Pieśni umarłego marzyciela

by Thomas Ligotti, Wojciech Gunia (Translator), Mateusz Kopacz (Translator)

„Pieśni umarłego marzyciela” to zbiór opowiadań Thomasa Ligottiego, który zapewnił mu miano klasyka nadnaturalnego horroru, wymienianego jednym tchem obok Edgara Alana Poego i Howarda Phillipsa Lovecrafta. Jednocześnie jest to dzieło, które nie boi się sięgać po ironię oraz bawić formą. Znajdziemy w nim niemal wszystkie elementy, które mogą nam się kojarzyć ze świetnie zbudowanym światem grozy. Ale każde z zamieszczonych tutaj opowiadań zawiera w sobie coś osobliwego, niepozwalającego nam przejść obojętnie wobec wyzierających zeń koszmarów. To „coś” sprawiło, że dzieło Ligottiego opublikowano w prestiżowej serii „Penguin Classics”. On sam zaś stał się jednym z zaledwie dziesięciu żywych autorów, których spotkał ten zaszczyt.

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

296 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

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

[Glenn Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first published collection by contemporary American horror fiction writer Thomas Ligotti (born in 1953). To provide a sense of the richness of the author’s style and plot development, here are my comments on one of my favorite tales from the collection - as convoluted and multifaceted as an intricate Chinese box puzzle, Dream of a Manikin features a psychoanalyst writing a letter to his psychoanalyst wife regarding one of his patients, a young lady by the name of Amy Locher, the same name as one of the dolls his wife had when she was a little girl. Also, the narrator lets his wife know that Amy told him directly that she, his wife, recommended him as a therapist.

The narrator conveys the details of their session: Amy, a loan processor for a bank, tells him about her recurrent dream: how she works in a fashionable dress shop, has a complete biography as a dress shop employee and how she feels herself a slave to dressing and undressing the shop’s manikins, manikins that become the focal point of her animus.

Sidebar: "Animus" is a term used in the psychotherapy developed by Carl Jung, animus representing the masculine inner personality of a woman. By this specific term and others cited in Ligotti’s tale, it becomes clear both the narrator and his wife are Jungian analysts.

Amy tells the narrator/therapist how she is overwhelmed by anxiety when dressing the manikins and when she, as dress shop employee, returns to her apartment in the evening and has a dream where she retains her identity as manikin dresser and dreams her bedroom is transformed into a archaically furnished hall the size of a small theater. However, one of the walls of the theater is missing; instead, there is a star-filled blackness. In the supercharged silence, peering in the direction of this starry blackness, she senses an unseen demonic presence. Icy coldness envelops her and she grasps how she cannot look behind her - and something is definitely behind her!

However, no sooner does she become aware of this fact than she realizes she is, in fact, dreaming. With this heightened awareness, she now thinks of herself in the third person. And not only does she have this realization but the words "she is dreaming" becomes more pronounced and insistent, almost as if these three words were a legend written at the bottom of her dream, three words she hears repeated as if on an old phonograph record.

Then, all of a sudden, Amy’s weird dreams becomes weirder: As if a flock of birds settling on a statue, all those repeated phrases "she is dreaming" settle on a phantom statue, a statue she can’t see but she can certainly feel standing directly behind her. At this point, she wants to scream but she can’t since the statue’s firm right hand covers her mouth. Then, the statue’s left arm stretches out and its left hand dangles some filthy rags, making the rags dance before her eyes. The statue speak, telling her “It’s time to get dressed, little dolling.”

Amy can only move her eyes; she looks away from the dancing rags and sees for the first time her room is filled with people dressed as dolls, their bodies collapsed and their mouths wide open. The people do not look as if they are still alive, not at all - some of them instantly become actual dolls while others occupy a stage between humanness and doll-ness.

With horror, Amy realizes he very own mouth is open wide and will not close. Also, at this very moment, she realizes she can turn around and look at the menacing statue behind her. And she does: in the dream Amy wakes up to her very real loan processor self in her very own bed. In a state of bloodcurdling shock and as an attempt to completely and totally break the spell of her nightmare, Amy turns around to look at the chalk white bedroom wall behind her. To her wide-awake astonishment, she sees the face of a female manikin, a face that very smoothly, very slowly, recedes back into the bedroom wall. Amy screams so loudly several of her apartment neighbors become alarmed.

The narrator notes how Amy’s dream has much in common with his wife’s own exploration of the occult and Jungian depth analysis. For example, he tells her how she is continually classifying extrasensory pockets of hidden realities as “little zones” or “cosmic static.” Then, acknowledging how such occult studies are truly bizarre, he warns his wife she is taking the discipline and science of psychology too far.

Returning to his patient, the narrator relates Amy’s reaction to her recurrent dream, how the dream is so powerful she begins to question her very own identity: Is she a loan processor or is she really an employee of a dress shop? Or, some other identity? Amy’s newly acquired sense of “unreality” is causing her serious emotional instability. The narrator then links Amy’s emotional instability and sense of multiple selves with his wife’s theories on this subject, especially her theory of a "bigger Self," that is, a cosmic transpersonal masochistic jumbo self that enjoys tormenting all its little splinter selves.

The narrator tells his wife he finds her theories and such ancient notions of life as nothing but a dream both boring and absurd, notions reminding him of that famous Chinese story of a man who has a dream where he is a butterfly and then wakes, prompting him to question if he is a man who dreamed he was a butterfly or if he is a butterfly who is now dreaming he is a man. Totally ridiculous, even silly.

After listening to her recurrent dream, their therapy session continues and Amy practically demands that he, the therapist, put her under hypnosis. The narrator acquiesces to her plea and what he discovers and relays to his wife is not pretty. Turns out, by his patient’s testimony under hypnosis, he uncovers something extremely unsettling: Amy relays how there is a hidden, unseen presence in the background of her recurrent dream, a deep, undercover agent: the domineering boss of the clothing store, a boss who is played, as if within a theatrical play, by a certain lady psychoanalyst. And Amy gives the name of that lady psychoanalyst – his wife’s name!

Now the narrator has substantial evidence that points to how perhaps Amy and his wife are in a conspiracy against him. Or, then again, perhaps his wife as psychotherapist is using Amy as an unknowing subject for her own psychological experiments with post-hypnotic states or questionable forays within the realm of dream therapy. The session ends and our narrator/psychiatrist prescribes a tranquilizer and then sets a time for Amy’s next session. However, the following week, when Amy fails to show up for her scheduled appointment, the narrator conducts his own secret investigation of Amy’s background, and to this end, drives to the address she provided as her home address.

Turns out, the address is not residential but commercial, specifically, the address is of a fashionable dress shop, a dress shop that has in the window, to the narrator’s horror, a manikin with the same exact plaid dress Amy wore to her one and only session with him. And the eyes, oh, those manikin eyes, have an eerily familiar gleam. Alarmed beyond belief, thinking more conclusive evidence must be gathered, the narrator disguises his voice on a phone call to the store. Horror of horrors - the narrator discovers this fashion shop is exactly the very one where his wife purchases her cloths!

At this point the narrator feels a vague sense of paranoia coming on. In subsequent nights, he begins experiencing a series of horrible nightmares, a repetition of seeing the hallways of his own house lined with either people dressed up as dolls or dolls dressed up as people, all with that eerily familiar fixed gaze. Still in his dream, he returns their gaze and wonders if his own eyes are equally fixed. One of the doll-people beckons to him: “Become as we are, sweetie, Die into us.” He wakes with a start and begins to scream.

The tale continues, the strangeness and eeriness is ratcheted up again and again. Was Amy a manikin all along? Is he a real human psychotherapist or only a sophisticated human-looking doll manipulated by a higher sadistic intelligence? And this is but one of eighteen penned by Thomas Ligotti in this fine collection. If you are a fan of Poe, Lovecraft and tales of horror, this book is for you.

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ligotti was still learning his craft when this early anthology was published, and he had not yet perfected his cold, eccentric narrative voice or his talent for selecting only the most evocative and terrifying details.

Many of these stories are pretty conventional, with just a hint of extra nastiness and a whiff of the terrors of the abyss. "The Frolic" and "Alice's Last Adventure" are examples of such transitional stories.

Toward, the end of the book, however, Ligotti shows us some pieces in the mature style, such as "Dr. Locrian's Asylum" and "Vastarien," which are masterpieces of the genre.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've wanted to reread Thomas Ligotti's fiction (all of it, in order) for a while now. Well, here we go. I'm reposting my original review below from about 5 years ago, not wanting to write a new one, but I will give some thoughts. Ligotti's first collection wasn't my favorite and still isn't, but I definitely saw things here which I didn't the first time around, so I'm raising the rating from four to five stars.

I found myself liking some stories more than I did initially, perhaps because I read this collection slower, savoring only a few a day. "Alice's Last Adventure" is far more interesting than I originally thought, as is "Eye of the Lynx." "Dr. Locrian’s Asylum" is probably one of my favorites now, I read it a couple of times. "The Lost Art of Twilight" still isn't among my favorites but it is more enjoyable when you enjoy the prose instead of fishing around for philosophical meanings everywhere.

Others I liked continue to hold up. I think "Dream of a Mannikin" (from way back in 1982!) is as good as anything Ligotti would later write. "Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech" impressed me initially, but the imagery really blew me away this time.

I appreciate the gritty, urban settings for these stories, something sorely under-utilized in modern horror fiction which often retreats to the suburbs or countryside. There's even a few of what I would call "weird serial killer" stories. Ligotti's later fiction has a similar dream-like quality as these, but I think his prose in these early stories is purpled just enough for the reader who can appreciate it.

Yeah, some of the lesser-known, shorter stories toward the end of the book are a bit too bleary, not resolved as strongly as they could be, but for a first collection this is pretty amazing.

=====================================
OLD REVIEW

I gave "Teatro Grottesco" and "Grimscribe" both five stars and thought the former was the best short story collection I read all last year. I can't rate this one quite that highly, but it's still an excellent first collection.

There's a little of everything here, one can see Ligotti's dark philosophy throughout most of these stories, sometimes outright, sometimes around the edges. Having read two later collections however, some of these feel like "dry runs" of ideas that would be better-developed later. Ligotti's later stories show more variety of palette generally, especially in terms of setting and plot. These are often focused around freakish architecture, decaying urban landscapes, puppets and almost all are nocturnal affairs. *("...the streets were sinuous entrails winding through that dark body, and each edifice was the jutting bone of a skeleton hung with a thin musculature of shadows." ("Vastarien").)*

This collection taken on it's own is still great. There's a handful of masterpieces here like "Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story," "The Frolic," "The Troubles of Dr. Thoss" and perhaps "Dream of a Mannikin" and "Vastarien." But there's a number of stories that aren't overly individual like "Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes" or "The Lost Art of Twilight." These have the Ligottian mood, but in other ways they don't stand out.

The tone here is consistently dour and bleak, quiet and muted. Some of the early stories feel like more realistic horror stories, but as the collection progresses they become increasingly dream-like. There's greatness in terms of base ideas lurking in all of these stories, I just think in some cases it's not conveyed as effectively as it might have been.

The Frolic (1982) - Oh my gods, this was really eerie, this is a very early Ligotti story of course, however one can see his philosophy within it to some extent already. A prison psychologist tells his wife about a child murderer who claims to be taking children for a "frolic."

Les Fleurs (1981) - This story is full of imagination, but I didn't pull a lot out of it, although it certainly has an other-worldly, almost "Erich Zann" flavor to it. A strange artist and member of a plant cult tries to make an uninitiated girl see what he does.

Alice's Last Adventure (1985) - A weird horror story, I didn't care too much for it, but it has some moments, a good autumnal atmosphere and theme on aging. An author of children's books finds herself increasingly haunted after the death of the man on which her books were based.

Dream of a Mannikin (1982) - I thought this was a prime Ligotti story, creepy and full of Ligotti's pessimistic philosophy as anything written later -- and this is from 1982! A psychiatrist writes to a fellow psychiatrist about a patient who she referred to him, who he believes she has infected with a strange philosophy to terrorize him.

The Chymist (1981) - This was another impressive story, also early 1981, but with a definite flavor of later Ligotti. It's implications are quite horrific. A chemist who has a strange philosophy about nature being a state of decay which works through all things, has some masochistic intentions for a prostitute he picks up at a bar.

Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes (1982) - If I didn't know this was by Ligotti I doubt I would have attributed it to him. It's a good, decadent and climactic weird horror tale, but not overly individual. However it does have a certain misanthropy in it's philosophy that is familiar. A master hypnotist convinces a group of men at a party that his assistant is the most beautiful woman they've ever seen, but she's far from it.

Eye of the Lynx (1983) - This feels like a story Ligotti wasn't prepared to make fully comprehensible. Later stories are even stranger, yet far less vague in their implications. A man explores the cosmically strange house of a Gothic dominatrix.

Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story (1985) - A truly mind-bending story of impressive depth, which becomes increasingly eerie until it's shocking conclusion. An author attempts to explain the process of writing horror fiction, with an example taken from his own life, which turns into a confession of his evil alter ego.

The Christmas Eves of Aunt Elise: A Tale of Possession in Old Grosse Pointe (1983) - A good, nostalgic Ligotti weird tale for Christmas! Who knew? It has a neat theme to it, even if it's not the longest most substantial story. A young man recalls a tale his aunt told on Christmas Eve, of a young man entering the house of a dead man, and finding his soul switched.

The Lost Art of Twilight (1986) - Not a bad vampire story, certainly it has a sort of florid, vivid language to it, but at base it's just that -- a vampire tale. A man who's mother turned into a vampire while he was in the womb and was delivered after she was staked through the heart prepares to meet his ancestors who killed her.

The Troubles of Dr. Thoss (1985) - This is certainly one of the best in the collection. It's got an interesting idea at it's base, some scary parts and a nice atmosphere. A hermit, insomniac artist becomes interested in a Dr Thoss who once lived in his seaside town, and was rumored to engage in the black arts.

Masquerade of a Dead Sword: A Tragedie (1986) - I understand some aren't too impressed with this story, but I enjoyed most of it, however it does take some time to get off the ground. It's a bit more philosophical than many other stories here, and feels like a very doom-laden Clark Ashton Smith story. A man who has been cursed to see the true soul of what animates the world is given a pair of spectacles which make reality bearable. But things go awry when he is asked to attend a masquerade to help steal a man's lover.

Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech (1983) - Another good story, this could easily appear in a later collection as a somewhat minor episode. Still, this story packs a lot into it's rather brief length. Mr Veech seeks out the mysterious Dr Voke who seemingly has powers to give puppets life, asking him to separate his lover from another man, with tragic consequences.

Professor Nobody's Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror (1985) - Brief philosophical lectures on horror in literature, why it has an appeal and how it reflects on the state of being alive.

Dr. Locrian's Asylum (1987) - I wouldn't call this a bad story, but a lesser one by comparison to everything else here. Predictable, but God I love the atmosphere of it. A town brings a curse upon themselves after they dismantle a cursed asylum that has loomed over their horizon for generations.

The Sect of the Idiot [Azathoth] (1988) - This is a moody story of dark description with a good idea at it's base, but I feel like more could have been done with it. A man finds an attraction to a silent, old rotting town, until he has a vision of the beings which direct all life within it.

The Greater Festival of Masks (1985) - I didn't get much out of this one, it has some eerie moments and creative ideas, but is a brief, minor story. A man explores a town in the midst of a strange masquerade, and entering a costume shop discovers that some oddly-shaped masks in fact DO fit the wearers.

The Music of the Moon (1987) - Another short story, but making the most of it's length. It has an effective building of suspense and an unpredictable end, although it's meaning rather escapes me. An insomniac wanders the streets and happens upon a sinister musical performance.

The Journal of J.P. Drapeau (1987) - Lots of ideas here, with a self-referencing ending. An author muses on various macabre observations -- at base of these is the belief that, "the strict order of the visible world is only a semblance, one providing certain gross materials which become the basis for subtle improvisations of invisible powers."

Vastarien (1987) - Another great one. It's full of beautifully dark prose and has a very original idea at it's core. It's focus on dreams reminded me of Lovecraft's own preference for dreams to reality. A man is convinced that the world of his dreams reflects the unreality behind the real world, he finds a strange book which invites another, sinister figure into that world.

[Ellis ♥ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dei racconti di Thomas Ligotti non mi stanco mai perché significa venire a stretto contatto con la parte più profonda e oscura del nostro Io. Ci trascina in un grigiore corrusco, mondi deliranti in cui nessun lettore con un minimo di buon senso vorrebbe mai perdersi. Riesce a coniugare trame, a volte, assurde ma mantenendo sempre quel quid agghiacciante. Il pessimismo cosmico, di cui l'autore porta alto lo stendardo, è palpabile e corollato da una prosa sì aulica, ma intrisa di spietatezza. Immancabile anche l’allegoria della cosiddetta “marionetta umana” che viene approfondita e spiegata nel dettaglio all’interno del saggio La cospirazione contro la razza umana.

Quando il mondo disvela un oscuro travestimento
accogli la tenebra allontanando gli occhi.
(Salmi del Silente)

Ora, qualche mia breve considerazione sui singoli racconti:

Il burattinaio ⭐⭐
Il racconto che apre la raccolta sinceramente mi ha un po’ delusa, posto al centro un burattinaio corroso dall’ossessione … Siamo noi a manovrare i fili o è il contrario?

Il birichino ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Con il secondo, finalmente, riconosco il Ligotti che tanto amo leggere. Un racconto dal ritmo teso che verte sulla relazione medico – paziente, ma collocato in un carcere. Una mente criminale da studiare da vicino... O forse meglio di no?

Sogno di un manichino ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Due psicologi a confronto, un metodo di psicanalisi poco ortodosso e per nulla deontologico. C’è un’inquietudine iniziale che resterà sempre sottotraccia, pronta a riemergere in tutta la sua impetuosità al culmine della storia.

Il chimico ⭐⭐⭐⭐ ½
Venditore di fumo e di sogni angosciosi dai quali è impossibile svegliarsi. Narrato in uno stile che – per certi versi - mi ha ricordato American Psycho, risulta immersivo, quasi alienante.

Bevi a me soltanto con occhi labirintini ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Gli occhi sono lo specchio dell'anima, vuoi specchiarti e perderti nei miei? Un mentalista-illusionista, accompagnato dalla sua mortalmente bella aiutante, che gioca con le emozioni del pubblico. Sarà difficile, per loro e anche per noi, scindere verità e manipolazione.

La voce nelle ossa ⭐⭐ ½
Voci taglienti e turbate che si insinuano sottopelle, nelle ossa, reclamando le tenebre. Stenta a decollare, ma si riprende nell’epilogo.

Appunti sulla scrittura dell'orrore: una storia. ⭐⭐⭐ ½
Una disincantata elencazione dei segreti del mestiere, che muta talvolta in apologia, dai risvolti inattesi.

La carriera degli incubi ⭐⭐ ½
Cercando una via di fuga a rotta di collo, in mezzo a corridoi bui e labirintici e a uno stuolo di enormi aracnidi.

La clinica del dottor Locrian ⭐⭐⭐
Un nosocomio, ormai ridotto a cumuli di macerie, svetta di un nero splendore nello sfacelo come un'onta indelebile sulla città.

La perduta Arte del crepuscolo ⭐⭐⭐½
Una storia dell'orrore di stampo più classico. Ligotti sembra aver momentaneamente accantonato gli elementi weird del suo stile per attingere a piene mani da un mostro sacro della letteratura dell’orrore: Edgar Allan Poe. Cuore pulsante della vicenda delle anime dannate molto sui generis.

I tormenti del dr. Thoss ⭐⭐ ½
Paure irrazionali e solitudine fanno ricorrere a metodi curativi poco ortodossi.

Mascherata della spada morta: una tragedia ⭐⭐⭐⭐ ½
Uno dei racconti più lunghi e complessi, dalle magnifiche descrizioni sensoriali, incentrato sull’intollerabilità del reale, l'orrore del mondo da cui il protagonista vorrebbe (e vorremmo farlo anche noi) distogliere lo sguardo ma non può.

Dr Voke e Mr Veech ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Di un eremita e i suoi manichini di legno palpitante, di anime gemelle alla maniera di Platone… Unione esclusiva e simbiotica.

Brevi lezioni del Professor Nessuno sull'orrore sovrannaturale ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Divagazioni sulla condizione umana dal cinismo di bernhardiana memoria. Alcuni dei brani qui proposti li avevo già letti in “La cospirazione contro la razza umana” che vi consiglio caldamente di recuperare se cercate un saggio profondamente nichilista.

Facce nuove in città ⭐⭐
Viaggio in una dimensione irreale dal quale emergono i contorni sfumati di una città fatiscente.

I mistici di Muelenburg ⭐⭐
Giro tra le rovine di una città ormai perduta in compagnia di un parassita del caos .

La setta dell'idiota ⭐⭐⭐ ½
Sfila un carosello infinito di incubi che accelera il precipitare sempre più in basso del nostro malcapitato protagonista fino al confronto definitivo con la follia.

Il più grande festival delle maschere ⭐⭐
Un negozio di maschere, uno sprovveduto... La festa è in città.
Uno dei racconti, per me, più criptici. Un guazzabuglio non riuscito dove vengono introdotti molti spunti, ma che restano appesi e necessitavano di un maggiore approfondimento.

La musica della luna ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Un nottambulo si aggira per le strade di una città ferita, come un novello Ulisse tra le Sirene, è attratto da una musica allucinata che condurrà lui e noi verso un finale a dir poco beffardo.

Il diario di J.P. Drapeau ⭐⭐⭐ ½
Il breve prologo, che preannuncia le pagine del diario che compongono il racconto, fa comprendere appieno quale trascinante personaggio andremo a conoscere ed è proprio su questo protagonista così iconico che si regge interamente l’esposto.

Vastarien ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Per descrivere questo racconto mi servirò delle parole di Ramamrita Ranganathan: Ad ogni lettore il suo libro. Ad ogni libro il suo lettore.

L'ultimo banchetto di Arlecchino ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Uno dei racconti più lunghi e articolati dell'antologia, questo si focalizza su uno studio antropologico fuori dal comune che sarà solo l'inizio di una lenta spirale che ingiungerà un selvaggio contatto con forze ctonie e ancestrali.

Autumnal ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Una novelette che ci predispone a una maggiore autoanalisi in cui Ligotti mescola diversi elementi narrativi reinventando a modo suo la stagione della caduta e della rinascita.

[Vicente Ribes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un buen libro de relatos que no llega al nivel de Noctuario o Teatro grottesco pero que incluye algunas de las piezas más logradas de Ligotti. Su original manera de abordar el horror hace que te pueda sorprender hasta un relato de vampiros, uno de los temas más manidos del horror pero que en manos de Ligotti cobra una nueva e inusitada vida.
La luz de la luna con un teatro lleno de arañas gigantes o Vastarien, con ese tono lovecraftiano se llevan la palma.
Para ser el primer libro de relatos del autor sorprende muchísimo por la imaginación y originalidad del autor pero está muy lejos de la calidad que tiene el resto de su obra.
El retozo se me quedo grabado en la mente como un gran relato de mente demente y criminal.
Una pena que Ligotti esté tan parado porque sun pluma es de lo mejor del terror contemporáneo.
Esperemos que Valdemar traduzca algun dia su novela de terror corporativo y que Ligotti vuelva a ponerse en marcha, su pluma es muy necesaria en la literatura de terror actual.

[Chris_P · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ligotti is a master with words. He creates the mood he wants and lets you gently sink into the black waters of his stories rather than force you down. His writing is captivating, while the very nature of his subjects is haunting. Clearly influenced by Lovecraft and Poe, he doesn't seem to merely imitate them but takes the best of them and reshapes it into a form of his own. But...

Apart from 2-3 of his stories, most of them were mediocre. Not bad, not exceptional. This tired me at some point, which led me to haste through a portion of the book and also made me feel like it's a shame. Ligotti clearly has the ability. So what could possibly be the problem? Maybe this wasn't the right time for me?

If I had to single out one story as my favorite, it would certainly be "Dream of a Manikin", an excellent example of Ligotti's potential, which could well go side by side with the greats of the genre. "The lost art of Twilight" was also very good, although vampires rarely manage to impress me.

I'll definitely be checking out more of Ligotti in the future.

[Benjamin Uminsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

SONGS OF A DEAD DREAMER (SoaDD) is now my second Ligotti short story collection and while I enjoyed it immensely, I feel as though GRIMSCRIBE (his later collection) is a bit stronger, story for story. I also think overall, Grimscribe's brightest embers (such as Harlequin, Shadow, etc...) smoldered a bit brighter than some of the best stories in SoaDD... but really... SoaDD was intensely enjoyable.

Some key themes, explored by Ligotti, are of course directly related to the void regions of unreality. This type of theme is really played out in one of my favorites stories from this collection, "Vasterien". The imagery that Ligotti is able to paint for us is a deeply disturbing portrait of the abyss. I understand that the artist who did the front cover for SoaDD (Aeron Alfey) was inspired by the imagery in "Vasterien". The story in upon itself is Lovecraftian, in that we have a loner character who travels to the void in his dreams and is ultimately compelled by those dreams to search after an esoteric means (a recondite text) to permanently get to this dark piece of unreality.

"Dream of a Manikin" is another outstanding piece in which the theme of dark dreaming is again explored by Ligotti. In this case, Ligotti further leads the reader down the rabbit hole by presenting the possibility in the reader's mind that perhaps our reality is nothing more than an unreality and the unreality of a manikin's dreaming is the very source of our own reality/consciousness... absolutely bizarre but distressing!!

And without doing a summary of every single one of my favorite stories form this collection, a few thoughts on this last one... "Dr. Locrian's Asylum". Naturally, as many of Ligotti's stories deal with the intermingling of reality and unreality... and very much the blurring of the lines... in this sinister tale, we have a case of unreality attempting to invade and ultimately corrupt reality as we know it. Ligotti delivers us a wonderfully blighted asylum, in which the former director was not actually trying to cure madness but create it and spread it to the rest of the world. In this story, it is through the chaotic impulses of lunacy (and not dreaming) that our own reality is subsumed by something from the void. Quite the delightful piece...

Ligotti is such as wonderful writer who has been doing things with prose and thematic exploration that I have not seen many of his peers be able to do or even attempt. While this brand of horror many not "scare" the reader on an emotional level nor through common genre plot devices... Ligotti's horror and madness strikes the reader in a deeply intellectual fashion, ultimately menacing the reader in its ability to challenge the basic fundamentals of our own understanding of reality as it exists (or doesn't exist).

Highly recommended!!

[Ajeje Brazov · Rating 5 out of 5]

I canti di un sognatore morto è la prima raccolta di racconti di Ligotti, risalente al 1986. Titolo più azzeccato non poteva esserci, la copertina è ugualmente fenomenale e la più appropriata possibile.
Ligotti era poco più che trentenne e si vedeva già chiaramente l'ottima vena narrativa, composta da una scrittura raffinata, densa di sfumature lessicali e di descrizioni di stati d'animo e soprattutto di arzigogolate turbe psicologiche. Sì, perchè i racconti di Ligotti sono, prevalentemente, imperniate di lirismo psicologico. Ma quello che lo contraddistingue è il fatto d'impostare la narrazione da una prospettiva personale, raccontando spesso in prima persona e rivelando in ciò un'autobiografia marcata. Difficile da esporre, ma la lettura mi è risultata come un'esposizione di fatti avvenuti allo scrittore, che sia questo nel mondo reale e tangibile, che in quello nei meandri della sua mente, oppure ancora nelle sconfinate praterie del viaggio onirico, e così mi son trovato sballottato nei recessi più reconditi della sua mente, disperso nelle vie di località sconosciute, in luoghi ancestrali oppure girovagando in sotterranei e tunnel di abitazioni fatiscenti, sempre e comunque immerso fin sopra alla testa, nella più fitta e gelida nebbia dell'essere... umano? Ultraterreno? Alieno? Oppure nelle sconfinate terre dell'universo onirico?
Da recuperare assolutamente, una pietra miliare dell'horror, imprescindibile!

Sogni per sonnambuli
Il birichino - ****1/2
Sogno di un manichino - ****
Il chimico - *****
Bevi a me soltanto con occhi labirintini - ****
La voce nelle ossa - ****1/2
Appunti sulla scrittura dell'orrore: una storia - *****
La carriera degli incubi - ****1/2

Sogni per insonni
La clinica del Dottor Locrian - *****+
La perduta arte del crepuscolo - ****
I tormenti del Dr. Thoss - ***
Mascherata della spada morta: una tragedia - ***
Dr. Voke e Mr. Veech - ****
Brevi lezioni del professor Nessuno sull'orrore sovrannaturale - ****
Facce nuove in città - ****

Sogni per i morti
I mistici di Muelenburg - *****
La setta dell'idiota - *****
Il più grande festival delle maschere - ****
La musica della luna - ****
Il diario di J. P. Drapeau - ****
Vastarien - *****
L'ultimo banchetto di arlecchino - *****
Autumnal - ****

[sologdin · Rating 2 out of 5]

A text that lays out the rules for a nihilistic eidos zoe whose primary grammatological principle is that "life is a nightmare that leaves its mark upon you to prove that it is, in fact, real." We find therefore that "horror is more real than we are" and that though some may complain of a "madness which is not of this world," the tendered reply is that "though neither is it of any other world." And of course the main rule: "you just have to keep some distance between yourself and reality, even if it means becoming a little less human"--not just Nietzsche's injunction, but also Station Eleven--to the monsters, we're the monsters.

Plenty of cool intertextual moments. We see one of Ranganathan's five laws of library science made manifest as a rule of horror in how "the book has found its reader." We see Collodi turned truly horrific in "wood waking up," as well as the regular ligottian fixation on puppets. Repeated carnival scenes are bakhtinian invocations.

Even though I continue to think that horror as a genre most readily bears rightwing associations, Ligotti's socialist inclinations penetrate the mysticism. When one narrator notes how "every corner of this corroded world was prolific with choice," the text thereby takes a component of the critique of late capitalism, the paradox of choice, and renders it in horrific terms. Similarly, the "hypnotized parade of beings sleepwalking to the odious manipulations of their whispering masters, those hooded freaks who were themselves among the hypnotized," who serve an even greater power of "awesome idiocy" is a pretty good description of false consciousness.

Recommended for exotic strangers whose elegance is their invitation.

[Rodrigo Tello · Rating 4 out of 5]

En "Canciones de un soñador muerto" encontramos al primer Ligotti, que si bien ya logra piezas muy buenas, en otras aburre o se vuelve ininteligible, con algunos cuentos bastante confusos o decepcionantes.
Ahora bien, "La agónica resurrección de Victor Frankenstein" es un festín de locura, sufrimiento y horror nihilista en el que Ligotti se ensaña con los monstruos clásicos de la literatura, y que me hace subir la puntuación para un tomo que en conjunto no es perfecto, pero sí muy disfrutable.
Eso sí, "el olvidado arte del crepúsculo" es uno de los mejores cuentos de vampiros que creo haber leído.

[Carmine R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sognare un manichino che sogna di uomini

"Qualcuno li ha fatti, sai? Lui è quello che li ha fatti, lui può fare cose di questo genere: e ha fatto qualcos'altro, qualcosa che non ha ancora finito di fare. Perché lui non può realmente morire. Da quando è arrivato in questo posto le cose sono cambiate. È arrivato con strani sogni e le cose hanno incominciato a cambiare. Si è nascosto qui e si è esercitato a sognare i propri sogni."

"E l'antico crepuscolo è morto. Sto persino imparando a disprezzarlo, come imparo ad amare la mia vita eterna e la mia eterna morte. Nondimeno confido nella buona fortuna di quanti cercheranno di distruggere la mia precaria immortalità, poiché la mia rinascita mi ha insegnato il tormento del continuo ritornare e l'idea della fine ha assunto nei miei pensieri un importante senso di tranquillità."

"Ma in fin dei conti né le mie intenzioni né le mie azioni hanno alcuna conseguenza: entrambe sono ben note alle creature che sussurrano senza sosta nella stanza più alta del più alto edificio di una vecchia città. Sanno quello che scrivo e perché lo scrivo. Forse guidano persino la mia penna attraverso una mano che non mi appartiene più, che non è che estensione della loro.

Approcciare a un autore come Ligotti è già difficile di suo; aggiungiamoci un'edizione come quella della casa editrice Elara e purtroppo si fa la frittata.
L'apertura al fulmicotone è già cronaca di un disastro annunciato: la prefazione di Malaguti, pur impostandosi come esercizio di critica letteraria dalle intenzioni indubbiamente propositive (i titoli suggeriti sono molti), si configura deliberatamente come una feroce reprimenda verso i gusti letterari del pubblico e l'abuso di sottogeneri; successivamente evolve in autocelebrazione per i meriti dell'approdo di Ligotti in Italia, un guizzo d'umiltà che ha del commovente. Spiace che una figura anche preparata come quella di Malaguti si presti, con malcelata sicumera, a esercitare facili stigmatizzazioni non richieste (biglietto da visita pessimo).
La traduzione di Armando Corridore, capace di sfruttare la ricchezza lessicale dell'italiano senza comunque infiorettare eccessivamente la prosa essenziale e asciutta di Ligotti, è valida; risulta meno professionale la fiumana di refusi che va a falcidiare la fruizione del testo. L'essere una piccola casa editrice non può essere scusante per un lavoro di editing fatto male - se non addirittura assente.

Passiamo a Ligotti. La raccolta è chiaramente l'esordio mediatico dell'autore, con tutti i crismi del caso: a racconti piuttosto derivativi e poco personali (Mascherata della spada morta: una tragedia, La setta degli idioti, il pur suggestivo Vastarien) se ne alternano una manciata capaci di ridisegnare la portata del surreale per far smarrire il lettore in atmosfere ambigue, seriamente disturbanti (Sogno di un manichino, Il chimico, La voce nelle ossa, Il più grande festival delle maschere).
Ligotti è architetto di atmosfere sospese e quasi mai risolte; a tratti riesce a predisporre queste atmosfere al servizio di un profondo malessere esistenziale - si pensi a I tormenti del dottor Thoss o i meravigliosi La perduta arte del crepuscolo e L'ultimo banchetto di Arlecchino -, mentre in altri frangenti precipita nella vacuità più assoluta - è il caso di racconti inspiegabili come La musica della luna, I mistici di Muelenburg o Dr. Voke e Mr. Veech.
Un autore interessante e dalle potenzialità ragguardevoli, al netto di alcune discontinuità narrative quasi sicuramente ascrivibili, in egual misura, a influssi letterari noti nonché una certa sperimentazione a cavallo tra i generi.

[Jay Rothermel · Rating 4 out of 5]

#reread

Still a stunning read three decades later.

[Julio Bernad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Creo que fue en 2015 cuando leí por primera vez a Thomas Ligotti. Quizá fuera por bisoñez, por no haber leido entonces tanto como he leido hasta ahora, quizá porque hace una década aún conservaba la capacidad para admirar algo de forma visceral, pero recuerdo que su lectura me causó la misma impresión que la de Lovecraft: hasta ese entonces nunca imagine que se podía escribir así, que el horror podía verse como una emanación perversa del texto. Su imaginería oscura; su sensación de irrealidad, como si en cada relato entraras en una pesadilla que se rige por sus propias normas y va mutando según desde el punto en que la mires; su ausencia total de asideros metafísicos a los que agarrarte cuando la colada de aguas pútridas arrambla con todo a su paso; su nihilismo, tan desesperanzado que deja a Lovecraft a la altura de un hippie risueño ¿Cómo no verse seducido por tanta sordidez, cómo no contagiarse de su oscuridad? Ya veis que cualquiera, luego de leer a Ligotti, se permite imitar su, por otro lado, inimitable estilo, cayendo en la parodia inconsciente, al igual que ocurría, y sigue ocurriendo, con Lovecraft.

Ahora estamos en 2025, y en estos diez años he leído cuatro antologías de relatos del de Detroit, cada una de ellas con el ansia del heroinómano que espera replicar con el nuevo chute la primer vuelo glorioso. Sin éxito. Porque tras cuatro antologías descubro que Ligotti tenía razón cuando confesó en una entrevista que abandonaba la escritura porque ya había dicho con sus libros todo lo que tenía que decir: porque Ligotti siempre ha escrito variaciones mínimas del mismo relato. Y quizá esta apariencia de repetición se vea reforzada porque esta última lectura ha sido su primera antología, en la que aún se puede hallar un autor a punto de encontrar su voz.

En Canciones de un soñador muerto no encontraréis los mejores relatos de Ligotti, pero si un buen puñado de piezas realmente terroríficas que demuestran porque, pese a ser cansino como pocos, sigue siendo el autor de terror vivo más influyente en la actualidad.

Los relatos incluidos en esta antología son los siguientes:
El retozo (****): el psiquiatra de una penitenciaria confiesa a su mujer su intención de cambiar de trabajo a raíz de su reciente entrevista con un interno de identidad desconocida, en la que le habló de su debilidad por los "retozos"...

Les fleurs (**): un hombre conoce a una mujer con la que cree llegar a compartir su vida. Tan entusiasmado está por los avances que está haciendo que, quizá, se esté extralimitando al contarle sobre ciertos aspectos de su vida.

La última aventura de Alicia (***): una anciana escritora de siniestros cuentos infantiles descubre cómo su percepción de la realidad se vio alterada este último año luego de una cita con un joven, y cómo, desde entonces, no es capaz de leer sus cuentos ni de fingir simpatía con los niños.

El sueño de un maniquí (****): un psicólogo escribe una carta a su mujer y colega profesional contándole que el delirio de su último caso, una mujer que sueña ser un maniquí, podría haber sido alimentado por sus excéntricas ideas.

El alquimista (****): un hombre en un bar mantiene una conversación con lo que a todas luces se diría una prostituta, a la que se camela insinuando qué misterioso contenido hay en su maletín.

Bebe a mi salud con ojos laberínticos (***): en una fiesta de la alta sociedad, un hombre entra con su acompañante, que inmediatamente acapara todas las miradas de la audiencia. Sin embargo, el encanto de la dama encierra un secreto muy siniestro.

El ojo del lince (**): un hombre acude a un local de mala muerte en busca de experiencias difíciles de encontrar en otro lugar. La dueña le explica todos los servicios de que le puede proveer, pero el presunto cliente también tiene algo que ofrecer a cambio.

Anotaciones sobre la narrativa de terror: Un relato (***): un escritor de cuentos de terror enseña su método de composición: primero toma una trama y luego elige el tono. Sin embargo, la historia que va a contar es bastante personal.

Las nochebuenas de tía Elise (***): el narrador recuerda las navidades que pasaba en familia en la casa de su tía Elise, una solterona en la que siempre vio algo sospechoso; pero sobre todo recuerda una historia extraña que contó a sus primos pequeños acerca de la casa abandonada del vecindario.

El olvidado arte del crepúsculo (****): un joven heredero vive, junto a su servidumbre, en una mansión aislada del mundo. Un día su tutora le comunica que su familia viene del continente para conocerle, a pesar de los "prejuicios" que tienen para con él. Y es que el joven es en realidad un vampiro, o al menos eso es lo que dice...

Los problemas del doctor Thoss (**) un hombre acude a una localidad en busca de cierta celebridad local, el doctor Thoss, un médico de carrera peculiar que tuvo un final tan misterioso y siniestro como la fama que cultivo como facultativo.

La mascarada de una espada muerta: una tragedia (**): durante un carnaval, Faliol, el apocado y ridículo dandy local, sufre una transformación que cambia por completo su identidad. Esta nueva personalidad será aprovechada por un personaje para llevar a cabo sus sangrientos planes.

El doctor Voke y el señor Veech (***): un amante despechado acude a la torre del doctor Voke en busca de un remedio para su mal de amores. El doctor tiene la remedio para superar el dolor, pero hay un precio a pagar.

Breves lecciones del profesor Nadie sobre el horror sobrenatural (*): de nuevo, una lección técnica sobre escritura creativa con mucha metaliteratura imbricada.

El manicomio del doctor Locrian (****): el manicomio del doctor Locrian ha sido finalmente demolido. Sin embargo, nadie parece saber que ha ocurrido con los internos, si fueron trasladados a otras instituciones o, simplemente, desaparecieron. El único que lo sabe es el propio doctor, que se lo relatará al protagonista, así como los métodos que utilizaba su abuelo, el Locrian original, para tratar las enfermedades de sus pacientes.

La secta del idiota (**): en una ciudad innominada, un hombre, a través de un sueño, llega a descubrir la verdadera naturaleza del lugar en el que vive.

El mayor festival de máscaras (***): en una fiesta se celebra un carnaval, y el protagonista necesitará una máscara perfecta para acudir a la festividad; una máscara que se ajuste perfectamente a su cara...

La música de la Luna (**): Tressor, mientras caminaba de noche por la ciudad, vio a un hombre en la ventana de un edificio mirando a la luna. Al interpelarlo, le hablo de su insomnio, y de la influencia que la Luna podía estar ejerciendo sobre él y su música.

El diario de J. P. Drapeau (**): una pareja de literatos, un tanto achispados, discuten sobre la identidad de ese escritor capaz escribir acerca de universos nunca entrevistos por el común de los mortales. Ese escritor no existe, pero siempre quedará Drapeau.

Vastarien (**): un hombre entra en una librería en busca de cierto tomo de sabiduría ancestral que, por desgracia, no puede permitirse por lo elevado de su precio. Sin embargo, un hombre extraño se presenta en la librería y paga una exorbitante cantidad por este, solo para darselo al protagonista, pues lo va a necesitar para entender la verdadera naturaleza de Vastarien.

La agónica resurrección de Victor Frankenstein y otros relatos góticos (**): una serie de estampillas macabras en las que Ligotti retuerce las historias originales con un muy retorcido y morboso sentido del humor. Hay de todo, pero ninguna llega a emocionar del todo.

[Julianne (Leafling Learns・Outlandish Lit) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is by far one of the best collections of supernatural horror that I've ever read. At first I was a little off put by Ligotti's flowery often-gothic language, but I got used to him playing with styles and using it to his advantage in exploring old horror tropes with new breaths of imagination. I got a lot of The King in Yellow vibes in that a frequent topic was whether or not madness was actual insanity or knowledge of a different plane of existence. Ligotti's stories are so original, that it was hard to guess where their dark paths were leading. Very creepy, very otherworldly. Definitely the kind of horror that I'm into. I'd highly recommend it to any horror fan who's tired of reading contemporary haunted house kinds of stories.

I read these out of order over a long period of time (shortest first, because I read them aloud over a campfire while camping in the summer). When I started reading them again from the beginning, I learned that the first story (The Frolic) about a criminal psychologist and his patient packs a huge, creepy punch. It's not gory, but it's not for the faint-hearted. Prepare to be all SORTS of startled.

FAVORITE STORIES: Vastarien, The Music of the Moon, Drink to Me Only With Labyrinthine Eyes, The Frolic

Full review: Outlandish Lit - 3 Startling Short Story Collections

[Melike Büşra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tekinsiz kurmaca.. bu ifadeyi çok sevdim. Kozmik korku mu denir, rahatsız edici tuhaf öyküler mi denir adına tam emin olamasam da Poe esintileri taşıyan bu kitap, beni çok eski-aralıksız gotik edebiyat okuma-günlerine götürdü.

Her şeyi fazlaca normalleşmeye çalıştığımız, çizgileri taşırmamaya özen gösterdiğimiz şu dönemde beni tam da istediğim şekilde sınırlara çekti, alanımı genişletti ve uzaklaştırdı.

Uykusuzlara, uyurgezerlere ve ölülere öyküler olmak üzere 3 bölümden oluşan kitapta uyurgezerlere ve ölülelere öyküler kısımlarını daha çok beğendiğimi itiraf etmeliyim. Her bölümün sonunda yazarın öykü yazmak üzerine yönlendirmelerinin ve fikirlerinin bulunması beni ayrıca şaşırttı.

Eğer hep benzer türlerde okumaktan sıkıldaysanız bu korkunç kitaba şans verin.
En kötü dileklerimle:)

[Ignacio Senao f · Rating 2 out of 5]

El peor que he leído de Ligotti con diferencia, a años luz de los otros de él. Por momentos he estado apunto de dejarlo. En ningún relato he encontrado calidad.

[Damla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bazı öykülerden oldukça korktum ve bazı öyküleri de çok beğendim. Ancak bazılarında da, sanki beynim korkmamı engellemeye çalışıyormuş da o yüzden bilerek anlamamın önüne geçiyormuş gibi, öyküyü tam olarak algılayamadım. Her halükarda korku yazarken korku okumak şöyle soğuk havaya çıkıp temiz bir nefes almaya benziyor bence. Üsluptan etkileneceğim korkunuz yoksa sadece kendinize gelmiş oluyorsunuz.

[Tony Vacation · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reminiscent of the music of Swans, in that much of its power is realized through its relentless adherence to the repetition of themes and imagery, this claustrophobic collection of horror stories from odd duck Thomas Ligotti features twenty tales that strive to demonstrate a view of reality as an absurd and purposeless existence, one in which the individual's autonomy is no more than the illusion of life that a marionette may enjoy at the end of its strings. No enlightenment awaits Liogtti's procession of anonymous narrators and improbably named protagonists as each encounters an aspect of unreality before the incomprehensible forces at play swipes them aside like a discarded toy. Naturally, puppets and manikins populate the majority of these stories, where they act as heralds of the imminent loss of life or sanity. Naturally, asylums abound as well, as do unknown towns with uncanny festivities, in which everyone reveals themselves to be more details in the deception that is objectivity. Though no mythos emerges over the course of these stories (such as the tenuous one celebrated in the works of Lovecraft, the author that Ligotti is most often favorably compared to), there is a singular vision at work in every well-worded and carefully placed sentence on the page. Lucky for the reader that Ligotti even includes two essays barely veiled as short stories, both of which expound on his philosophy and how horror fiction best illustrates it.

[Sebnem · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gotikçiler koşun 🏃🏻‍♀️🏃🏃🏼‍♂️

[Mary Slowik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Because it's out-of-print (although a new edition, combined with Grimscribe: His Lives and Works, is due out in October), I paid $75 to own a copy of this-- the most I've ever spent for a book. Was it worth it? Hell yes. Did the price deter me from marking it up? Hell no; I've dog-eared and underlined like a maniac. My copy must have spent time incarcerated in a library, as it's laminated, stamped and tagged, making it look like I stole it. I like that. Now, to begin my long review of the twenty relentlessly bleak stories contained within: I'm not going to merely cite favorites or tediously attempt to argue which are better or worse than the others. I will pull a single more-or-less representative sentence out, and offer a capsule review for each of them. Right this way...

The Frolic-- "Less fathomable are his memories of a moonlit corridor where mirrors scream and laugh, dark peaks of some kind that won't remain still, a stairway that's 'broken' in a very strange way..."

The collection starts off, appropriately, with an aggressively unsettling story about a prison psychiatrist and a singular 'patient' of his. It is straightforward and exploits one of humanity's most ancient and powerful fears. Its position, and its potency, made me think of someone who starts a fight by punching you in the throat.

Les Fleurs-- "Some stars, coloured from the most spectral part of the spectrum, blossom in the high darkness."

The first in which the horror is off-stage, more implied than shown, and for that reason all the more horrifying. It's a story in diary form, with a very dark artist/sculptor narrating a romantic misadventure, with a certain fellowship of murderers playing a supporting role.

Alice's Last Adventure-- "Since when does reading a story constitute an incantation calling up its imagery before the body's eyes and not the mind's?"

The gloom thickens. This one features an aging, alcoholic children's author, haunted by visions seemingly culled from her own works. Introduces a favorite theme of Ligotti's, that of false and/or fractured identities, masks in the mirror.

Dream of a Mannikin-- "Love and terror are the true realities, whatever the unknowable mechanics are that turn their wheels, and our own."

Now we're getting more of that cosmic, metaphysical horror, dreams-within-dreams which then corrupt or poison waking life. It has another psychiatrist character seemingly being pranked by his spouse, all to prove her own exotic pet theories. As you might surmise from the title, a lot of the horror element in this one hinges on the blank, uncanny expressions of dolls or mannikins. Ever see a doll's face twitch in the dark?

The Chymist-- "It's fascinating, you know, how an obsolete madness is sometimes adopted and stylized in an attempt to ghoulishly preserve it."

This, to me, is the first truly terrifying story in the collection. I don't want to give anything away that might ruin the pay-off for someone else, so let's just say that at least the harmful drugs we all know about are simply destructive instead of nightmarishly creative.

Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes-- "Death is the consummation of mortality and-- to let out a big secret-- only heightens mortal susceptibilities."

Lyrical, chilling, the story of a freakishly talented hypnotist and his assistant, giving the crowd what it wants: "...thrill the daylights out of them."

Eyes of the Lynx-- "I can take you places where the stories of tortuous romance and the storms never end."

Another one that slowly builds steam for a pay-off at the climax. For a while this little S/m-themed tale might seem like just a tableau of the weird, something Chuck Palahniuk might write, if he were even more twisted, but it nevertheless turns into something with quietly uncanny horror in its heart.

Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story-- "Come home to a pain so great that it is bliss itself."

I love this story, truly. It was the first Ligotti I was exposed to, when I listened to Poe's Children: The New Horror, and it was by far the best of that collection. Whether you have ambitions of writing supernatural fiction or just enjoy reading it, this is absolutely essential. In the first part he telegraphs what he's doing, misdirects you with an analysis and examples of three different styles employed by horror writers, then... well, read it yourself.

The Christmas Eves of Aunt Elise: A Tale of Possession in Old Grosse Pointe-- "The colors bled into the fog and were sopped up as if by a horrible gauze which drank the blood of rainbows."

Alright, so in "Alice's Last Adventure" we had Halloween make an appearance, while this one seems to be a legitimate (and successful) attempt to write a scary Christmas story. As if Christmas weren't stressful enough. It's a ghost story, too, nothing like Dickens' but a lot like... well, a lot like Ligotti. It seems to center on a ghost that can absorb memories, absorb you. Need I say more?

The Lost Art of Twilight-- "I felt as if there were a chasm of infinite depth within me, a great abyss which needed to be filled-- flooded with oceans of blood."

I read Dracula, read a lot of Anne Rice's stuff, listened to The Passage and its sequel, and attempted to read (DNF) Salem's Lot, but this instantly became my favorite vampire story. Calling it that immediately destroys any chance I have of describing it as "original," but believe me, it is: what happens when a vampire's pregnant, and she gives birth soon after being destroyed? What happens to the half-breed child, the child between worlds? Here's one bleak answer.

The Troubles of Dr. Thoss-- "The dark-paned windows along either wall confused all time, bending dawns into twilights, suspending minutes in eternity."

Oh, man. Getting a little more Lovecrafty now. This reads, probably intentionally, like folklore, like the dark factual heart of myths and legends. Let's just say the good doctor cures someone of insomnia, just not in the way he expected to be cured.

Masquerade of a Dead Sword-- "Henceforth, all things will be in your eyes a distant play of shadows that fretfully strive to impersonate something real, ghosts that clamor to pass themselves as flesh, masks that desperately flit about to conceal the stillness of the void behind them-- henceforth, all things will be reduced in your eyes to their inconsequential essence."

From Lovecraft to Poe. This had so many disturbing lines, I was conflicted over which to highlight there. Suffice to say, it's about a true, cosmic, sentient madness. "There are eyes within our eyes," and for the sake of our own sanity we should all hope they are never opened.

Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech-- "Death is always the best thing, Mr. Veech, but who would have thought you could appreciate such a view?"

Possibly the most surreal piece, and that's saying something. This one recalls that whole "uncanny valley" idea which we could just as easily apply to dolls and puppets as to androids. Cheev, aka Mr. Veech, approaches Dr. Voke for help with a romantic problem, and takes regrettably little issue with the form its solution takes. This one is suitably creepy, but also has touches of a black, gallows humor in it, too.

Professor Nobody's Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror-- "And, ultimately, we must admit it: horror is more real than we are."

The second set of stories concludes with this treatise, to which I'd also previously been exposed, at least in part, by reading The Conspiracy Against the Human Race. It's hard to argue with "Professor Nobody," and there are few seminars out there more relevant than this little one. Other authors may be praised for their acumen in describing human beings, fleshing out characters, but no one can beat Ligotti when it comes to describing the human condition, the nature of this woeful so-called reality we find ourselves inhabiting.

Dr. Locrian's Asylum-- "The result was something as pathetic as a puppet and as magnificent as the stars, something at once dead and never dying, a thing utterly without destiny and thus imperishable, possessing that abysmal absence of mind, that infinite vacuity, which is the essence of all that is immortal."

Prompt: what if the director of a sanatorium, instead of trying to cure his patients, willfully attempted to drive them even more insane? To drive them beyond insanity? Another ghost story, featuring the ghosts of madmen, with their eyes reflecting the perfect tranquility of the abyss, this one can haunt you... It wants to...

The Sect of the Idiot-- "Even the infinite nights above the great roofs of the town seemed merely the uppermost level of an earthbound estate, at most a musty old attic in which the stars were useless heirlooms and the moon a dusty trunk of dreams."

Evidently this was meant as an elaboration on or an extension to Lovecraft's work, another "cautionary tale" about knowledge too horrible to share space with sanity in your mind. Quite an effective one, too, if you ask me.

The Greater Festival of Masks-- "Perhaps a similar need could explain why the buildings in this district exhibit so many pointless embellishments: doors which are elaborately decorated yet will not budge in their frames; massive shutters covering blank walls behind them; enticing balconies, well-railed and promising in their views, but without any means of entrance; stairways that enter dark niches... and a dead end."

So if you've ever read House of Leaves (and if you haven't, what are you waiting for?!) you'll understand just how disturbing impossible architecture can be. Our minds seek the rational; they crave it. While this story isn't exactly about that, it certainly exploits it. The story is more about slippery identity again, blank faces trying to grow features, but what stuck with me were these touches of "wrong" geometry, false notes, where reality doesn't come together neatly at the edges.

The Music of the Moon-- "Soon there was no space remaining for silence, or perhaps music and silence became confused, indistinguishable from each other, as colors merge into whiteness."

In chess, when the center of the board is locked up, you attack on the flanks. That's what this story seemed to be: an assault from a different direction. If the previous stories weren't doing it for you, this one might. It features unearthly music as a kind of toxin, something weaponized, something that can imprison you... permanently.

The Journal of J. P. Drapeau-- "It was those stars, I knew that now: certain of them had been promised specific parts of my body; in the darkest hours of the night, when one is unusually sensitive to such things, I could-- and still can, though just barely-- feel the force of these stars tugging away at various points, eager for the moment of my death when each of them might carry off that part of me which is theirs by right."

Great, gothic, diary-form ruminations and weirdness. Answers the call (put forth in the initial, "external" part of the story) for a writer profoundly detached from typical human experience. Why not spend some time in his head?

Vastarien-- "For he dreamed of strange volumes that turned away from all earthly light to become lost in their own nightmares, pages that preached a nocturnal salvation, a liturgy of shadows, catechism of phantoms."

I don't think I'm wrong to call this one autobiographical, to an extent. It seems to reflect Ligotti's own desire for truly weird literature, something absolutely beyond convention, a book too horrifyingly strange to read without emerging insane. And that's essentially the story-- the main character discovers a book which at first mirrors his most vividly bizarre dreams, then spawns them, then finally confines him to them. Mad world...

Whew! Well it's been quite a ride, my lovelies-- my rarest book has earned my longest review. I hope you can find this at your local library... or wait until October, Halloween season, and pick yourself up a copy of the new edition. I dare you.

[Korcan Derinsu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hayalperest Ölünün Şarkıları korku edebiyatının sınırlarını zorlayan, tekinsizliği yalnızca olaylarla değil atmosfer ve düşünce yoluyla da hissettiren bir öykü derlemesi. Thomas Ligotti klasik korku formüllerine bağlı kalmak yerine gerçeklik algısını bozarak, bilinç–bilinçaltı, gerçek-doğaüstü arasında gidip gelen hikâyeler anlatıyor. En çok da metinlerin kolay sınıflandırılamayan, bir başka şeye benzetilemeyen tuhaf hallerini sevdim. Üç bölümden oluşan derlemenin ilk bölümü en zayıf olanı ancak bölüm sonunda Ligotti’nin korku öyküsü yazmaya dair kaleme aldığı deneme çok ilginç. Üçüncü bölüm bence tüm derlemenin en kuvvetli bölümü. Tüm öyküler içinden Dr. Voke ve Bay Veech, Dr. Locrian’ın Tımarhanesi, Maskelerin Büyük Festivali ve Ayın Müziği benim için öne çıkan öyküler oldular. Diğer öykülerin ise bunlara göre biraz daha havada kaldığını, tam amaçlarına ulaşamadığını düşünüyorum. Bunun da temel sebebi bunun aslında bir ilk kitap olması bence. Fakat dediğim gibi derlemenin tamamına yayılan tedirgin edici bir ton var. Bunu sevdiğim için biraz da torpil geçerek dört yıldız veriyorum. Yoksa hakkı üç bence.

[Rodney · Rating 4 out of 5]

What can I say about this book that hasn’t already been said? Songs of a Dead Dreamer is a heady dose of atmospheric dread, characters grasping onto sanity as they traverse the line in and out of reality. Forces in their locales often push them toward uncertainty and paranoia. If Songs of A Dead Dreamer were music, it would be the intricately heavy stuff that takes a few listens to get through the layers for the reward.

[Elessar · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5/5

¿Por qué no todos los relatos de Canciones de un soñador muerto son como «El retozo», «Las Nochebuenas de tía Elise», «El olvidado arte del crepúsculo», «La música de la luna» o «Vastarien»? Es una pena, porque cuando Ligotti acierta, hay pocos como él, pero cuando no, hay poco que hacer.

Ya había oído que esta es, probablemente, su antología más irregular. Y tiene toda la pinta. Solo había leído de él Noctuario, un par de veces, y, aunque también era un poco desigual, los relatos sobresalientes ganaban por goleada a los indiferentes. Aquí no puedo decir lo mismo: los incomprensibles abundan frente a los magistrales. No es que no valga la pena leer este libro, sino que da rabia la sensación de perplejidad que muchas de las historias de este volumen dejan en el cuerpo. Al contrario de lo que ocurre con los relatos que menciono en el primer párrafo, en los que sí puedes seguir la idea principal y sentir admiración e inquietud, en la mayoría no logras saber qué quiere contarte Ligotti, y esto al final resulta frustrante.

En fin, es una pena, pero no puedo desaconsejar su lectura. Los cuentos extraordinarios hacen que valga la pena el tiempo invertido en ella. Además, tiene frases que causan un gran impacto, amén del humor macabro e irónico. Me quedo con la retorcida que abre el volumen, la primera del relato «El retozo»:

En una bonita casa de una bonita parte de la ciudad (la ciudad de Nolgate, donde se encuentra la prisión estatal)...

En cuanto a La agónica resurrección de Victor Frankenstein, a esta sí que no le he encontrado la gracia en ningún momento. Lo bueno es que se lee en un suspiro.

[Rygard Battlehammer · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Peki ben olmazsam," diye sordu kukla, "bütün o eski elbiselerle, eldivenlerle ve pelerinlerle ne yapacaksın? Pırıltılı gümüşten kaşlarıyla düşlerinin penceresinden içeri bakacak kimse olmayınca ucuz şatonda ne yapacaksın?"

Amerikalı tuhaf korku hikayeleri yazarı Thomas Ligotti'nin öykülerini topladığı 86'da çıkan ilk kitabı.

Thomas Ligotti daha önceden radarıma girmiş bir yazar değildi. Aslında Cthulhu Mitine hikaye yazan veya kozmik korku türünde eserler vermiş yazarlar arayışım sırasında, Reddit'te okuduğum bir tavsiye gönderisi içinde rastladığım onlarca isimden biriydi. İlgilendiğiniz tür kozmik korku olduğu zaman, çoğunlukla Lovecraft veya Poe taklit eden ve hikayelerin sonuna bir tur "name dropping" serperek işi kotaracağına inanan onlarca vasat altı hikaye yağıyor üstünüze. Dahası ortalama ve ortalamanın biraz üstü öyküleri mumla arar oluyorsunuz. Tam da bu yüzden, çok da yüksek bir beklentim yoktu kendisine karşı bu aşamada (tamam önyargı da denebilir). Yine de ilk kitabının çevrilmiş olduğunu görünce, kitabın ismi de hayli içimi gıcıkladığından alıp okumaya karar verdim. İyi ki de öyle yapmışım, zira pek yanılmışım kendisi hakkında.

Kesinlikle beklentilerimin ötesinde bir yazar çıktı Ligotti. Kimi hikayeleri kozmik korku sınıfına girse de -hatta bu kitapta doğrudan Cthulhu Mythos parçası bir öykü de var- çoğunlukla daha geniş bir kapsama alanına sahip "tuhaf hikayeler" yazan bir hikayeci kendisi. Kimi zaman sıradan mekanlar, kimi zaman günlük objeler hikayelerindeki tuhaflığın odağı olabiliyor. Ufak günlük detayları bir anda karanlık fantastik unsurlara, doğa üstü intikamlara dönüştürüp, keşfetmenin heyecanını, bilinmeyenin korkusu ile harmanlayabiliyor yazar. Günlük hayatların içine ansızın sızan soğuk bir dokunuş, bel kemiğinden yukarı tırmanan bir ürperti gibi adeta.

Lovecraft'ın tuhaf edebiyat ve kozmik korkuyu biçimlendiren tartışılmaz etkisinden dolayı, sıklıkla da Lovecraft ile kıyaslandığını görüyoruz Ligotti'nin. Ancak Lovecraft'ın evren yaratmadaki ve kozmik tasarımlarındaki tartışılmaz dehasını bir kenara koyarsak, dil kullanımı, hikaye akışları gibi konularda bizim kafadan ahraz faşistin (lol) fersah fersah ötesinde kendisi. İlk hikayeyi okuduktan sonra şöyle tanımladım yazarı kendi kendime: "Lovecraft'ı düşün, şimdi de Marcel Proust'un hayaleti tarafından Lovecraft'ın zihninin ve bedeninin ele geçirildiğini düşün. Hah, işte o Thomas Ligotti." Hatta ben bu düşünceye kendimi o kadar inandırmışım ki, o yönde hiçbir verim olmamasına rağmen Ligotti'nin Fransız olduğuna emin olduğumdan (hayır yani, adından yola çıkarak İtalyan falan da değil, Franko illa!) "Romanını okumak istiyorum ama çevrilmemiş diğer kitapları, Fransızca'dan İngilizce'ye çevrilen kitabı da niye okuyayım ya" diye şikayet ediyordum ki Yubi uyardı "E abi adam Amerikalı?" diye. Artık bilmiyorum bu "hafif ırkçılık" (çünkü mild racism'e daha iyi bir karşılık bulamadım) sayılır mı ama güzel yazıyor abimiz uzun lafın kısası.

Daha önce de söylediğim gibi, gündelik objeleri hikayelerin odak noktaları olarak kullanmayı seviyor yazar. Güzel ve karanlık bir zihni var ve sıradan şeylerin bu zihinden damıtılarak çarpılmasını izlemek hayli eğlenceli. Ayrıca kuklalar, cansız mankenler, oyuncak bebekler de -ki açıkçası bunlar bence yalın halleriyle de zaten tekinsiz şeyler- genelde yardımcı unsurlar olarak kullanmayı pek sevdiği objeler. Bir taraftan da tüm öyküleri neredeyse bir şarkıya benzetebileceğim, eşsiz bir ritme sahip. Birden fazla kez hikayeleri okuduktan sonra gitarın fişini takıp bir şeyler çalma dürtüsü hissettirdi bana ki bu çok da sık hissettiğim bir şey değil.

Kitap, öyküler dışında ayrıca Korku Yazını Üzerine Notlar: Bir Öykü adlı bir bölüm de içeriyor ki özel olarak pek sevdiğimi belirtmeden geçmek istemiyorum. Yine gündelik hayatın sıradan objelerinden birinin, bir pantolonun kullanıldığı bitmemiş örnek bir öykü alınıyor ve önce analiz ediliyor, sonra da öyküyü oluşturan unsurların farklı hikayecilik üsluplarıyla nasıl kullanılabileceğine dair fikirlerini, bir ders ciddiyetiyle açıklıyor Ligotti.

Kitaptaki öykülerden, kullanılan dili çok beğendiğim ikinci hikaye Les Fleurs, gecenin çocuklarının öyküsüne farklı bir taraftan bakan Alacakaranlığın Kayıp Sanatı ve tam anlamıyla bir Cthulhu Mitosu öyküsü olan Budalanın Tarikatı'nı özellikle öneriyorum. Aslında her hikayeden üç beş cümleyle bahsetmek istiyordum bu yazıyı yazmaya başlarken ama ben bu kitabı baya beğendim (gerçi benim için kozmik korkunun otomatik olarak +1 puanı var. Muhtemelen diğer okuyucular daha objektif yaklaşıyordur konuya) ve çok da gizemini kaçırmak istemiyorum işin. Meraklısını progress updatelere alalım.

Güzel bir kitaptı yani. Bir noktada Ligotti'nin uzun hikayelerini de okumak istiyorum. Korku, kozmik korku, tuhaf hikayeler gibi başlıklar sizin de içinizde şekerlenmiş bir yerlere dokunuyorsa okuyun bunu. Teşekkürler benim küçük, yalnız, hüzünlü çiçeğim; benim çürümüş, zehirli ve kanlar içinde, cinayet kokulu, tatlı çiçeğim.

[Gokce Atac · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tekinsiz atmosferi ve farklı tarzı ilgi çekici olsa da, benim için temposu düşük, zor ilerleyen ve elimde uzun süre sürünen bir kitap oldu.

[Dona's Books · Rating 4 out of 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.

Final Review

(thoughts & recs) This is a good one, but not great. Weird and cosmic horror can get a little clunky in the details, and I thought Ligotti's did as well. But his villains are complex and his style is jaunty and I had a lot of fun. I'll be reading GRIMSCRIBE, the second book in this duo, next week.

I recommend SONGS OF A DEAD DREAMER to readers of Weird, cosmic, psychological, and existential horror. Fans of Lovecraft and Lovecraftian elements, and fans of The Great God Pan will enjoy this one.

Favorite Stories:
1. "Alice's Last Adventure"
2. "The Christmas Eves of Aunt Elise"
3. "Notes on the Writing of Horror"

A word about the essays:

1. "Foreword by Jeff Van Der Meer" - I love to read Van Der Meer's thoughts on weird fiction. He is unquestionably a brilliant contemporary force in the genre, and his foreword makes me excited to read this collection of fiction.

• Dreams for Sleepwalkers

2. "The Frolic" - "The average inmate doesn’t look favorably on Doe’s kind of crime. They see it as reflecting badly on them, being that they’re just your garden variety armed robbers, murderers, and whatnot. Everyone needs to feel they’re better than someone else." p7 Such an insightful story and reveals much about human nature.

3. "Les Fleurs" - A deliciously weird story that deals with violence against women and the weight of the gaze society turns on women, even when they are murder victims.

4. "Alice's Last Adventure" - This one deals with children-adult relationships, writing for children, and arrested development in a haunting, somewhat admonishing way. This one is more humorous, still weird.

5. "Dream of a Manikin" - "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. The question is: “Do things like butterflies dream?” Answer: an unequivocal “no,” as you may be aware from the research done in this field. The issue is ended right there." This is inaccurate now, since we've learned more about the inner lives of insects where back when this was written, we hadn't yet even developed the equipment we needed to determine it. I like the voice here though, crotchety and overconfident, good combo, good conflict. Wonderful treatment of dreams as horror trope.

6. "The Nyctalops Trilogy" - A serial killer's perspective in three parts.
~ The Chemist - This second person POV story is well freaking done! "You don’t much like the policía, do you, Rrrosa? Yes, of course I can blame you. Without them, where would all of us outlaws be? What would we have? Only a lawless paradise . . . and paradise is a bore. Violence without violation is only a noise heard by no one, the most horrendous sound in the universe. No, I realize you don’t have anything to do with violence. I didn’t mean to imply you did. Yes, I can drop you off back at the bar when we’ve finished at your apartment. Of course." p66

~ Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes - "They were bored and just sat in their seats like a bunch of stiffs. Of course, what can you expect? They wanted the death stuff, the pain stuff. All that flashy junk. They wanted cartwheels of agony; somersaults through fires of doom; nosedives of vulnerable flesh into the meat grinder of life. They wanted to be thrilled." p79 Clever , enlisting the reader/"audience" in the fictional crime.

~ Eye of the Lynx - I don't know, by this piece I wasn't sure of the purpose of the ending.

7. "Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story" - The form here is extremely clever and meta-- a horror start in the form of advice to writers of horror stories. "[...T]he proper voice of horror is really that of the personal confession." p103 Also this story totally gives The Metamorphosis.

• Dreams for Insomniacs

8. "The Christmas Eves of Aunt Elise" - A bizarre and wonderful story of family belongingness. Home Alone only dark and very weird. Kevin McCallister in an existential reverie find family in the void dimension.

9. "The Lost Art Of Twilight" - "But I don’t judge her, I never have. After all, she had just lost her husband—your father was a good man and it’s a shame you never knew him. And then to be carrying his child, the child of a dead man . . . She was frightened, confused, and she ran back to her family and her homeland. Who can blame her if she started acting irresponsibly." A monster origin story. Wonderful ending! This one really reminds me of Lovecraft.

10. "The Troubles of Dr. Thoss" - n.a.

11. "Masquerade of a Dead Sword: A Tragedie" - Ligotti's style is best described as beautiful and haunted. "But I have provoked another thing, a new madness which arrives from a world that is on the wrong side of light, a madness that is unsanctioned and without the seal of our natural selves. It is a forbidden madness, a saboteur from outside the body of known laws. And as you know, I have been the subject of its devastation." p158

12. "Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech" - "There is a stairway. It climbs crooked up the side of total darkness. Yet its outlinefs are visible, like a scribble of lightning engraved upon a black sky. And though standing unsupported, it does not fall. Nor does it end its jagged ascent until it has reached the obscure loft where Voke, the recluse, has cloistered himself." p172 What an opening!

13. "Professor Nobody's Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror" - This is actually a bit of a craft essay and horror story combined.

• Dreams for the Dead

14. "Dr. Locrian's Asylum" - "And then he talked about the voices of the patients under his care. He whispered, and I quote, that ‘the wonderful music of those voices spoke the supreme delirium of the planets as they go round and round like bright puppets dancing in the blackness.’ In the wandering words of those lunatics, he told me, the ancient mysteries were restored." p194 An interesting perspectuve on mental illness, but not a good one. Mental illness is scientific, medical-- not an issue of the soul.

15. "The Sect of the Idiot" - "Extraordinary joy, extraordinary pain—the fearful poles of a world that both menaces and surpasses this one. It is a miraculous hell towards which one unknowingly wanders." p200 Ligotti's attitudes about mental illness are kind of out there, but I admit I'm fascinated. He appears to express here that mental illness is a symptom of being alive. That the quality of one's life depends on whether or not their mental illness confirms to societal standards, or not. I'm not sure I've ever seen this before: "Life is a nightmare that leaves its mark upon you in order to prove that it is, in fact, real. And to suffer a solitary madness seems the joy of paradise when compared to the extraordinary condition in which one’s own madness merely emulates that of the world." Either way, compelling.

16. "The Greater Festival of Masks" - This story contains my favorite ever description of a Halloween town 😍

17. "The Music of the Moon" - wonderful story that examines the power of music, the destruction nature of not getting sleep, and the borders meeting between consciousness and reality. A very Lovectaftian piece.

18. "The Journal of J. P. Drapeau" - "Out of sheer inattentiveness I had stared at my reflection in the mirror a little too deeply. I should say that this mirror has been hanging in my room for more years, I would guess, than I have been on this earth. It’s no surprise, then, that sooner or later it would get the edge on me....Finally, I realized that an entirely different creature was hiding behind my face, making it wholly unrecognizable to me." p233 what a great execution of a classic concept. Ligotti's got style!

19. "Vastarien" - n.a.


Notes:

1. content notes: murder, serial murder, slight gore, blood, traumatic birth, archaic mental illness treatments and attitudes, ableism,

2. I would call this a collection of Weird, cosmic, existential horror shorts. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I have a paperback copy of SONGS OF A DEAD DREAMER and GRIMSCRIBE by Thomas Ligotti and with an introduction by Mark Z. Danielewski. I found an accessible digital copy on Libby. Libraries pay way more than we do for digital copies, so make sure to only borrow what you can read!

[Nicole Cushing · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was tempted to give this book only four stars, because it's not quite as strong as later volumes like GRIMSCRIBE or NOCTUARY. But the fact remains that even when he's not at his best, Ligotti's work is head and shoulders above the vast majority of authors. Hence, five stars.

I believe the stories in this collection can be roughly grouped in three tiers.

At the top, I place "Vastarien" and "Masquerade of a Dead Sword"...two tales that can go toe-to-toe with anything else Ligotti's written.

In the middle, I place "Music of the Moon" and "Alice's Last Adventure". (The latter is particularly remarkable, as it manages to eke a solid chill out of an absurd premise involving a Ligotti-esque middle grade book series character, Preston...star of such fictional children's books as PRESTON AND THE STARVING SHADOWS).

Then we have everything else. The remaining stories in the collection are not, for the most part, outright failures, but I found their effectiveness to be relatively limited. In "The Frolic" Ligotti takes on serial killers. In "The Lost Art of Twilight", vampires. These stories are so very *different* from Ligotti's later work. They're fascinating, from a historical perspective, but I really didn't enjoy them as much as I did the stories I placed in my top and middle tiers. Several others stories take us into the more "Ligottiesque" realm of the hideously insubstantial / hideously mutable, but somehow didn't quite work 100% for me.

Anyway...I think this review gives you a sense of what to expect if you can get your hands on a copy of SONGS. Alas, I just looked at Amazon and saw that copies are selling for around $200 (and no ebook, yet).

The good news is two of Ligotti's other two collections: GRIMSCRIBE and NOCTURARY *are* now available for Kindle (not sure about other formats, but probably worth checking out). My hope is that the inexpensive availability of the ebooks will enable folks to take a glance at Ligotti's stuff. IMO, if you've never read Ligotti, you're not seeing horror fiction at its best.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had seriously thought that all the great horror classics had already been written years ago, until I ran into Songs of a Dead Dreamer by Thomas Ligotti. This collection of horror stories has a strange expressionistic slant, as if all the places of which the author writes resembled the sets of Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Although Ligotti is an American, the stories can almost be set anywhere at any time. There is not the fruitiness of Lovecraft's style -- though Ligotti has often been compared to him.

I look forward to reading other works by this superb writer.

[Waffles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ligotti is an acquired taste - sort of like Joy Division. The first time I read him I didn't think he was any thing special. Now, he's my favorite horror writer. He exemplifies the Lovecraftian ideal of atmosphere first, everything else second. Imagine a horror story about how to write a horror story - "Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story". "Dream of a Mannikin, or the Third Person" is one of the first stories I read by him and had to reread several time before I got hooked. "Les Fleurs" and "The Troubles of Dr. Thoss" are also my favorites.

[Olcay Gürkan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ligotti’nin kısa hikayelerinin Lovecraft ve Poe ile çok karşılaştırıldığı gördüm ama bana kalırsa bu hikayeler Philip Dick’in halüsinojenik anlatımının Michael Gira’nın tekinsiz, karanlık ve primitif evreniyle birleşiminden çıkmış gibi. İçine çeken, rahatsız eden, baş ağrısı ve bulantı hissi uyandıran modern bir klasik.