| Author | Message | ||
     Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 81.153.251.53 |
The Conspiracy Against The Human Race A Contrivance of Horror by Thomas Ligotti Hippocampus Press (2010) http://www.hippocampuspress.com/mythos-and-other-authors/nonfiction/the-conspira cy-against-the-human-race-by-thomas-ligotti ------------------------------------------------ I received this momentous book in the UK the day before yesterday. (staretd a sort of RTR about it: http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/the_conspiracy_against_the_human_race.htm) | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.37.130 |
I'm afraid of his books (as physical entities) for the physiological damage they might cause. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 81.153.251.53 |
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| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Is this guy Ligotti really as good as they say he is? I haven't read as much as a short story. Who would he be most similar in style to or where does he stand in the annals of horror? | ||
| Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts) Username: Tom_alaerts Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.78.35.185 |
Is this guy Ligotti really as good as they say he is? I haven't read as much as a short story. Who would he be most similar in style to or where does he stand in the annals of horror? It is easier to say who is similar to him than vice versa - as he had quite some influence on several genre writers. His style is quite eloquent yet superbly elegant, and impregnated with nihilism and cosmic horror. He could thematically be seen as the one true heir to HPL. Like HPL, caviar and foie gras, I think that TL is best tasted in small doses. To get an idea about his style, there are several quotes on the top of ligotti.net (just refresh your page), such as: “In the new dream the dead may not rest very long. Sometimes their rightful blackness is revoked, deserved silence foreclosed, their blissful sense of nothing cut off at closing time. And now these faithful patrons of annihilation, loyal customers of the abyss, these quiet tenants of paradise are thrown out on their ear like lowlife riffraff booted from a respectable establishment. Back down to earth, you wretches! Having no place else to spend eternity, they try to make the best, in other words the worst of it.” | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Stevie, Ligotti has written four major collections of which the best, in my opinion, are the first, Songs of a Dead Dreamer, and the last, Teatro Grottesco. The latter was published in the UK by Virgin as a mass-market paperback, and is marvellous. There's a selected stories, The Shadow At the Bottom of the World, still available. Ligotti is a master of bleak psychology, downbeat narrative and powerful imagery. His stories revolve around mortality, disease, madness, betrayal, the abuse of power and the loss of faith.  It also has to be said that a few Ligotti stories are clotted, verbose, abstract and so slow you need a horizontal bookmark to remember where you've got to. When he's good he's very very good, but when he's bad he's boring. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
I agree with Joel 100%. Seek out the work he mentions for a good overview. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 81.153.251.53 |
Ligotti wrote nothing boring. | ||
| Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts) Username: Tom_alaerts Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.78.35.185 |
Ligotti wrote nothing boring. Well, I thought that one of his last published short stories: "The town manager" was pretty simple and hence boring. I also truly hate his Death Poems. He should stick to prose. Some of his stories are more about atmosphere than about storyline, and that is not to everyone's taste. It's esp. the mainly atmospheric ones hat I prefer to read in small doses. Anyway, when he's good, he's really very good. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Grab Teatro Grottesco, Stevie! If you don't like it I'll personally refund the price. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 81.153.251.53 |
And I'll refund you the book's price, too, Stevie, making double the price, I'm so confident you will like it. Here is my real-time review of the book: http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/teatro_grottesco_by_thomas_ligotti.htm that has had thousands more hits than any other real-time review I've done. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.234.38 |
Ligotti wrote nothing boring. His English is funny sometimes. But so is Joseph Conrad's. And I may have written a clunky sentence or two in my time ;-) | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.234.38 |
I'm inordinately fond of "The Mystics of Muelenburg", however. A guilty pleasure? | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.64.202 |
I may be premature, not having read THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE HUMAN RACE but I'm beginning to see flaws in his philosopy: an elaborate form of name-calling rather than logical argument. But maybe that's the seratonin talking. | ||
| Seanmcd (Seanmcd) Username: Seanmcd Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.170.28.252 |
Stevie, as a taster, read his short story 'Vastarien' included in your copy of 'American Supernatural Tales' edited by S.T.Joshi. I've been after his collections for a while now but they are bloody expensive! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
You still up, Sean! I will do... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Thanks, everyone. I'll try to find a copy of 'Teatro Grottesco' then! | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Boobies. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.4.79 |
I've just read Part I of MY WORK IS NOT YET DONE. Flippin' heck, who would think that he'd write a such page-turner? | ||
| Thomasb (Thomasb) Username: Thomasb Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 69.236.170.165 |
I read his collection "The Nightmare Factory." I liked it enormously, but I can see a little goes a long goes a long way sometime. As for that conspiracy, I get the feeling sometimes that we're the ones behind it. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.114.170 |
He's depressed. Saying that we live in a bubble of illusion is like saying that we live in a bubble of air - true, but not a strong basis for extrapolation on the nature of existence. We're defined by our ignorance of the Universe, so any grand statements about it seem adolescent to me. Fun is still a valid option! | ||
| Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels) Username: Mark_samuels Registered: 04-2010 Posted From: 86.133.23.20 |
I've long felt a certain reservation about commenting on Ligotti's work. On the one hand I adore his fiction and tend to rhapsodise over it. Whilst, on the other, I'm thoroughly opposed to his worldview. I can't get my head around the idea that it's cool to champion the idea of the elimination of humanity as a whole, simply because those who claim to hold this view would, I imagine, be rightly outraged by someone advocating the destruction of individual groupings of humanity; for example, Jews, Gypsies or Blacks. I don't get it. Mark S. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.243.41 |
I just the other week read "The Greater Festival of Masks," reprinted in Ellen Datlow's DARKNESS. I found it, frankly, heavy-handed and shrill; though paradoxically, on some point I couldn't quite grasp. It seemed more concerned with making a point, than telling a story; but then even more concerned than both of those, with hiding that same point, whatever it was. The writing was certainly elegant... perhaps I'm just dimwitted, or impatient, nowadays.... I've read very little by Ligotti, and that in the somewhat-distant past, but I remember enjoying "The Medusa" and "The Last Feast of Harlequin"... perhaps I might feel differently on a revisit, however.... | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.143.128.168 |
Craig; the moment I feel a point/MESSAGE being made in a story the story falls apart for me, I lose interest. I get the sense of reading a newspaper article, or watching a public information film. It's like that film, Good night, Good Luck; what a finely crafted, self-backslapping lecture that was... I get it, George - I got it before the titles rolled! | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.125.37 |
Still, all those stars... It's not likely anything we do is really important, is it? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
We're defined by our ignorance of the Universe, so any grand statements about it seem adolescent to me. Fun is still a valid option! Hear-hear. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.143.128.168 |
When I was a kid I thought there was no universe, just what I could see, a flat horizon going on forever, not even any countries. I used to get bothered by thunder because it hinted there were 'big things up there'. I still think I function under these rules.  | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Tony, that's really scary...but at the same time oddly beautiful. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.255.43 |
Tony, yes! The pounding of some unknown message was deafening, to me -- BUT, and I hope this is not a tangent, but in that same anthology, I read (and this is like the first time I've read this, since its original publication in the States [1986]) Clive Barker's novelette "Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament"; and being almost as many years since I've read anything by Barker, I was immediately struck by the clarity now, looking back, of the whole CB tidal wave: he's just plain old damn great. Or he was then, at least. He knows how to tell a story Hollywood-big, movie-fast, film-spectacle, that anyone of any mental level (dimwit seeking plot to intellectual seeking poeticisms) can enjoy. And, to link this back... this story did preach too, or shall we say, it too had a pounding sorta "message" (messages?) - so why did it work? Because that message/theme was the handmaiden of the storyline, it WAS the plot, the character-development, the driving action, the reason for all.... It didn't hide behind utter abstractions to the point of frustrations; it didn't (as I got from some moments in Ligotti's short story) meander and weave away on tangents, for no discernible reason, from its own plotline. Ligotti's story had the aspect of a prophetic dream; but it also seemed to be unconcerned about needing to clarify itself, for being that dream... but if dream-transcribing is all that's expected, there's not much use for the many other tools that make up the craft of writing: the bestest dream trumps all, in that world. (This is why if a writer ever responds to questions about his/her work, "I'm not sure exactly what happened myself," or, "It's not important to know what happened," or, "How do YOU interpret it?", etc.... my bullshit-detectors flash....) | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.255.43 |
Let me note: It is entirely unfair to judge a writer solely on one written work, and I don't intend to here judge the man from my reactions to one tale. I'm just reacting to this aspect of Ligotti I've found in what little I've read by him, and in this one particular story; to make an actual assessment of him as a writer, I will have to read a whole hell of a lot more than this.... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
He knows how to tell a story Hollywood-big, movie-fast, film-spectacle, that anyone of any mental level (dimwit seeking plot to intellectual seeking poeticisms) can enjoy. Craig, that's a good point about Barker - I've never quite looked at it that way before, but you're 100% correct. He's a storyteller in the complimentary meaning of the word (and not in the way mediocre writers who produce bland prose get called it). | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 98.220.97.79 |
I've liked some of Ligotti's tales, but they're nowhere near uniform in quality. Re: his worldview -- there's something about his nihilism that seems forced ... almost manufactured, as though he's pretending in some sly way. He imitates a lot, as well, and I wish he'd stop trying to be English. Other than that he's pretty good, or at least he used to be. I found his "My Work" stories less than compelling and sort of stopped paying attention to him. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.122.243 |
MY WORK IS NOT YET DONE was based on an unmade screenplay of his, which explains why it rattles along and is shallower. Like all films, it's purpose is to sell popcorn and rent a seat for two hours. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.122.243 |
Arrr-ggarrr-aaaaggg-aaaaah! "its", not "it's". | ||
| Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts) Username: Tom_alaerts Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.78.35.185 |
I thought the first, realistic part of "My Work is Not Yet Done" was rather well done, and darkly funny. It didn't need to turn into a ghostly revenge story, it could have stayed realistic, and then it would have been more intense. In my opinion ! | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 89.19.80.3 |
Oh, so it goes a bit odd, then? The first part reads like FIGHT CLUB. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.104.140.73 |
Fight Club....loved it. Can't talk about it though. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.18.22 |
The FIGHT CLUB film's satire on materialism saved me from buying a house at the height of the property boom. Art matters. |