Thomas Ligotti

Jayaprakash Satyamurthy

Jayaprakash Satyamurthy

Knivesout no more
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Nov 11, 2003
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Possibly the best horror author I have discovered since Poe and Lovecraft. Seriousy. Ravenus old man, do the decent thing and post a lovingly detailed yet admirably pithy appreciation of this man here, won't you? I shall also weigh in with more details later.
 
Well sorry JP I'm not Ravenus so I don't do pithy all that well but for what its worth I'm currently making my way through Ligotti's Nightmare Factory following your recommendation of this author.

I agree he's every bit as compelling as Lovecraft or Poe and displays a certain genius, especially both in his non-explicit approach to horror and ability to so effectively deliver a tour de force of the Genre in the shortened form. Ligotti for me displays a high level of skillfull subtletly that helps achieve a totally unsettling experience for the reader by painting images which induce a wholly disturbing atmosphere that is also unapologetically relentless in its uncomprimising pessimism and often surrealistic approach towards humanity that forces the reader to think upon issues long after the story has finished. I'd describe his work as being a bit like Gene Wolfe's or Franz Kafka's in that as the reader one feels obligated to both reflect upon and revisit many of the images and themes his wonderful prose evokes. To this end I would personally recommend readers not to read all of his stories in one sitting but rather digest them in small doses not because they are not worthy of a more sustained effort but because so much more may be gleaned from them by allowing them to infuse one's conscience over a period of days rather than hours.

All in all a most excellent writer and a highly recommended one.
 
Yes, I think you've pretty much said what I'd have wanted to. I want to contribute more to this discussion, but my abilities in that arena seem to be devolving terribly. Perhaps I've been infected with entropic seeds from Ligotti's nihilistic universe?
 
Well perhaps although somehow I doubt it.....:D

The following is a short story online by Ligotti called Nethescurial which has a certain Lovecraftian feel to it with a sprinkling or two of Kafka-esque undertones. Then again I could be in error here and have swallowed the same seeds as you....

Please don't forget to reply to my PM so I know what action you wish me to take....:)

http://www.ligotti.net/tlo/nethescurial1.htm
 
Ah, just when I thought there was no general thread discussing Ligotti on this forum, I managed to dredge this one up! :)

I've been working my way through Teatro Grottesco, a collection of short stories split into three categories: Derangements, Deformations and the Damaged & the Diseased. This is the first time I've read anything from this author (whom I've heard so many goods things said) and I'm really enjoying it so far. I find his style very easy to read (although he does belabour the point sometimes) and he successfully manages to weave a haunting atmosphere in a most indirect way.

What particularly drew my attention to Ligotti is that people said he wrote in the tradition of Lovecraft with subtlety generally lacking from many modern writers of horror. He unsettles the reader not by regaling us with explicit acts of violence or malignent intent, but instead by weaving a mood and atmosphere with his words and the way he tells the story.

With Lovecraft, his themes often centered around an individual uncovering a mystery that led the protagonist to discover ever more unsettling and disturbing things about reality that threatens their sanity. Humanity and it's sense of order and being the dominant species are undermined and belittled by the discovery of beings that were they not somehow dormant or absent would swat us away like we would an insignificant insect.

Ligotti seems to pursue this theme but in a different way. There are malignant and supreme forces at work in the universe that defy all comprehension by us mere mortals. As the reader, don't expect to understand the these mysteries any better than the protagonists of the story. The torment/suffering of the human victims in Ligotti's stories are often almost incidental to the central but unknowable goals of these malignant forces/beings. Or else extreme lengths seem to have been gone to in order to inflict the most subtle and minute of torments upon a victim, as if more for the pleasure of the obscurity and peversity of the act than the suffering it causes.

I'm really enjoying this but am slightly worried that much of his work appears to be not easilly attainable and it might prove difficult to obtain much else to read.
 
That's a fairly good summation, F.E. It's one of the reasons I find Ligotti so appealing -- he genuinely does unsettle the reader....

Fried Egg said:
I'm really enjoying this but am slightly worried that much of his work appears to be not easilly attainable and it might prove difficult to obtain much else to read.
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Unfortunately, this is all-too-often true. A few stories can be found in anthologies; once in a while you can come across one of his books at a second-hand shop for a good price; but on the average, you've either got to get there before it's released (as they frequently sell out before they are actually in print, or shortly thereafter) or pay a considerable sum for the privilege of waiting....:(
 
Blimey, this is craziness. I bought a copy of The Shadow at the Bottom of the World maybe last year? From Waterstones for about £7.

Just wondered if this book, which seemed very easy to purchase at the time, has also become very difficult to get. Checked the Waterstones website, nothing came up on the search. Checked Amazon.co.uk...they're only from private sellers, and the cheapest new copy is £87!




Hmm. Well! I have a copy of The Shadow at the Bottom of the World. I'm willing to sell it for a mere £90! Get it while it's cheap.
 
WHAT........THE.........HELL ? Do these people know a litle word, called "decency" ?
 
I don't get it. If the books sell out sometimes even before they've gone to print, why not print more? The demand's obviously there...

Maybe I had better go out and quickly buy "My work is not yet done" before that goes out of print too...
 
Does Ligotti get money off of these insane scond hand deals ? Because that's the only reason I can think of for no reprints .
 
Almost certainly not, unless he has brought them all up and is now selling them. Royalties are only paid on the first sale of the books, the second hand market doesn't.

Which makes the failure to reissue slightly stranger, except possibly from the view of driving up interest in the author.
 
Lobolover said:
Does Ligotti get money off of these insane scond hand deals ? Because that's the only reason I can think of for no reprints .
Click to expand...

Small press publishers often don't do large print runs; it's too expensive, especially if a book doesn't sell well, or even takes a while to find a market. Then the publisher is left with a lot of stock they can't do anything with, which in turn takes up space which might be used for that which does sell. Ligotti, on the other hand, though having a lot of critical attention, may not (I'm not certain of this) have enough demand in the market for a larger publisher to pick him up. Carroll & Graf did some of his books, but how well they sold at the time, I've no idea. If poor sales are reflected "on paper", then another mainstream publisher may not pick an writer up -- so you're left with the small press again.

These are some factors which enter into such a situation; there are a lot of others as well. Then you also have the writers who release only through small presses, in order to support small, independent businesses rather than corporate giants; and so on....
 
Atleast Teatro Grottesco is availible in one library in this country. Which was a nice surprise and i ordered it through our library.He comes with high praise by D_Davis,J.D and now Fried Egg that i must try him.

Im hungry for a writer like him. I lack stories,books like that of all the books i have currenltly.
 
the Case Notes section of Black Static #10, which will be mailing out soon, contains a feature on American author Thomas Ligotti, consisting of reviews of My Work is not Yet Done (Virgin) and The Nightmare Factory Volume 2 (Fox Atomic Comics), and an interview in which Ligotti talks about his work and forthcoming non-fiction book The Conspiracy Against the Human Race. To mark the occasion, I thought we’d make April Thomas Ligotti month on the Case Notes blog.
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1110724o11
 
Connavar said:
Atleast Teatro Grottesco is availible in one library in this country. Which was a nice surprise and i ordered it through our library.He comes with high praise by D_Davis,J.D and now Fried Egg that i must try him.
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And me too mate....:)

Along with Poe and Lovecraft the triumvirate of horror writers I'm most at home reading.
 
I just read a great story in the collection called "The Gas Station Carnivals". Just when I thought I was going to understand this one better than the others, it all got turned around at the end.

As well as conveying his Lovecraftian influence in this tale (like most of his others), I felt PKD's influence as well with the shifting delusions that undermined the protagonist's sense of reality.
 
Yes fantastic stuff isn't it!!...Sooooo much better than Stephen King or some of the other so-called modern day Horror royalty.
 
Now I've just read "The Bungalow House" and seemed to be quite heavilly influenced by Chuck Palahniuk's "Fight Club".
 
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