounding like an edgy teen either.

[Anonymous No.16781512]

>>16781032
The smell of Biden's cock is driving me crazy, I writhe and twist with pleasure from that manly scent. I'm going to take Biden's cock inside me, I'm going to ride him like a whip man rides a nigger. I climb on top of Biden's naked body, trembling as my slender frame mounts him. I set my small twink ass onto his hairy stomach. He gives both cheeks a good slap! I giggle and start to kiss him, our tongues wrap around each other, and I'm in heaven. I lick under his chin and he says, "C'mon man." But I'm not a man, not anymore ;)

[Anonymous No.16781539]

>>16781488
Thanks much for your labours, anon! I will definitely keep an eye out for those stories. Sorry if I was giving too much flak to Ligotti's abilities, but I was mainly disappointed because my expectations were really high from what I'd seen and heard. If it's more like V., then I will definitely love SOADD and Grimscribe.

[Anonymous No.16781551]

>>16781507
Who was he influenced by? I can imagine Cioran and Schopenhauer, but not much else.

[Anonymous No.16781588]

>>16781032
I'm relieved I'm not the only one who feels this way. I read through the Penguin collection and found it entertaining but not great.

[Anonymous No.16781593]

>>16781032
I’m almost done with Teateo Grotesco and feel the same way pretty much, really disappointed. Maybe it’s just not my type of horror but many of his ideas seem underdeveloped or too vague. At the same time there are elements I really like, so I might give him another shot in the future.

[Anonymous No.16781614]

>>16781539
>Its more like V.
Not exactly but the depth is comparable in my opinion. Great thing is that it is far from Ligotti's philosophical work. Noctuary will take that i think.

[Anonymous No.16781623]

Anybody finding him too vague might want to take a look at ligotti.net
Peeps there have some interesting insight that might help you.

[Anonymous No.16781666]

>>16781551
Yeah them and Zapffe if i remember correctly.

[Anonymous No.16781667]

>>16781614
*Most philosophical work

[Anonymous No.16781693]

>>16781032
Oops, realised I made a mistake. He is the only living horror author to have a Penguin Classics book out. There are nine others from other genres.

[Anonymous No.16781715]

>>16781551
Mainlander

[Anonymous No.16781721]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gy60gsgITk
I thought the story of "The Frolic" was cheesy but the adaptation takes the cake.

[Anonymous No.16781965]

>>16781032
was about to drop songs until i reached alice's last adventure. that one was good enough to keep me going. the rest of the stories is better

[Anonymous No.16781971]

>>16781721
lmao wtf

[Anonymous No.16781978]

>>16781032
I’m reading ”My work is not yet done” and really enjoying it at the moment. Haven’t finished yet so I don’t have a final judgement yet, but I’d recommend it so far.

[Anonymous No.16781986]

>>16781032
>only living author to have a Penguin Classics book.

False

[Anonymous No.16781995]

>>16781986
Yeah I made a mistake. I meant the only living horror writer to be in the Penguin Classics

[Anonymous No.16782001]

>>16781995
My dumbass didn't read the thread before posting. My mistake!

[Anonymous No.16782008]

So he tells you to kill yourself in the Conspiracy. Why hasn't he an heroed yet? I'm not reading this pseud's books before that.

[Anonymous No.16782014]

>>16782001
All good. I've been making heaps of hiccups in my replies today too. Friday the 13th, huh?

>>16782008
Can you post an excerpt?

[Anonymous No.16782055]

>>16781032
what's the deal with that cover picture

[Anonymous No.16782099]

>>16782055
Ask Chris Mars

[Anonymous No.16782105]

>>16782099
cool

[Anonymous No.16782274]

>>16781032
The first short stories are nothing remarkable. Just keep going, everything in order, from start to finish, from Songs of a Dead Dreamer, to Grimscribe and through Teattro Grotesco. It's worth it, trust me.

[Anonymous No.16782284]

>>16781978
The ending is kino

[Anonymous No.16782335]

>>16781032
Ligotti is the horror equivalent of a modern horror movie, he's so caught up in being referential that he forgets the purpose of horror: fear.
For the record I have read Teattro Grotesco and many of his short stories in compilations.

[Anonymous No.16782434]

>>16781032
Horrorfags have no taste and do not represent the majority of /lit/'s taste.

[Anonymous No.16782453]

>>16782335
>muh arbitrarily defined genre conventions

[Anonymous No.16782455]

>>16782335
cringe

[Anonymous No.16782463]

>>16782453
But if horror is speculative inherently, surely it would be leaning towards fear, the macabre, the gothic, death, myths, folk tales, and so on. If it doesn't tap into any of those it may as well be another speculative genre.

[Anonymous No.16782479]

>>16782463
Who cares? It doesn't matter even a little bit.

[Anonymous No.16782512]

>>16782479
I think I admire your openmindedness and willingness to explore anything in art. But it's hard for me to do that, because I think there's an autistic need in literature to define things via category. It's part of most philosophy of art since Aristotle. Maybe critics and aestheticians aren't the ones to choose though; the author should probably do what they can or want to. I think if there wasn't definitions and conventions to begin with, there'd be no need for artist to push the boundaries.

[Anonymous No.16782614]

>>16782335
I think Ligotti would feverently disagree with being grouped under horror and all the "objectives" within it. He is more inspired by Beckett, Nabokov and nihilist philosophers than Lovecraft and others.

[Anonymous No.16782629]

>>16782434
Horrorfags on /lit/ don't like Ligotti. I saw once a thread discussing 'Purity' and all the anons on the thread had given up making full sense of it. It was hilarious. 'Purity' is one of his most straightforward story btw.

[Anonymous No.16782643]

>>16782629
Can you explain it to me? I'm a brainlet

[Anonymous No.16782647]

>>16781257
>"The Conspiracy Against the Human Race"
dropped it 1/3 in. shit's unreadable because all he does is whine and pity the life itself. antinatalism can be well-worded with intriguing reasoning but Conspiracy feels like it was written by a retarded "blackpilled" 4channer, maybe this is the reason he's so revered here.

[Anonymous No.16782662]

>>16782614
He'd probably fail because publishers have thrown him into the horror ghetto and thrown away the key. Even so the people who recommend him in horror threads need to get the memo and stop recommending his books even when it's obvious that OP wouldn't be into his writing.

[Anonymous No.16782673]

>>16782662
I like Beckett, Kafka, and some of his other influences. I just think that what I've read of Ligotti isn't good writing, full stop.

[Anonymous No.16782818]

>>16781032
Imo he really finds his own voice in Grimscribe, and every story in there I think is good.

But I think if you have a problem with his writing in Les Fleurs he just might not be for you. He’s never trying to represent the interiors of regular well adjusted people, it’s always people with strange habits, repetitive thoughts, delusions etc, and the writing style represents that. It’s not an accident that nearly all his work in written in the first person.

Related to that is the fact that there are hardly any actual characters in many of his stories. While there are people with names who sometimes speak, Ligotti almost never gives them an independent existence, and most people encountered in his stories have an existence that is continuous with the setting. A man telling you something is no different from a sign with the same words, and both interactions are inflected with malice.

Here’s the opening paragraph to Mrs. Rinaldi’s Angel.

> “Throughout my childhood, the dreams that I nightly experienced would become brutally vivid, causing me to awake screaming. The shouting done, I sank back into my bed in a state of debilitation resulting from the bodiless adventures imposed upon my slumbering self. Over time, I was exercised harshly by this nocturnal regimen with its visions both crystalline and confused. This activity, however immaterial, drained my reserves of strength and in a few moments stole from me the benefits of a full night's sleep. Nevertheless, while I was deprived of the privilege of a natural rest, there may also have been some profit gained: the awful opulence of the dream, a rich and swollen world nourished by the exhaustion of the flesh. The world, in fact, as such. Any other realm seemed an absence by comparison, at best a chasm in the fertile graveyard of life.”

[Anonymous No.16783098]

He’s a really funny author and it’s shame that isn’t recognized more.

[Anonymous No.16783118]

>>16781257
shouldn't have wasted such a great title on such a mediocre book
it's proper name should be "An Introduction to the History of Pessimistic Philosophy"

[Anonymous No.16783151]

Ligotti is not really a horror writer, he's too interested in satire and existential mores than simple dread. This is why he is much closer to Kafka than Lovecraft, in fact the most respectable facet of Ligotti is how he dodged being the heir-apparent of HPL, which would bring in a lot of bucks his way at some point. He writes moodpieces, meta commentaries on horror rather than outright genre fiction.

[Anonymous No.16783198]

>>16783151
Exactly this, and I’d point to a story like Nethescurial as being satire explicitly on Lovecraft.

In the first paragraph he says “If I am any judge of antique documents, and of course I am, these brittle pages date back to the closing decades of the last century.”
The whole thing is mocking the ‘antiquarian scholar’ type that appears in so many Lovecraft stories.

[Anonymous No.16783246]

>>16782643
What did you not understand? The overarching theme is the unoriginality of everything from thoughts to physical objects and how it has put us in our ways that we so incessantly cling to.

[Anonymous No.16783305]

>>16782673
I would tell you restrain judgement and plough on if you are still in SOADD. You can do what i did, The first collection of him that I read was 'The Shadow at the bottom of the world'. It has 4-5 stories from each collection and you get a good idea of his style in each one. I remember being disappointed in 'Last feast of harlequin' because how Lovecraftian prose (read manufactured) it had but the next story 'Dr Voke and mr Veech' completely blew me away. It completely changed my views on what weird fiction read like.

[Anonymous No.16783326]

>>16781032
Yo, where should I start with tommy's fiction?

[Anonymous No.16783459]

>>16783326
This is very cheap and you get two short story collections. Or you can download it for free.

[Anonymous No.16783487]

>>16781032
So... You haven't read not even two stories and came running to post here?

[Anonymous No.16783498]

>>16781257
>I'd recommend his "The Conspiracy Against the Human Race"
So... You recommend the worst Ligoti?
The only non-fiction work of a fiction writer?

[Anonymous No.16783534]

>>16783487
Les Fleurs is really autistic. It's like when I see people whine about Finnegans Wake, but I have that with Ligotti's language use.

[Anonymous No.16783672]

>>16783459
I'd get it if I didn't absolutely hate the cover.

[Anonymous No.16783686]

>>16781257
>after reading it for the first time I felt hollow for a week or two
I didn't feel a damn thing. I was completely unsurprised at every turn he made. I felt more like he was just describing reality than revealing some unspeakable truth. Am I just autistic or?

[Anonymous No.16783719]

>>16783246
I don’t know, like what am I supposed to make of that?

[Anonymous No.16783737]

>>16783686
No.
The people who are true pessimists read the most bleak shit for catharsis.

[Anonymous No.16783739]

>>16781032
If you want to have some fun, read Kaczynski's manifesto and compare it to Ligotti's conspiracy.

The base arguments aren't related, but the way they argue and their logic is analogous.

[Anonymous No.16783767]

>>16783672
Try this one if the cover is any better.

[Anonymous No.16783768]

>>16783246
>>16783719
Or rather, yes those are the themes, but what does the story say about them?

[Zurvananon No.16783787]

>>16781032
Here's a short analysis I wrote on Ligotti's fiction:

Ligotti's fiction largely revolves around the psychology of existential dread combined with symptoms of derealization or dissociation, and this exposes the world as one big looming, contaminated threat that is always collapsing.

Much of his fiction include phrases such as "grotesque metamorphoses behind the dream of earthly forms", “the oozing ichor that flows within all things”, “a melancholy half-existence consecrated to all the many shapes of death and dissolution”, and much more. His fiction focuses equally on the individual’s psychological state and the universe in a manner that is akin to a darker version of Poe's "The House of Usher", one in which the entire universe is a decrepit House of Usher that has always been collapsing as it mirrors the protagonist’s deteriorating psychological state. Many of his stories include corrugated, dilapidated towns, which are treated as shadows hinting of a deeper blackness, one in which the individual's personal identity or aspirations are treated as futile and ungrounded. Reality is only a "transformation of appearance, an incessant melting and molding of surfaces without underlying essence", which means the self and its aspirations are all founded upon illusion that when exposed point to an icy bleakness, a life devoid of intrinsic meaning where all are merely "puppets" manipulated by the strings of a malignant universe. Many of his stories from the "Clown Puppet" to "Nethescurial" focus on these ideas of man and Universe alike being akin to vapor or mist that haunts us with its false promises and illusions of comfort. Common tropes: human beings being akin to puppets (i.e., deterministic, hollow, controlled by forces beyond recognition, etc.), dancing colors against a sea of blackness (i.e., even the “spark” of life cannot escape the blackness), dilapidated towns as a reflection of one's true inner being, masquerades and pandemonium reflective of the blind chaos of the Universe and man, and so forth. Even if one does not agree with Thomas Ligotti’s metaphysical views, such as me, his stories are still evocative and well-written.

Top three favorite stories off the top of my mind: “Nethescurial”, “The Tsalal”, and “The Last Feast of the Harlequin”

[Anonymous No.16783810]

>>16783498
i've only read this one, I enjoyed, made me feel empty for a while after I finished it. is teatro grottesco a good place to go next?

[Anonymous No.16783836]

>>16783768
Alright lemme type this down for you.

[Anonymous No.16783968]

>>16783810
>is teatro grottesco a good place to go next?
Go read the favourite stories anon recommend. You don't need to buy any book by now. Make your mind first if you like the guy or not THEN buy some collection.
His books are all on libgen, download them all. Wikipedia will give you which story is in which collection.
Enjoy.

[Anonymous No.16784234]

>>16783737
>The people who are true pessimists read the most bleak shit for catharsis.
Oh, lovely.

[Anonymous No.16784299]

>>16783768
In keeping with Ligotti's nihilistic vision, he believes that the universe's real face is one of chaos and beyond it is the void. 'purity' works on many levels.

First is the social one:-
The structures of society are built to ensure a particular kind of evolution of our race. These are passed down through generations and morph by needs and time. The father realizes the impurity within it, that is to say it is a borrowed system and inhibits freedom and originality. He is kind of crazed to break away from it.

Next is religion:-
The encounter with the guy from some institution and his eventual fate reveals an allegory on the same social frame that our civilization is fit into. Here the impurity is of belief and myth. These things are prepetrated through generations and take hold of one's mind. Religion does not just include God but also spooks and myths like the narrators fear of ghost in the attic which undoubtedly imbibed into him through the culture. His dad through his device takes it out from him, something he attempted on the guy on a larger scale.

There is also a psychological aspect to it, we all are wired to think in similar ways and patterns that we pick up from our nurture. These are borrowed too and to the father its just a restrain on the mind to move into what might be classified as eccentric yet original territories.

He takes out the 'impurity' and puts it in a jar, its the 'belief in ghosts' given physical form. That's why when his friend grabs it she doesn't feel fear but nostalgic presence of her dead friend. The black lady runs crack business and the detective of the area is in on it and probably has a liking for killing children himself. The narrator's mother and sister go off on sex holidays (as mentioned the father doesn't believe in social constructs and norms) and come across this Hermaphrodite who happens to be the same detective and gets him to kill her son. The mother feels bore down by 'motherly duties' that society expects and it puts into perspective the closing line of the story. The revelation that the detective has a pussy shocks the narrator because he was conditioned to believe in the 100% certainty of gender division which is a norm. The father, like most Ligotti protags, is obsessed in breaking away from this borrowed existence both mental and physical and is trying to build the device to purge all the 'impurities' from their minds and live a truly free and 'pure' life.

The last is existential:-
Coming back to the starting lines of this post, Ligotti is firmly in the camp that humans are puppets in a game run by forces we can't comprehend. These same forces thrust upon ourselves the need for order and conceal the chaos which is the true face of the universe (by that i mean the quantum fluctuations and how everything is random on that level but the effect decreases on macro level). Order begets survival, which begets tradition, which begets imitation and thus the impurities.

[Anonymous No.16784331]

>>16784299
>run by forces we can't comprehend
Can you elaborate this?
This suggests something sinister and spooky.

[Anonymous No.16784362]

>>16784299
Finishing up, humanity is like a herd following the tracks in the dust by some previous herd. We can at best add some our own flavor to the footprint but can never truly digress from the path completely. The shepherds are Ligottian evils that have us imprisoned in our ways. The quantum interpretation might be stretching it but Ligotti really invokes that from me, especially 'flowers of the abyss'.

[Anonymous No.16784418]

>>16784331
Like some 'demiurge' like figure that has contained this 'fate to chance and form as strings' existence into greater much more orderly, repetitive and predictable superstructure. Put meaning or at least illusion of it where there was none. That spawned our religions and traditions and the fundamental seed of all impurities. Demiurge, sometimes subtly sometimes overtly, features in other Ligotti stories and Ligotti's interpretation of evil or wrong does not deal in human emotions like fear and pain. Its in putting on masks, concealing truth and reality from us.

[Anonymous No.16784434]

>>16784418
So Ligotti is a Gnostic?

[Anonymous No.16784469]

>>16784434
Don't know. Maybe yes, or at least he believes in his own twisted version of it. 'Spectacles in the drawer' and 'Strange design of master Rignolo' are very strongly suggesting demiurgic forces that fills in for the sinister elements in the story.

[Anonymous No.16784926]

>>16784299
Cool post anon, thanks for posting.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.16784934]

I like ligotti but as the other anon said it’s not for his horror writing, conspiracy against the human race when read as a piece of art/philosophy fiction is very kino, in the same way one would read the Borges essay on time not being real.

[Anonymous No.16784937]

>>16783787
I enjoyed reading this. Well done!

[Anonymous No.16784964]

>>16784434
Personally I think so. Almost every story makes some reference to some sort of horrifying existence that is the ‘truth’ of reality and sits just underneath or beyond the reality as we experience it.

He names it differently in different stories, ‘the madness of things’ or ‘the emptiness at the core of being’ and so on.

I mentioned Mrs. Rinaldi’s Angels, that story has a sort of ontological reversal between waking life and dreams. Here’s an audiobook for that story
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm1iH6EIMAA

[Anonymous No.16784996]

>>16784964
>>16783787
Are you Nemonymous?

[Anonymous No.16785025]

Anybody who liked Season One of True Detective should get Conspiracy Against the Human Race, but then read it only one section at a time while cycling through stories from the Complete Works of Flannery O’Conner, and chapters from Programmed to Kill.

By the time you are finished all three you will have ascended

[Anonymous No.16785034]

>>16784996
No, I’m >>16782818
But I agree with their take too

[Anonymous No.16785052]

Notes toward a future thread discussing the horror genre, as such, à la >>/lit/thread/S16382750..

[Anonymous No.16785199]

>>16784996
>Nemonymous
No, but I've talked to Des Lewis a bit on TLO. He's pretty well-read.

[Anonymous No.16786060]

Trying to stay up and read Ligotti. What's some good music to pair with it? I'm thinking Pink Floyd

[Anonymous No.16786114]

>>16785025
Even if I liked the ending?

[Anonymous No.16786348]

>>16786060
the cardiacs

[Anonymous No.16786689]

>>16786060
Red by King Crimson, Requiem by Ligeti, Penderecki's cello concertos.

[Anonymous No.16787282]

>>16781986
who is he?