Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe

by Thomas Ligotti, Jon Padgett (Narrator), Linda Jones (Narrator)

Two terrifying classics by “the best kept secret in contemporary horror fiction” (The Washington Post)
 
Thomas Ligotti’s debut collection, Songs of a Dead Dreamer, and his second, Grimscribe, permanently inscribed a new name in the pantheon of horror fiction. Influenced by the strange terrors of Lovecraft and Poe and by the brutal absurdity of Kafka, Ligotti eschews cheap, gory thrills for his own brand of horror, which shocks at the deepest, existential, levels.

Ligotti’s stories take on decaying cities and lurid dreamscapes in a style ranging from rich, ornamental prose to cold, clinical detachment. His raw and experimental work lays bare the unimportance of our world and the sickening madness of the human condition. Like the greatest writers of cosmic horror, Ligotti bends reality until it cracks, opening fissures through which he invites us to gaze on the unsettling darkness of the abyss below.

For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Weird Fiction, Classics, Fantasy, Lovecraftian

Audible Audio

First published October 6, 2015

About the author

Thomas Ligotti is a contemporary American horror author and reclusive literary cult figure. His writings, while unique in style, have been noted as major continuations of several literary genres—most prominently Lovecraftian horror—and have overall been described as works of "philosophical horror", often written as philosophical novels with a "darker" undertone which is similar to gothic fiction. The Washington Post called him "the best kept secret in contemporary horror fiction"; another critic declared "It's a skilled writer indeed who can suggest a horror so shocking that one is grateful it was kept offstage."

Reviews

[Nik Maack · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just did something weird. I stopped reading this book. Not after a few pages. No. I decided to stop on page 360. There are less than 100 pages left, but I cannot go on. Why?

I can no longer endure the sprawling, excessive sentences that foam rabid, infected by diseases as of yet unnamed by men of science, as purple as the phallus of an ancient Egyptian god who has sexually ravaged a basket of blueberries. Dear god. Please. Just tell a story. Stop describing the light as it hits the rooftops of villages, and tell me what is happening. It's sentences like these that made me groan:

"The building looked much too intimate in size to afford concealment, and I perceived a certain privacy in its appearance that made me feel a newcomer would have been awkwardly noticeable."

The building was small. It was goddamn small. Not intimate in size. And you "perceived a certain privacy in appearance"? You mean, you saw the house was small. You saw a small goddamn house. That's it.

Ligotti is influenced greatly by H.P. Lovecraft. You can tell, because like Lovecraft, Ligotti likes to use prose so purple, so stretched out, so vague, that it often becomes completely meaningless. He writes of madness and despair and other universes and entities of great horror and all that. It's all straight out of the Lovecraft playbook. And yes, I've read everything by Lovecraft and (begrudgingly) like it.

According to the forward of this book (written by Jeff Vandermeer):

"H.P. Lovecraft is a self-admitted early influence on Ligotti's work. However, in a kind of metaphysical horror story of its own, Ligotti early on subsumed Lovecraft and left his dry husk behind, having taken what sustenance he needed for his own devices."

That is very generous, and also untrue. Ligotti reads like a Lovecraft disciple. Not merely influenced by Lovecraft, he's taken on the whole world of Lovecraft and is staggering under its weight. He's writing from the Lovecraft point of view, 100%.

So why did I read 360 pages, and then stop? Because every now and then, Ligotti would do something really great. There are fragments, sentences, and (much more rarely) entire pages that really impressed me.

"...stoic tolerance of a second rate reality..."

"Let me give you one final nugget of advice: forsake the world and cling to the shadows."

But after a while, waiting for these good passages became a pain in the ass. I couldn't tolerate another lengthy introduction of mad magician characters living in the attics of warehouses bemoaning the cruelties of life that lurk between the atoms of all things. That's the trouble with short story anthologies. Every story introduces new characters. Except, with Ligotti, we are reintroduced to more or less the same characters, living in basically the same conditions, enduring the same problems.

He is a weird writer. And I like weird. Anything out of the ordinary is great. But I couldn't take it anymore. Every story basically amounts to, "Once upon a time there was a man who dabbled with things best left untouched. He went insane and/or got eaten up by another reality. Maybe he turned into one of the bizarre alien creatures who watch us from another reality. Also, puppets. Maybe clowns. The end."

There's a reason Ligotti is "The best kept secret in contemporary horror fiction" (says the Washington Post). It's because he's almost unreadable.

[Glenn Russell]

Penguin Classics has done a great service for the world of literature and letters by adding this superb edition to their collection, a book combining two previously published Thomas Ligotti - Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe. Also included is an incisive introductory essay by Jeff Vandermeer.

One Vandermeer quote I especially enjoy: "Every time you read these stories, not only do you reimagine them, but they seem to change shape and substance through some power rising from behind the words. These are not uncanny effects - they're merely another manifestation of the universal in Ligotti's fiction."

Thirty-three tales included here, with some of the most frightening scenes and happenings you're likely to encounter, like the shabbily dressed clowns in The Last Feast of Harlequin, the dream sequence in Vastarien, lifelike dolls in Dream of a Manikin, cosmic horror in The Mystics of Muelenburg.

Thomas Ligotti has been associated with Poe, Lovecraft and Kafka, but, for me, his distinctive short-stories serve as dark counterpoint to the weird, highly imaginative microfiction of writers like Barry Yourgrau, Russell Edson, Peter Cherches, Fernando Sorrrentino. Thus my list of Ligotti reviews, a list I plan to expand over the next months.

Having said that, I feel obligated to quote the following that's part of an interview with the author: "From the beginning of his career as a published writer in the early 1980s, Ligotti has identified himself as a horror writer. He doesn’t want to be known as anything else. He has, on occasion, taken exception when people have tried to label him otherwise. But when he says he writes horror, he means he writes from the center of what he knows best as a human being, and this is what elevates him to the status of a true literary artist."

To share a small taste of Ligotti's distinctive voice, I'll cast the light on two of the author's tales of horror that have been frequently anthologized -

THE FROLIC
The Trickster is a character from mythology, folklore and religion, one of the archetypes in the psychology of Carl Jung, a character exhibiting keen intellect and secret knowledge in order to play tricks, defy the ordinary and mock convention and rules.

In The Frolic, Thomas Ligotti presents a character whose both archetypal trickster and (gulp!) psychopathic murderer, an eerie, unsettling combination that will give anybody the creeps.



It's evening and we're in the town of Nolgate, site of the state prison. Prison psychiatrist Dr. Munch speaks with wife Leslie while daughter Norleen rests in her upstairs bedroom. Dr. Munch fumes with anger, tells Leslie that perhaps it was an unwise decision to have taken this job. He admits he was somewhat masochistic: he wanted a thankless, impossible job and that's exactly what he has.

One prisoner has pushed the good doctor to the edge, a prisoner refusing to divulge his name or where he is from or where he was born, a prisoner known to the authorities as John Doe. What's particularly maddening about John Doe: he claims he wanted to be caught so he could spend time in the penitentiary – and he tells the doctor that he can leave anytime he wishes.

Dr. Munch details his session with John Doe. “There's actually quite a poetic geography to his interior dreamland as he describes it.” John Doe provided Dr. Munch with the grizzly details in his “phantasmagorical mingling of heaven and hell” as he relates his 'frolicking' with what he terms his 'awestruck company.' Unfortunately, the 'awestruck company' could be seen by the state as helpless victims of heinous crimes. But the doctor observes: “There is always a paradoxical blend of forsaken topographies and shining sanctuaries in his mind.”

What's particularly fascinating about this Thomas Ligotti tale is all in the blending, not only in the mind of John Doe but in John Doe's very identity. Seen in one way, we're talking John Doe the prison inmate, the psychopathic killer. But viewed from a different angle, John Doe's 'frolicking' can be taken as the rule-busting, convention smashing, creative dance of the Trickster.

Herein lies the author's magic with echoes of one of his frequently cited quotes: “Most people learn to save themselves by artificially limiting the content of consciousness.” Is the Trickster aka John Doe beckoning us to expand our world by transcending rules, regimentation and conformity, beckoning us to also abandon artificiality and peer into the chaos of a trickster cosmos?

The Frolic, a remarkable tale that can be read as slice of life realism or modern mythology with strong Jungian archetypes – or both together.

THE LAST FEAST OF HARLEQUIN
Here's how Ligotti frames his story: the unnamed narrator, an anthropologist and college instructor with both scholarly and personal interest in clowns, tells us clowns and clowning go well beyond traditional notions of a circus, how clowns have performed many functions and roles in various cultures around the world.

Therefore, to both experience great self-satisfaction and further his own academic research, the narrator cherishes opportunities to participate in festivals as a clown himself. When he learns of a little-publicized festival with clowns in the Midwestern town of Mirocaw, his interest is piqued.

In late summer the opportunity presents itself to make a side trip to Mirocaw and he takes it. Right from the start, things seem peculiarly out of sync – the various parts of the town do not appear to fit together; the steep roofs of the houses behind the town’s main street, due to the hilly terrain, strike him as floating in air at odd angles. Indeed, he compares the entire town to an album of snapshots where the camera has been continually jostled that results in page after page of crooked photos.

Rolling down his car window to ask directions to the town hall from a shabbily dressed old man who looks vaguely familiar, he is greeted by a distant, imbecilic gaze. And after finally arriving at the building and making inquiries about the festival, he is handed a cheap copy of a flyer and learns the festival is December 19-21 and there are “clowns of a sort.”

If all this sounds creepy, even sinister, that’s exactly what the narrator feels, however, he continues to explore this most unusual town and vows to return with his clown costume for the December festival.

At this point, the narrator tells us how his former anthropology teacher, one Dr. Raymond Thoss, wrote a paper entitled The Last Feast of Harlequin with references to Syrian Gnostics who called themselves Saturnians. He also tells us that he now knows why that shabby man on the street looked familiar – he was none other than Raymond Thoss. The thick plottens.

Once back in Mirocaw, things turn very weird very quickly. He discovers, among other disturbing facts, this festival features two sets of clowns: more traditional clowns chosen from the townspeople that are, to his astonishment, picked on and pushed around as they walk the streets and a second group of clowns, shabbily dressed, gaunt, with faces painted white and mouths wide in terror, bringing to mind the famous painting by Edvard Munch.

Upon reflection, he now understands he is witnessing two festivals, a festival within a festival. Returning to his hotel, he makes the decision to dress up as one of those shabby, gaunt, wide-mouthed clowns. Events then take even weirder and much more frightening twists. Not a reading experience for the fainthearted.

Shifting to the philosophic, much of what happens in the concluding sections of this sixty page novella seems to revolve around Gnostic myth. What's particularly strange with Thoss and the others and the subterranean ritual the narrator witnesses is all these Mirocaw folk appear to take a Gnostic myth literally.

Such literal interpretation of Gnostic myth is ironic (to put it politely) since the ancient Gnostics were all about symbols and constructed complex mythologies to prevent attempts to reduce religion to literal interpretations. Incidentally, this is exactly the point emphasized by Dr. Stephan A. Hoeller, leading scholar of Gnosticism.

I first read The Last Feast of the Harlequin some thirty years ago and the strange happenings and images from this tale might qualify as among the most powerful I've encountered within the genre of horror fiction. Again, not a story for the fainthearted. There's good reason Thomas Ligotti is among the ten living authors included in the Penguin Classics.

[Forrest · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a penchant for doing things in reverse order, especially when it comes to books. At least in my own mind. Like a literary Benjamin Button, when I wasn’t reading comics as a kid, I was usually reading “grown up” books (The Hardy Boys adventures being the big exception). And I didn’t read Moby Dick until I was 45, though I had many, many opportunities (and even assignments) to read it many, many years before that.

So, of course, I read and loved Thomas Ligotti’s Teatro Grottesco before having read all of Ligotti’s earlier stuff. Yes, I had read Noctuary and several of his then-uncollected short pieces in various anthologies, but I had not read his seminal collection, Songs of a Dead Dreamer nor Grimscribe: His Life and Works. I’m all out of order in my reading of this dark master’s works. I had been meaning to read these for some time, but until Penguin came out with their affordable (and even more attainable) collection in 2015, finances didn’t really permit this.

What did I learn reading “backwards”?

Thomas Ligotti is a brilliant writer.

Thomas Ligotti is not a perfect writer.

Thomas Ligotti went through growing pains as a writer.

The distinctive “voice” in his work took a leap at some point, but did not leap all the way to the finish line.

Like Pablo Picasso, Ligotti’s early work shows a breadth of talent and demonstrates that his work could have taken any number of successful directions.

On to the stories . . .

"The Frolic," while very creepy, still feels like a freshman effort for a writer such as Ligotti. I would be thrilled to have written such a story myself, but I expect more from Ligotti. Three stars.

I can't tell if I think the narrator of "Les Fleurs" tips his hand too much or too little. While there is a weird "spin" to the story, I found it decidedly average. Three stars.

I am rather fond of stories that riff off of Alice in Wonderland, having written one myself. "Alice's Last Adventure," hit all the right creepy chords for me. Growing old is difficult enough, but what happens when not only your age betrays you, but you are entrapped by your own creations? Five stars.

"Dream of a Manikin" is more disturbed than disturbing, more academic than terrifying, but the dream sequences are pure sugar for the gothic brain. I could revel in the reading of those dreams all day long and never feel flat, whereas the (possibly not) non-dreaming sequences felt like they needed more texture. A three-star story with five-star dreams lands this one squarely on four stars.

The first portion of "The Nyctalops Trilogy: I: The Chymist" is brilliantly written, with most of the action happening off-stage while the narrator responds to that action. This must have been a chore to write, but I'm glad for Ligotti's work here. It's a dangerous road, but Ligotti is successful in pulling it off. More than successful, really. Ligotti's drawn me in with 2nd person POV, which is not an easy catch. I had thought that Rose's fate would be simple, but I was dead wrong.

The condescending, nihilistic second-person voice carries on through "The Nyctalops Trilogy: III. Drink to me Only With Labyrinthine Eyes". We learn, only at the end, the fate of the subject of the first section. Ligotti walks a literary tightrope, which makes for some good readerly tension.

Sublimation into another's dreams and, eventually, into another's physical form, like a rabbit being absorbed from the thoughts out, makes the conclusion of Nyctalops Trilogy intriguing, but a little jarring. Yes, it's squicky cosmic horror that you like to read, but a little clumsy. Still, the mood, characterization, and beautiful writing overpower the jilting change in POV. Four stars.

"Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story" is as playful and erudite and absolutely psychotic a tale as I can imagine. What appears, at first, as an admittance that the narrator has failed to write a story, with a number of different analyses on how the story could have been written, turns into a psychotic roller-coaster ride, I have no other way of putting it. Five stars to this weird, delightfully unexpected story.

"The Christmas Eves of Aunt Elise" is the best holiday horror ghost story I've ever read. Someone should absolutely turn this into a haunted Christmas special. But it's not cutesy. Not in the least bit. This is some heady, weird horror. Shades of Hodgson, Aickman, James, and Machen. Five stars of Bethlehem for this amazing story.

For the first time ever, I have read a vampire story that I genuinely, thoroughly enjoyed. I’ve given plenty of chances to the vampire subgenre and, frankly, I hate it. At least I hate what I’ve read. There’s Dracula, then there’s everything else. "The Lost Art of Twilight" both subverts the hackneyed stereotypes and plays in the gothic murkiness of tradition. And to think that it was Thomas Ligotti, of all writers, who pulled it off . . . I'm almost speechless. I wonder, honestly, what Ligotti thinks of it, in hindsight, since finding his own voice. Five stars. I never thought I’d give five stars to a vampire . . . anything.

Dear Brothers Quay, please immediately drop whatever project you are working on, use it as a Blu-ray extra, and begin design work for the filming of "The Troubles of Doctor Thoss". Your urgency in the matter is appreciated. You will not regret having made the effort. Four stars.

Ligotti bucks my expectations again with "Masquerade of a Dead Sword: A Tragedie". Here he waxes medieval (or at least early modern) in language, vocabulary, and tone. It is clear he is exploring voice (and is very good at it) while the seeds of his later work can be seen in the nihilistic tragedy that plays out. He reminds me of Picasso - known for cubism, but he had so much more to offer. Five stars to this tale.

"Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech" is like a dark, creepy Three Stooges (yes, three, but no spoilers) doped up on a massive dose of nihilism. This is Ligotti coming into his own, at least how the tale is chronologically presented in this volume. The soliloquy of Dr. Voke on a laughing wooden dummy seems emblematic of later Ligotti, a manifesto, of sorts:

”Did you ever wonder, Mr. Veech,” Voke begins, parading slowly toward his guest while holding one side of his coat like the train of a gown. “I say, did you ever wonder what it is that makes the animation of a wooden dummy so terrible to see, not to mention to hear? Listen to it, I mean really listen. Ya-ha-ha-ha-ha: a series of sounds that becomes excruciatingly eloquent when uttered by the Ticket Man. They are a species of poetry that sings what should not be sung, that speaks what should not be spoken. But what in the world is it laughing about? Nothing, it would seem. No clear motives or impulses make the dummy laugh, and yet it does!

‘But what is this laughter for’ you might well ponder. It seems to be for your ears alone, doesn’t it? It seems to be directed at every part of your being. It seems . . . knowing. And it is knowing, but in another way from what you suppose, in another direction entirely. It is not you the dummy knows – it is only itself. The question is not: ‘What is the laughter for,’ not at all. The question is: ‘Where does it come from?’ This in fact is what inspires your apprehension. While the dummy does terrorize you, his terror is actually greater than yours.

Think of it: wood waking up . I can’t put it any clearer than that. And let’s not forget about the painted hair and lips, the glassy eyes. These, too, are aroused from a sleep that should never have been broken; these, too, are now part of a tingling network of dummy-nerves, alive and aware in a way we cannot begin to imagine. This is something too painful for tears and so the dummy laughs in your face, trying ti give vent to a horror that was no part of his old home of wood and paint and glass. But this horror is the very essence of its new home – our world, Mr. Veech. This is what is so terrible about the laughing Ticket Man. Go to sleep now, dummy. There, he has gone back to his lifeless slumber. Be glad I didn’t make one that screams, Mr. Veech . . .”

This is the Ligotti I stumbled on when I picked up a beat-up copy of Noctuary at the University Book Store years ago. This is the stuff I love. Five stars.

I spoke too soon. "Professor Nobody's Little Lectures" is actually the Ligotti manifesto:

Madness, chaos, bone-deep mayhem, devastation of innumberable souls - while we scream and perish, History licks a finger and turns the page.

There is some fantastic insight in this essay, especially in "Pessimism and Supernatural Horror - Lecture One". Five stars.

"Dr. Locrian's Asylum" drips with the esoteric - hermetic knowledge only brought to light in the darkness of insanity and death. A ghost story, but so much more, a ghost story of cosmic horror, but a horror that is tempting in its promise of revelation concerning the mysteries of existence and what lies beyond our conception of "reality," what lies beyond the veil. I might be tempted by such knowledge. Five stars.

"The Sect of the Idiot" is a Lovecraft story that Lovecraft never wrote, more "Lovecraftian" than H.P. himself. Many people's (false) notions of what L wrote are realized here, but it is Ligotti manifesting the cults, cosmic horror, and strange philosophies in a somewhat less florid, but more effective language than the Mythos originator ever wrote. Four stars - perfectly executed, but somewhat derivative work.

Egon Scheile, Franz Kafka, and Bruno Schulz have a baby. It's name is "The Greater Festival of Masks". It is beautiful. It is hideous. It is not quite the same at the end as it is at the beginning. It changes in . . . ways. Five stars.

If you've ever been unable to sleep at night and gone out for a walk, and if you've ever attended a performance of some entertainment alone, now knowing anyone in the audience or the performers, if you find the nether reaches of a dark city titillating, then "The Music of the Moon" is for you. And I don't just mean the story . . . I mean the music itself. Five stars.

"The Journal of J.P. Drapeau" is an homage to the decadents and symbolizes, even so far as to be set in and written about Bruges, a focal point of both movements. Ligotti's oeuvre underlies this piece, but does not permeate it; stifled, it seems, by a bit too much slavishness to 19th-Century tropes and traditions. Four stars.

I can see why Jon Padgett has named his Ligotti-centric journal Vastarian after this story of the same name. A book, keyed to a certain reader, that is itself a key to unlocking the secret cosmos behind the veil of sanity. The theme is amazing, but the execution seems jumpy, the ending pegged on. Four stars.

"The Last Feast of Harlequin" has as its ending tagline: TO THE MEMORY OF H.P. LOVECRAFT. And while I can see this, in spirit, in practice there is little that points directly to Lovecraft outside of the discovery that you are not who you thought you were. Favorite lines:

"What buries itself before it is dead?"

. . . I felt myself a novitiate of a more rarefied order of harlequinry.

and much more. Five stars for out-Lovecrafting Lovecraft without pastiche and without obsequious mimesis.

"The Spectacles in the Drawer" is a hypercube of a story, layers of mirrors where the horror is squeezed in the interstices. The plot is less a twist than it is a klein bottle - fabulously surprising and shocking in its revelations. Five stars to this one (which I didn't even know existed until I picked up this volume - unlike others of Ligotti's that I have heard of by reputation, at least). This is genius.

"Flowers of the Abyss" is . . . adequate? The mood is right, the language a touch overblown, the philosophy intriguing, the point-of-view rare, the story thin and weak. So, it's "adequate" fiction, but not a peak-Ligotti story. Three stars.

"Nethescurial" seems like it should be the kind of cosmic horror that just seems cool. But, I admit, it gave me the jitters. The floors started creaking and I grabbed the nearest knife! This tale will make you afeared of EVERYTHING! Even yourself. It should come with a warning about creating existential paranoia in the reader. Five (still shuddering) stars!

"The Dreaming in Nortown" was . . . good, but a touch slow. I wasn't convinced by the ending/epilogue. It tried too hard to exhibit a power that the rest of the narrative was lacking. I think the author under-played his hand throughout the main body of the story and tried to shock at the end, when the tale might have been better if it was a little bolder throughout. Still weird and well-written overall. Three stars.

I found "The Mystics of Muelenburg" lacking; a bit flat. The atmosphere was right, but the greyness of it all was monochromatic and dull. So dull that it flattened Ligotti's normally compelling language. I know every author will have stories I don't like, but I didn't expect such a feeling of "I don't care" coming from a Ligotti story. Still, three stars, though. It was . . . alright.

Take 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, replace the ocean with the cosmic ocean, and ramp up the insanity by a few orders of magnitude, and you get the idea of the baseline for "In the Shadow of Another World". Add in a haunted house and a character named after Austin Osman Spare. Here, the pacing is perfect and enough is revealed to cause awe, while enough is hidden to cause terror! Five stars.

"The Cocoons" is a tight story with dark emotional undercurrents - a story "under" the story, three actually: The narrator's relationship with the doctor, Mr. Catch's relationship with the doctor, and the degenerate insectoid whatsits tying everyone together . . . almost. I could read stories like this all night long: multilayered, dark, with a hint of dark philosophy and a clever narrator duping his doctor. Five stars.

In "The Night School" we see Ligotti's nihilism in full swing and the great swelling of absurdity, which so typifies his later work: the universe is not inimical, it just doesn't care, so why should you care? Existence is an empty joke eliciting hollow laughter. What are the lessons of the night school? Does. Not. Matter. Four stars.

I can see, in "The Glamour," Ligotti's methods coming into full fruition, as manifest later in Teatro Grottesco. Here, it is the repetition of the phrase "a part of town I had never visited before". Ligotti repeats this seemingly banal phrase in sinister contexts, turning the ordinary into the horrifying.

Yet the places now revealed on the movie screen . . . were the fundament of the sinister and seamy regions which cast their spectral ambience on the reality of the theater but which were themselves merely the shadows, the superficial counterparts, of a deeper, more obscure realm

This is yet more of the Ligotti I love.

In "The Glamour," we discover Ligotti discovering his voice . . . almost. Repetitive banalities, the meaninglessness of existence, a hideous world behind a world where we are only germs in the belly of the beast - it's all there. Except the ending. That lingering ending that haunts you for days after you've read the book. This story didn't have it. It is the penultimate voice of Ligotti we hear, not the final product. Four stars.

Every author has to have a library story, right? Ligotti's "Library of Byzantium" is an institution where defacing the property has lethal consequences. A less visceral, more "spectral" story for Ligotti, this one has a hopeful ending that I don't think I've seen in his work before. It has more in common with an M.R. James piece than the typical Ligotti fare. A beautiful, dark story. Five stars.

"Miss Plarr" would make an amazing black and white movie with strong noir sensibilities. Tom Waite would narrate, though the protagonist is a child. Nick Cave would provide the soundtrack, along with Pye Corner Audio. But who would play Miss Parr? Helena Bonham Carter? Gwyneth Paltrow? Dunno. Five stars.

"The Shadow at the Bottom of the World" teeters on the edge of what could have been greatness, could have been one of the best pieces of folk-horror ever written . . . but it turns away from its potentialities and loses its virulence at the end. I admit I was disappointed. Not a bad story (can Ligotti write a bad story?), but it could have been much, much more with the right ending. Four sighing stars of disappointment.

This is not Ligotti’s masterpiece. But Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe is a gallery’s-worth of studies that show the breadth of his work and the slow development of what will become his distinctive, authoritative, singular voice. In hindsight, it is a happy accident that I read this collection and Teatro Grottesco in reverse order. I highly recommend this anachronistic dive into darkness.

[Jack Poling · Rating 1 out of 5]

Where to begin? Have you ever read a book so awful that you hated it? A book that despite being only 300 some odd pages took you weeks to read? A book that, after a while, made you hate not only this book, but the act of reading itself? After 300 pages of this garbage I think I not only hate reading, but have been rendered illiterate. Thanks Thomas Ligotti! Now I can't read! I'm only able to type this by using rage telepathy. Now I'm going to saw off my own head with the plastic cutlery from my KFC dinner and kick my own head off my back porch like a soccer ball. I hope you are happy Mr. Ligotti, you bastard! I hope somebody kicks you square in the balls.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not usually big on short story anthologies. I find jumping from one short tale to another jarring, so I took my time with this one, breaking for a day or so after each. Even though it ended up taking me a while to get through, I'm glad I did because each and every story in Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe demanded reflection.

It all reminds me of that trite little fable of the Chinese philosopher (Chuang Tzu?) who dreamed he was a butterfly but upon waking affected not to know whether he was a man who’d dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly now dreaming…you get the idea.

Like with all of Ligotti's work, this anthology is deep and dark. It screams of primal fears and unsettling realities. Of the uncanny and otherworldly.
Lovecraft's influence is obvious in a many tales. The Last Feast of Harlequin is even dedicated to him, and it's obvious why. Ligotti's prose capture that special quality of Lovecraft that so very few do.

Go to sleep now, dummy. There, he has gone back to his lifeless slumber. Be glad I didn’t make one that screams.

My absolute favorites were:
Dream of a Manikin
The Last Feast of Harlequin
The Frolic
Les Fleurs
The Christmas of Aunt Elise
Dr Voke and Mr Veech
In the Shadow of Another World
Dr. Locrian's Asylum

[E. G. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Foreword, by Jeff Vandermeer

Songs of a Dead Dreamer

Dreams for Sleepwalkers
--The Frolic
--Les Fleurs
--Alice's Last Adventure
--Dream of a Manikin

The Nyctalops Trilogy:
--I. The Chymist
--II. Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes
--III. Eye of the Lynx

--Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story

Dreams for Insomniacs
--The Christmas Eves of Aunt Elise
--The Lost Art of Twilight
--The Troubles of Dr. Thoss
--Masquerade of a Dead Sword: A Tragedie
--Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech
--Professor Nobody's Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror

Dreams for the Dead
--Dr. Locrian's Asylum
--The Sect of the Idiot
--The Greater Festival of Masks
--The Music of the Moon
--The Journal of J. P. Drapeau
--Vastarien

Grimscribe

--Introduction

The Voice of the Damned
--The Last Feast of Harlequin
--The Spectacles in the Drawer
--Flowers of the Abyss
--Nethescurial

The Voice of the Demon
--The Dreaming in Nortown
--The Mystics of Muelenburg
--In the Shadow of Another World
--The Cocoons

The Voice of the Dreamer
--The Night School
--The Glamour

The Voice of the Child
--The Library of Byzantium
--Miss Plarr

The Voice of Our Name
--The Shadow at the Bottom of the World

[Gabrielle (Reading Rampage) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 and a half stars.

Thomas Ligotti is a tough nut to crack. You’ll rarely come across writing that manages to be very good, yet relentlessly bleak – but that’s how he writes: his settings are squalid, his characters always lonely and isolated, the sun never shines on the small towns they live in. His stories are absurd and unsettling, and sometimes very creepy. But I would use the words baroque and bizarre more than scary to describe his work.

I had read some of his later work (“Teatro Grottesco” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) and “My Work is Not Yet Done” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...)) over the past couple of years, and I have to say that I enjoyed those more than I did “Songs of a Dead Dreamer” and “Grimscribe”. There is some incredible writing in his volume, and some truly stand out stories (“The Lost Art of Twilight”, "The Troubles of Dr. Thoss”, “The Last Feast of Harlequin” and “The Shadow at the Bottom of the World” were my favorites), but the ones that are not as great often ended up feeling like a chore, I couldn’t really connect to them, and I admit I was a little relieved to be done – even if the last story is one of the best ones in this collection.

I’ve heard it said many times that Ligotti is not for everyone, and that is true, but I’m starting to wonder if he might also simply not be for every mood. Perhaps one requires a very clear headspace to dive in this weird world – and I was simply not in it this time.

This is still a very important book in terms of modern horror writing: for fans of the genre, it is invaluable to see where other writers find inspiration, but this is not one I will be re-reading.

[Jonfaith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some things remain inscrutable. I will never understand the elements of my reading interests. Why do certain matters excite and others repel? I have no great affinity for Cosmic Horror. I’m not terribly interested in madness or cults, nor the occult for that matter. There were a handful of brilliant stories here, some evoking Kafka or an uneasy totem of the Weird. Too many appear to be variations on a theme. Too much Ligotti left me suffocated, but never afraid.

[Tristram Shandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I started this book which bundles Ligotti’s first two story collections with high hopes but I soon found myself unwilling to read through it, thus adding it to my pile of abandoned books. We already sort of got off on the wrong foot with the first story because exploiting the suffering of children just with a view of providing sheer thrill never goes down too well with me. When I read on, I was taken aback by the overall style of the stories – a verbose, baroqueish rambling that is sometimes even at odds with the situation: For example, would a street-walker really invite a guy like the narrator of the first part of “The Nyctalops Trilogy” into her flat, whose masturbatory and florid talk clearly marks him out as an unhinged pervert? The effect on me as a reader was enervating, in an annoying way. All in all, I had the impression that Ligotti wanted to copy Poe – both in style and often also in theme, as we often find mentally disturbed people in his stories – but that he unfortunately fell short of it, at least by half. With the only exception of “Alice’s Last Adventure”, a story that really conjures up a sense of nameless, ominous terror, I felt that I could not get my worth of reading time out of those stories and that is why I finally decided to consign this book to the pile of probably-later-but-probably-not-books.

[Ipsa · Rating 3 out of 5]

update: bumping up the star rating to three because four months later, the Ligottian imagery continues to infect my skin with its disgusting putrescent slime.

Imagine if you could just walk inside any object and have its slime flow through you; oversaturate your flesh with its essence. There will be a primal resetting of your bones. click, click, click. Slowly you will rupture through the fabric of the world as you know it. You will find yourself in a Boschian carnival or hell, whatever you prefer. You will slowly drown in the fetid waters of the immanent schemes of existence. The abstract dread will give way to an ethereal medieval gloom: a gauziness where a stubborn rationality should be. Your olfactory nerves will be assaulted by the rank smell of demented innocence: the sulphuric smell of imbecility, of puppets with nauseating eyes that are not of this world.

Imagine reading a book like this. A book so absolutely, so gloriously, and so nauseatingly nihilistic that all you can do is sit entranced and fight the urge to throw up. You will read on feverishly because you will start to recollect that lost revelation in your bones: all that ends does so in exhaustion, confusion, debris. And then you will want to watch Disney movies for a month straight. Now imagine a man named Thomas Ligotti did write a book like that; a concept verbosa. However the shadow at the bottom of things demands feathery lightness of medium so that it may pore through us absolutely. Here it gets lost in the baroque heaviness of his prose. Shame.

Ligotti's strength lies in the images he creates. The otherworldly idiotism of these frolicking images are haunting. He is an immensely powerful visual thinker and that shows in this collection. But the heaviness of his prose suffocates the potency of these images, reducing most of these stories to a yawn-inducing drag.

[Daniel Polansky]

As a rule, I really don't like to write negative reviews. There are two reasons for this; the first is as a matter of aesthetic principal. As a youth I can remember thinking that the understanding/appreciation of an art form – what might broadly be described as 'having taste' – consisted largely of sharpening one's sense of contempt for the vast body of work in that particular form, and of being able to convey that distaste in a vicious and entertaining manner (we might call this the Pitchfork model). But in fact, this is the absolute opposite of what a true critical sensibility really entails – what would we say of a good critic who exclusively enjoys Italian food, or who loathes sushi? A competent critic is able to move beyond their inclinations to appreciate a wide variety of genres, to say, yo, Ghostface Killah is a hell of a rapper, and, also, Gillian Welch has a great voice.

The second reason is essentially personal. A sort of invisible line is crossed when you write your first book, and start to see your name on things, and realize, 'shit, these authors I've spoken of are not abstractions but concrete, living human beings, and not just targets of abuse.' It would be one thing if I were a professional reviewer, and responsible, at least in theory, to the people reading my reviews. But I'm not, and have no such obligation. I've had days made worse by a negative review of a stranger – not much worse, not dramatically worse, but still, slightly worse, and I would just as soon not pass that injury onward.

Also, as a professional, there are, shall we say, political concerns – either the target of your opprobrium is more popular than you, in which case your dislike is sure to be seen as a simple case of sour grapes, or the target is less popular, in which case you are acting as a bully, an abhorrent activity regardless of the circumstances. In short, I prefer only to speak ill of another author's work if they are a) dead or b) so popular as to make my dislike irrelevant, and preferably both.

So I can only hope that the release of Ligotti's works in this Penguin omnbius edition signals he has reached a level of success that the following not particularly kind review will have no effect on him or his career. (it helps also that he will almost certainly never read this).

Enough preamble. This is not at all a terrible book. If you were to compare it to every other work of horror released this year I feel confident it would be in the top quarter. But that's really about the best that can be said about it, in my own opinion. It is not groundbreaking, it is not brilliant, it is not even particularly excellent. Ligotti seems to operate entirely or almost entirely within the framework which Lovecraft devised, albeit with an improved level of prose (admittedly, damnation with faint praise). Virtually every tale in this collection might be summed up as 'too-eager seeker of esoteric knowledge falls afoul of alien forces which live just below the surface of the universe'. There are no surprises here – any remotely observant reader can deduce the ending of most of these stories from the opening sentences. At a certain point I started to find the thing kind of terribly repetitive, the endless descriptions of visions that can't be described/colors that can't be named/feelings that can't be expressed/nameless lands where shadows lurk/etc.

It is a constant source of curiosity to me whom the literary establishment chooses to laud as exemplary. There is something arbitrary, even absurd about it, like a vegetarian reviewing a steak house. How else can one explain the veneration of an utter mediocrity like Murakami, a second-rater in terms of prose, narrative and depth of thought? Or that Gene Wolfe has not entered the canon as firmly as Borges? Unfortunately, after reading this compilation I came to feel firmly that Ligotti is undeserving of the laurels currently being planted on him. One man's opinion, but there it is.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't really like it when they bundle together multiple books/collections that were originally published separately and I usually try to break them up, treat the parts as if they are still separate books. I didn't do that with this book; so excited was I to finally get a chance to read Ligotti's first two collections. So rich and intense was the writing that I really think I ought to have done as it took me quite a while to finish.

I seem to have worked my way backwards through his work, starting with his later collections Teatro Grottesco and My Work Is Not Yet Done, then going on to Noctuary and finally getting to his earliest published work in this book and it is now that I can start to form a picture of how Ligotti evolved as a writer.

His earlier work is noticeably different from later. The prose is more ornate, becoming simpler and more refined later. Ligotti always had his own voice yet it certainly seemed more Lovecraftian in these earlier pieces. Ironically though, "The Last Feast of Harlequin" which the author dedicated to the memory of Lovecraft was one story that stood out to me as an early indicator of how his writing style would evolve later on. The source of the horrors in many of these early stories are more esoteric, less to be found in the every day absurd when compared to his later work. The protagonists too tend to be less relatable than the every-man we often find in his later stories.

The above makes me sound quite down on his early work. That is far from the case. There are many great stories found in these collections. "The Frolic" was masterful and every bit as great as anything else he has done. Other greats include "Dream of a Manikin", "The Troubles of Dr. Thoss", "Dr. Locrian's Asylum", "The Spectacles in the Drawer" and "The Night School". I think I do prefer his later works but such are the towering peaks of greatness that this author has achieved that even his lesser pieces are still wonderful to read.

And such is the rich complexity and nuance of his work that one can look forward to re-reading it and perhaps arriving at greater levels of appreciation in time.

[Ebony Earwig · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmmmm.... from what I'd read from the blurb I was expecting something a little more interesting than just some horror stories. This was all a bit standard and mediocre, like some guy trying to be a combination of Stephen King and Edgar Allen Poe and [insert classic horror writer]. It was fine, but it's like when you listen to the radio and think "I've heard this song before somewhere - actually - no - it just sounds like a song I heard 20 years ago." So anyway, it seems like Thomas Ligotti is like one of those musicians that enjoys being a throwback rather than carve out something of himself.

I'm sure I sound like I hated this book, but I wouldn't go that far. I was just wondering where the "raw experimentalism" was? Or even the shit-your-pants scariness, because not a single bit of it shocked me. My reactions were generally "oh yeah, I guess that's kind of a bit weird, I wonder if that's been taken from HP Lovecraft or someone."

Anyway, I'm struggling to give this a star rating, because it was competent enough and not exactly terrible... if I were being subjective this would get 2 stars, but to be objective I'd give it three. So I'm going with 2 stars, because I feel like being a bit nasty today.

[Dona's Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐⭐⭐.5

Part of my kill-my-tbr project, in which I'm reading all my physical, unread books, which number around one thousand!


Pre-Read Notes:

All I know about this book is that Thomas Ligotti is considered one of the masters of the Weird genre. I tend to like Weird fiction, so I picked up a paper copy of this book years ago. It's dense because it's a combination of two different short story collections, but I love shorts so I'm excited.

"There are things which only madmen fear because only madmen may truly conceive of them." p161

Final Review

(thoughts & recs)I'm glad I read these stories from another age and inspired by some of the scariest horror ever written: I'm talking of course about Lovecraft.

This book contains two short story collections by Thomas Ligotti, a popular writer of weird horror in the 1980's. I enjoyed the first, Songs of a Dead Dreamer, more than I did the second, Grimscribe, but both are worth a read.

This horror writer is for fans of the film Dark City or Gothic existential horror novel Listen to Your Sister.

Content Notes:
Songs of a Dead Dreamer - murder, serial murder, slight gore, blood, traumatic birth, archaic mental illness treatments and attitudes, ableism

Grimscribe - Christmas, winter solstice, scary houses, ableism, mental illness, mental health horror


I have a paperback copy and also used an accessible digital copy of A SONGS OF A DEAD DREAMER AND GRIMSCRIBE by Thomas Ligotti from Libby.

[Maxwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

To the best of my knowledge, and despite his regrettable decade of silence, Thomas Ligotti is the greatest living writer of horror.

Jeff VanderMeer (Who I have always felt to be overrated) makes one cogent point in his otherwise clumsy introduction--”Ligotti early on subsumed Lovecraft and left his dry husk behind, having taken what sustenance he needed for his own devices (Most other writers are, by contrast, consumed by Lovecraft when they attempt to devour him.)” The H.P. Lovecraft style (or ‘Cthulhu Mythos’ if we must call it that) offers attractive narrative paradigms, but is usually treated like a game of Dungeons and Dragons, which renders its beautiful, horrible complexities totally inert. Lovecraft’s disciples are tasting poisoned honey. Many of them perpetuate his corpus unto new generations with generous baths in formaldehyde, leaving a pretty carcass, but only to a careless glance. Closer inspection reveals the chalky, lifeless flesh. Unlike Lovecraft’s own fiction, his imitators are usually neutralized by careful or repeated readings, lacking the conviction (or lack thereof) to fully inhabit his nihilism.

Thomas Ligotti is one of a few exceptions. He inherits Lovecraft’s legacy, born in ancient mythology and epic poetry, sharpened in Elizabethan tragedy and moribund Jacobean drama, and given generic flesh in the gothic and decadent traditions. Edgar Allen Poe and Franz Kafka deserve special mention as the irrational lunar poles of influence which illuminate Ligotti’s style. But he is more original and dimensional than the repetitively maudlin Poe and he is more daring and baroque than the elegant mundane surrealism of Kafka. Ligotti’s style lacks the thick verbal humidity of Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood and Lord Dunsany, who influenced Lovecraft’s own rococo writing--Ligotti prefers penetrating nihilistic aphorisms to adjectival excess for his horror’s atmosphere, a mordant wit which reminded me of Emil Cioran.

My favorite story in this collection was Harlequin’s Last Feast, which single-handedly revived my faith in the written horror story to be disturbing on a visceral level. It’s an uncontroversial opinion (it’s his most anthologized story), but I thought, this must be how it felt to read The Shadow Over Innsmouth before its innovative terrors atrophied from innumerable adaptations into more advanced art forms, particularly film. Once you’ve seen body horror with 21st century visual effects, it’s hard to convince someone that their own soft flesh has mutated into an alien monstrosity with something so retrograde as a written sentence. This story made me live nightmares that I thought only film could render in this desensitized day and age. I have read it back a couple times to try and apprehend the clockwork which made the story so successful. I haven’t quite cracked it, but the academic minutiae (the protagonist is a professor, always quoting dry papers) and intuitive eye for mundane details are married to the classically “scary clown” archetype and some novel, fresh horrors, hitherto unseen on TV, horrors which I won’t spoil.

Another favorite was Alice’s Last Adventure, which shows Ligotti’s range by employing emotionally involving, psychological horror, thematically exploring the aging process with more pathos than you’d expect from such an anhedonic writer. It doesn’t have the metaphysical, cosmic scale of his other stories, but describes both geriatric deterioration and the disturbed fairytale of arrested youth in one breath. I was alarmed and surprised by the thematic departure. However, there were a couple stories which didn’t work for me--in particular, I disliked (or was merely disappointed by) the first story anthologized, ‘The Frolic’. It is a very smart and thematic story, but it never manages to be creepy. The Frolic is tethered to many horror cliches, which despite its intelligent philosophical dialogue, render it unengaging. By any other writer, this would be an impressive story, but I was expecting Ligotti to invert the well-worn formula and disappointingly, his subversive dexterity never touched the story. But it’s an early installment in an otherwise original and transgressive oeuvre.

Despite his difficulty and existential coarseness, I would recommend Ligotti to everyone. He will be among the smartest, scariest and most eternal, timeless writers you are likely to read. I do not know if he will transcend his cult following and achieve the prestige he deserves--this Penguin Classics anthology, instigated by the True Detective series (which mercilessly plagiarized his ideas), is a good start. But probably not enough to get people to buy him, read him and collapse him into the mainstream with the name-branded citation he deserves. But if there’s one thing his writing transmits, loudly and (dis)passionately, it’s that no one gets what they deserve.

[David Peak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re-reads for both of these great books.

Full review here at Electric Literature:
http://electricliterature.com/the-hor...

[Tomsk · Rating 1 out of 5]

Horror that reads as if it was written by Niles Crane from Frasier.

[Ksenia Anske · Rating 4 out of 5]

That kind of a book. The kind that makes you flip your head around to make sure no one is watching you. Luscious and rich, extravagant and perverse, labyrinthine and macabre and Poesque, a collection of intricate scares and one very important story on the writing of horror that will rattle your wits and teach you a thing or two about, you got it, writing horror. "Horror is not really horror unless it's your horror—that which you have known personally."

[S̶e̶a̶n̶]

And so on a sodden grey Sunday I finish this collection that I took several weeks to read. It still felt like too much Ligotti in too short of a time. The stifling oppression of much of his carefully controlled prose wears me down after only a story or two. In general, I preferred the stories in Teatro Grottesco to those in these first two early works. One of my main issues is with the endings...there were many stories that crackled with potential throughout only to fizzle out at the end. Of those that rose above this limitation, one of my favorites was 'The Last Festival of Harlequin', as I felt the mythology was suitably complex and melded well into the ongoing narrative (and I so appreciated the return of Dr. Thoss). Ligotti displayed in this tale his ability to fashion a unique occult vision using familiar building materials, while also maintaining a compelling storyline.

If I hadn't been forced to utilize the library in order to read this, I have no doubt that I would have taken even more time with it, which perhaps would have altered my initial perceptions. I experienced a wide range of reactions to these stories but unfortunately many of them also blurred together in my head, in part due to the speed with which I read the book. For this reason I was unsure of how to rate this and it's one of those cases where the star rating seems insufficient to the point of distraction. But I will add that for personal reasons I possess an appreciation of Ligotti's work that runs beneath the sentence level, independent of vagaries in my reactions to or opinions of its surface characteristics.

[Robert · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thomas Ligotti is a somewhat legendary writer in the field of horror fiction. This new volume combines two small press, long out of print collections. Ligotti is an elegant, thoughtful author of rather detached tales, of which I struggled through the first 5 before giving in to sheer boredom. I regret to report (after looking forward to reading Ligotti for years) that I find his work both oblique and opaque; reading this work was somewhat like being in line at the local DMV standing next to someone who talks ceaselessly about a subject you care nothing about. I am in the minority. The only horror I can attach to this volume is that of having to struggle through another one of these tales.

[None Ofyourbusiness Loves Israel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thomas Ligotti's tales defy conventional horror, resembling instead sinister anecdotes guiding readers into unsettling contemplations on the fragility, futility and absurdity of human existence. Throughout his narratives, curious and ambitious characters delve into the depths of life, only to be ensnared by its darkness. However, the length of this collection presents a challenge. The overly ornate prose tends to become laborious, aloof, and pretentious. Recurring motifs like mannequins, clowns, and puppets lose their impact through repetition, and the once shocking twists grow predictable, diminishing the stories' effectiveness.

[Leo Robertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I read of this I loved before I left it on the plane once I arrived in Trondheim.

Word to the unwise: don't trust that just because you're looking at it in that crappy net thing the whole flight that you'll remember it! You're a total div and you won't. You're just as derpy as every derpalot passenger you silently scorned for derping all over the place. DERP!!

[SAM · Rating 1 out of 5]

This really wasn't for me. Too much atmosphere and not enough decent storytelling. The majority of the stories have the same premise and come across as, for lack of a better word, wanky. I much prefer the Stephen King type of horror rather than this pretentious shit.

[Barry · Rating 3 out of 5]

June 2016 Update: I'm giving this book another shot, and boy howdy, am I glad I chose to do this.

Original review: I need to give this book another, more educated, chance at some point. Being early works from Ligotti, there are many glimpses of his brilliantly obsidian views, but often weighed down by prose so thick that it can be hard to follow his direction. Even so, the mood outweighs the words, and with stories such as "The Frolic" and the excellently distressing "Les Fleurs," I am left haunted and intrigued to delve deeper into his visionary prose. Perhaps, at some point, I shall read one of his more "solidified" works, and return to this with a new and more proper appreciation. From one newcomer to any others, however, I'd suggest not starting off with this collection. (Here's hoping Penguin helps remedy that by reprinting more of his works!)

[Panagiotis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ο Λιγκότι είναι ένας συγγραφέας τρόμου που όσα άκουσα πριν ξεκινήσω τον τόμο αυτό καθώς και διαβάζοντας την εισαγωγή, χαίρει άκρατης εκτίμησης. Λογοτεχνικές χάρες πέραν των καθιερωμένων του σιναφιού του του αποδίδονται και γενικά περιμένει κανείς έναν εξαιρετικό αφηγητή, έναν συγγραφέα από τους λίγους, εκείνους τους καλούς. Είναι;

Ναι, νομίζω πως ο Λιγκότι είναι πράγματι ένας άνθρωπος που γράφει τόσο καλά όσο λένε. Γιατί από τις πρώτες σελίδες του The Frolic παρασύρθηκα σε εκείνη την δίνη που ανοίγει σπάνια και σε ρουφάει από τον περίγυρο σου μέσα στις σελίδες: όταν ο ψυχοθεραπευτής που δουλεύει σε φυλακή επιστρέφει φορτισμένος σπίτι του μπαίνουμε μαζί κι εμείς σπίτι του - είμαστε εκεί κοντά, στην θαλπωρή του σαλονιού όταν η σύζυγός του ετοιμάζει ποτά, ζούμε αυτήν την προσωπική στιγμή, η οποία, καθώς ο άντρας αφηγείται τα παράδοξα ενός περιστατικού, κορυφώνεται σε μια φρικιαστική ιστορία στο τέλος της βραδιάς.

Οι ιστορίες του πρώτου βιβλίου χωρίζονται σε μεγάλες θεματικές ενότητες με αλλόκοτους τίτλους που σαγηνεύουν τον αναγνώστη. Και κάθε ιστορία δουλεύει εκπληκτικά καλά. Ακόμα κι όταν δεν καταλάβαινα που το πήγαινε ο Λιγκότι, όπως για παράδειγμα στην τρίτη ιστορία, alice’s last adventure, που ο αφηγητής παρεμβάλλεται στις πρώτες κιόλας γραμμές ως δημιουργός του φαινομενικά κεντρικού χαρακτήρα, δεν έδωσα δεκάρα. Ήθελα απλά να διαβάσω αυτά που ήθελε να μου πει ο Λιγκότι. Γιατί ο Λιγκότι είναι ένας πραγματικός σκηνοθέτης των αφηγηματικών τεχνικών – δεν προσκολλάται σε μία μόνο οπτική της εξιστόρηση, αλλά την μεταφέρει από ιστορία σε ιστορία κατά το δοκούν, εκπλήσσοντας πάντα τον αναγνώστη. Φαίνεται πως έχει δοκιμάσει, έστω νοερά αλλά διεξοδικά όλες τις πιθανές εκδοχές και έχει καταλήξει σε αυτήν που δουλεύει πιο σωστά και συνεισφέρει τα μέγιστα στον τρόμο. Ένας τρόμος που ενώ δεν βασίζεται στην βία μου προσέφερε έντονες ανατριχίλες και μουδιάσματα. Δήλωση η οποία είναι καθόλα πραγματική και όχι σχήμα λόγου. Αρκεί να ανακαλέσω το τελείωμα από το Dream of a Manikin. Δε θυμάμαι να έχω διαβάσει πιο τρομακτική ιστορία.

Οι χαρακτήρες του Λιγκοτι μπαίνουν στα χωράφια του γκροτέσκου. Σταδιακά, καθώς περνούσανε οι ιστορίες, μια κουστωδία από διφορούμενος τύπους σχηματιζόταν στο κεφάλι μου – φιγούρες που άνετα θα έπαιρναν το εισιτήριο για το φρενοκομείο αν δεν υπήρχε αυτή η τρομακτική διαύγεια της σκέψης τους. Είναι αυτή  η γειτνίαση του απόκοσμου, του ελλοχεύοντος εφιάλτη που απωθεί και την ίδια στιγμή έλκει τον αναγνώστη.

Ο Λιγκότι είναι εξαιρετικός, κυρίως στις πρώτες ιστορίες του τόμου. Μα δεν παύει να εκπλήσσει, ακόμα και όταν δεν αποδίδει τον μέγιστη απόλαυση, όπως στην μπλεγμένη φαντασία του Dr. Locrian's Asylum, που με την φωνή να αποκτά συχνά μια καθολική φωνή της πόλης, τον πληθυντικό της κοινής γνώμης, αλλά και με το κτίριο που στέγαζε και φύλασσε μια κατάρα δεμένη με εκείνο τον τόπου, μου έφερε στο νου τον Μιλχάουζεν. Το the sect of the idiot με την λαβκραφκική του γλώσσα, μάλλον με κούρασε. Το ίδιο και το Vastarien που είναι μια ξεκάθαρη απόδοση τιμών στις Ονειροχώρες του μεγάλου Αμερικανού, αλλά η κορύφωσή της με άφησε σε μια σύγχυση, με την φρίκη να βρίσκεται κάπου κοντά μου, αθέατη.

Ο πρώτος τόμος, Songs of a Dead Dreamer έτσι δεν κράτησε τον ενθουσιασμό μου σταθερό - ίσως μερικές ιστορίες να μην είχαν την συνεκτικότητα των πρώτων, των εντυπωσιακών, ίσως πάλι να ήταν λίγο αφαιρετικές και υπερβολικά γοτθικές, με τις λέξεις και τις περίτεχνες φράσεις στα αγγλικά να με κάνουν να χάνω μεγάλο μέρος, απαιτώντας μια παράλογα μεγάλη προσπάθεια εκ μέρους μου. Ωστόσο, ακόμα κι έτσι, τελειώνοντας αυτήν την ενότητα του τόμου, ήμουν υποταγμένος στις συγγραφικές βουλές του Λιγκότι. Με τον απόηχο των Λαβακραφκικών, τελευταίων ιστοριών έτσι πέρασα στο Grimscribe. Αν και είναι ένα ξεχωριστό βιβλίο, η μετάβαση είναι ομαλή - κανείς νομίζει πως συνεχίζει να διαβάσει την ίδια συλλογή ιστοριών. Δεν είναι τυχαίο πως τούτα τα δύο περιλήφθηκαν στον ίδιο τόμο. Η θεματική του ξεκινάει με μια παρόμοια Λαβκραφτική προσέγγιση των ιστοριών που είχα μόλις αφήσει. Με το The Last Feast of  Harlequin προσεγγίζει τον τρόμο του Ντάνγουιτς, όπου μια μικρή πόλη γιορτάζει υπό την άγνοια της πλειοψηφίας των πολιτών την λατρεία αρχαίων, χθόνιων οντοτήτων. Πόσο πιο Λάβκραφτ! Ο Λιγκότι, όμως, έχει μια πέννα που δεν είχε ο Λαβκραφτ. Έχει χωνέψει και έχει ζυμώσει μέσα του αυτά κι άλλα διαβάσματα και παραδίδει μια εξαιρετική μαρτυρία φρίκης και παραλογισμού.

Ωστόσο, όσο κι αν αυτός ο κοσμικός τρόμος του Λιγκότι είναι μια φρίκη σπάνιας ομορφιάς, αναγνωστικά δυσκολεύτηκα.  Ο υπαινικτικός τρόμος διαστάσεων που αδυνατεί να συλλάβει ο νους αν και είναι ένα εντυπωσιακό συγγραφικό επίτευγμα με τον Λιγκότι να αποφεύγει κλισέ εκφράσεις και να χρησιμοποιεί ένα εντυπωσιακό λεξιλόγιο είναι κάτι που εγώ μπορώ να το αντέξω σε μικρές δόσεις. Είναι λεπτολόγος δίχως να πλατειάζει και μεταφέρει τον ασαφή τρόμο που δεν μπορεί να συλλάβει ο ανθρώπινος νους με μια φοβερή ευρηματικότητα. Δίχως να επαναλαμβάνεται μεταφέρει στον αναγνώστη αβυσσαλέες κοσμογονίες, χρώματα πέραν από το γνωστό φάσμα και στρεβλές γεωμετρίες. Αλλά είναι σα να έρχεσαι σε επαφή με ένα εντυπωσιακό έργο αφαιρετικής τέχνης. Σε μικρές δόσεις είναι ένα εκλεκτό έδεσμα. Παραπάνω όμως και εκτεταμένες αναγνώσεις μου στερούν την αφηγηματική ανάγκη που έχω και που οι πρώτες του ιστορίες μου ικανοποίησαν. Η προ-τελευταία ιστορία ανταμείβει, όμως, αποτελώντας το αμάγαλμα όσων διάβασα. The Voice of the child. Υπάρχει κάτι το αινιγματικό πίσω από την ήρεμη αφήγηση του νεαρού αγοριού, με την ομιχλώδη επαφή του με το ανεξήγητο. Είναι φορέας του "άλλου"; αναρωτιέται κανείς καθώς οι ασκητικές ��ιγούρες που κατά καιρούς το επισκέπτονται, μύστες του ανεξήγητου καταλήγουν να χάνονται σε εκείνες τις άλλες διαστάσεις, μέσα από ομίχλες και ήχους ενός άλλου κόσμου. Εκπληκτική ιστορία, γραμμένη με μια ακρίβεια, με τις ζυγισμένες φράσεις του και τον ρυθμό του γράφει μια ιστορία που στα χέρια κάποιου άλλου θα είχε χλιαρά αποτελέσματα.

Τελικά, πόρισμα; Εξαιρετικός. Πρωτίστως γιατί ο Λιγκότι έχει εμμονές. Οι οποίες γενικά σε έναν συγγραφέα, το λέω και το υπερασπίζομαι, είναι προϊόν ευφυίας, δείγμα συγγραφικής ταυτότητας και καλό είναι να τις εντοπίζουμε. Και ο Λιγκόττι έχει τις δικές του. Διαβάζοντας αυτά τα δύο βιβλία, είδα μια λατρεία για το αλλόκοτο, το ερεβώδες, και για κάτι επικίνδυνο που ελλοχεύει πέρα από την ανθρώπινη φύση σε άλλες διαστάσεις. Αυτές οι αποκλίσεις, φαίνεται να λέει ο Λιγκότι, που ονομάζουμε σχιζοφρένεια, νοσηρότητα, φρικαλεότητα σε κάποια πλάσματα, οι αρρωστημένες ορέξεις που φτάνουν στα όρια του αποτρόπαιου, του ειδεχθούς, δεν είναι παρά τα σημάδια μια παρουσίας από κάπου εκεί έξω. Είναι το φορτίο των λίγων να ξέρουν την αποτρόπαια αλήθεια που εμείς οι υπόλοιποι αγνοούμε. Φρικαλέο; Που να τον διαβάσετε κιόλας. Ακόμα κι αν σε επιμέρους αναγνώσεις κουράστηκα, αυτό οφείλεται στην φύση των ιστοριών: ίσως καλό είναι να τις διαβάζει κανείς με ρέγουλο και διαλλείματα μεταξύ αναγνώσεων. Γιατί τελικά, το αναγνωστικό μετείκασμα είναι εθιστικό και θα ήθελα κι άλλον Λιγκότι. Τον έχω πια πολύ ψηλά στην λίστα μου με τα μελλοντικά διαβάσματα. Περισπούδαστη θέση θα έλεγα…

[Christina E · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know how I feel about Ligotti.

I got the very charming Penguin Classics edition of his first two story collections, Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe and to be frank I had quite a hard time finishing it.
His horrors are cognitive, esoteric, barely tangible. More than cosmic, I think Ligotti is a master of psychological and existential horror. Nobody explores the theme of dark dreaming more deliberately than him. His urban anomalies, distorted realities and bizzare dreamscapes are the kind of things that fill the reader/spectator with awe and wonder which are completely different feelings from what I normally seek in a work of horror.

There are no cozy campfire spooks here. Thomas Ligotti is cold. His degenerate iconography is so uncomfortable that while re-reading almost every demanding paragraph of a prose so elegant and complex that occasionally felt affected and superfluous ("..and with dull scissors we shaped black cats from the formless depths of black paper.") in order to fully immerse myself in this unconventional experience of misanthropy and nihilism I was quite convinced I hate him.

I'm still not sure how I feel about this book but thankfully there were some really rewarding pieces for me, especially towards the end of Grimbscribe.

From Songs of a Dead Dreamer: "The Chymist" (a captivating monologue of organic, visceral horror) and "Alice's Last Adventure".
From Grimbscribe: "The Night School", "The Glamour" (that particular kind of "entity" ιn the movie theater has been my most persistent fear since my childhood so naturally my heart skipped a beat the moment it was described. Plus, the suspiciously quiet atmosphere of the eerie suburbia), "The Shadow at the Bottom of the World", a grim harvest folk piece from which the following quote is one of the most beautiful descriptions of autumn imagery:
"..The multicolored leaves were softly glowing against the black sky, creating an untimely nocturnal rainbow which scattered it spectral tints everywhere and dyed the night with a harvest of hues: peach gold and pumpkin orange, honey yellow and winy amber, apple red and plum violet. Lustrous within their leafy shapes, the colors cast themselves across the darkness and were splattered upon our streets and our fields and our faces."

Personal tastes aside, I can appreciate Ligotti's honesty and intellect and I'm definitely going to attempt reading the rest of his works.

[Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

The more that I read the works of Ligotti, the more that I am convinced that the man is a genius. An author of a unique, singular vision; one of a kind, if you will. In this book we have the author's first two collections, generously resurrected back into print by Penguin in one volume. Here we see the master working in a mode closer in nature to Poe and Lovecraft, but to compare Ligotti to any other author simply leaves his individuality far too understated.

For Ligotti's unique brand of cosmic horror is about bleak ghost towns, dusty attics, lurid carnivals, strange puppets and harlequins, spectral autumns and winters, dreams of landscapes and existences simultaneously terrible and resplendent. A vision of a world of abstracted horrors and atrocities thinly veiled from reality. With lush, baroque prose and superb diction Ligotti easily lulls us into a dreary world of nightmares. Words fail to describe the true feeling of Ligotti's fiction to the uninitiated, but be assured that the stories herein are of a league of their own, joining the realm of the likes of Poe, Lovecraft, Kafka, Borges, etc.

Consequently, I can think of few authors that would be so polarizing as Thomas Ligotti: he can be difficult and unaccommodating. Though if you have developed an interest for the strange and surreal in your fiction, I couldn't recommend him enough. Some favorites include: The Last Feast of the Harlequin, The Shadow at the Bottom of the World, The Chymist, Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes, The Lost Art of Twilight, The Mystics of Muelenberg, etc.

[M. J. · Rating 2 out of 5]

(Bill Hsu's review asserts in an objective manner what would take me five paragraphs of self-reflection and poor grammar to report). After having a great time reading Teatro Grottesco, I was eager to read this two fold collection, now that it's finally over I can see how little fun I had reading it. In looking at this book sitting on my shelf righ now I can only think of its contrived language and how unexpectedly repetitive it was. I was expecting to be depressed, to confront the absurdity and dread inherent to the human condition, instead I was more often quite bored, missing non-fiction Ligotti. There are really good ideas and some great concepts here (that last short-story could be amazing, I love that fungal sort of approach in portraying how death and putrescence is as part of nature as life and florescence, but oh the circumlocutory sentences, I was really hoping to close the book with a warm feeling toward it, it was not the case unfortunately), I won't be giving up Ligotti, but I feel we need to spend some time apart for now. I need to read other hopeless pessimists.

[Philipp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can you call this Gnostic horror? Horror that doesn't use violence, or monsters, but that proposes that reality is in essence a fraud, it's just a thin thread of the everyday, below which shadows lurk.

A recollection of two earlier published books of stories by Ligotti, both are somewhere in the middle between H. P. Lovecraft and Bruno Schulz, less definite than the first, darker than the latter.

Many of the stories have a Lovecraft-like structure: a "final" letter or diary is found from someone who has disappeared, then the narrative switches over to the letter, which details how the missing person has walked down the wrong alley, or talked to the wrong person, or looked into the wrong direction - reality lifts its veil, the "madness of things" appears. Puppets, dreams, madness, impossible architectures. Usually, a narrow escape is possible only for the horror to return in dreams, then finally the horror seeps into reality (or just casts aside reality?) to whisk our poor narrator away.

Why should there not be something buried deep within appearances, something that wears a mask to hide itself behind the visibility of nature?

This is best consumed in small portions, at some point the earthly language may lead to fatigue - fans of more "conventional" horror may be turned away by the lack of conclusion or standard tropes.

There's a little "bonus" in the middle of small essays by a "Professor Nobody" on horror in fiction, quote:

While horror may make us squirm or quake, it will not make us cry at the pity of things. The vampire may symbolize our horror of both life and death, but none of us has ever been uprooted by a symbol. [...] By means of supernatural horror we may pull our own strings of fate without collapsing - natural-born puppets whose lips are painted with our own blood.

You can see where The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror started!

P.S: What an amazing cover!

[Andrew]

I'd read Conspiracy Against the Human Race first, but this was my first introduction to Ligotti's actual fiction -- some 10 years after a friend (wearing a hoodie and no shirt on a chilly spring day in Iowa City, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette, of course) hipped me to his work. Some of it is merely OK , but all of it is at least OK, and some of these stories are absolute mindbenders -- The Last Feast of Harlequin especially, go out and read that immediately. Given that this volume collects Ligotti's two earliest collections, it shouldn't be a surprise that it is clearly the work of a younger writer, still very much living under Lovecraft's long shadow -- right down to the lone academic characters, the last-epistle structures, and the use of phrases like "terrifying wonders" (although he thankfully left some of the more baroque verbiage behind). And yet, it's still very much worth a read -- now onto Ligotti's more recent work.