Onlajn Ligotti

[dwyd]

Jel sna neko gde mogu da se se skinu Ligotijeve priče? (našo sam Dr. Locrians Asylum i The Shadow The Darkness, nisam još pročito, ali imam osećaj da nisu cele)

[Ghoul]

nema onlajn, ali ima... treba li uopste reci?... kod ghoula.

posalji mi pm sa tvojim mejlom, pa cu ti poslati 5-6 prica, 1 giga-novelu i 1 scenario.

ligotti rules

[The_Dancing_Clown]

Dream of a Mannikin,
or the Third Person
Thomas Ligotti
When Tom Ligotti's stories began to appear in small magazines such as England's Fantasy Tales and the artier American journals Nyctalops and Grimoire, a lot of collectors began murmuring "dark genius" and "must be a real paranoid." His work is finally beginning to find professional acceptance thanks in part to Ramsey Campbell and myself, his first major anthologists who brought him to Tor and Ace. For too long only small press editors were open to his work, which is, perhaps, too good and too personal to have had instant recognition from complacent, well-established editors. His stories can be found in Grue, Crypt of Cthulhu, Fantasy Macabre; and Fantasy & Terror. "Dream of a Mannikin, or the Third Person" appeared originally in Eldritch Tales, and then was included in Tom's collection Songs of a Dead Dreamer, published and illustrated by Harry Morris, whose magazine Nyctalops appears too seldom but is invariably worth the wait between issues.





The girl who came into my office Wednesday for a session at two o'clock said her name was Amy Locher. (And didn't you once tell me that long ago you had a doll with this same first name?) Under the present circumstances I don't think it too gross a violation of professional ethics to use the subject's real name in describing her case to you. Certainly there's something more than simple ethics between us, ma chere amie. Besides, I understood from Miss Locher that you recommended me to her. This didn't seem necessarily ominous at first; perhaps, I speculated, your relationship with the girl was such that made it awkward for you to take her on as one of your own patients. Actually it's still not clear to me, my love, just how deeply you can be implicated in the overall experience I had with the petite Miss L. So you'll have to forgive any stupidities of mine, which may crudely crop up in the body of this correspondence.
My first impression of Miss Locher, as she positioned herself almost sidesaddle in a leather chair before me, was that of a tense and disturbed but basically efficient and self-seeking young woman. She was dressed and accessorized, I noticed, in much the classic style, which you normally favor. I won't go into our first-visit preliminaries here (though we can discuss these and other matters at dinner this Saturday if only you are willing). After a brief while we zeroed in on the girl's immediate impetus for consulting me. This involved, as you may or may not know, a distressing dream she had recently suffered. What will follow, as I have composed them from my tape of the September 10th session, are the events of that dream.
In the dream our subject has entered into a new life, at least to the extent that she holds down a different job from her waking one. She had already informed me that for some five years she'd worked as a secretary for a tool and die firm. (And could this possibly be your delicate touch? Tooling into oblivion.) However, her working day in the dream finds her as a long-time employee of a fashionable clothes shop. Like those state witnesses the government wishes to hide with new identities, she has been outfitted by the dream with what seems to be a mostly tacit but somehow complete biography; a marvelous trick of the mind, this. It appears that the duties of her new job require her to change the clothes of the mannikins in the front window, this according to some mysterious and unfathomable schedule. She in fact feels as if her entire existence is slavishly given over to doing nothing but dressing and undressing these dummies. She is profoundly dissatisfied with her lot, and the mannikins become the focus of her animus.
Such is the general background presupposed by the dream, which now begins in proper. On a particularly gloomy day in her era of thralldom, our dummy dresser approaches her work. She is resentful and frightened, the latter emotion an irrational "given" at this point in the dream. An awesome load of new clothes is waiting to attire a window full of naked mannikins. Their unwarm, uncold bodies repel her touch. (Note this rare awareness of temperature in a dream, albeit neutral.) She bitterly surveys the ranks of crayon-like faces and then says: "Time to stop dancing and get dressed, sleeping beauties." These words are spoken without spontaneity, as if ritually used to inaugurate each dressing session. But the dream changes before the dresser is able to put one stitch on the dummies, who stare at nothing with "anticipating" eyes.
The working day is now finished. She has returned to her small apartment, where she retires to bed... and has a dream. (This dream is that of the mannikin dresser and not hers, she emphatically pointed out!)
The mannikin dresser dreams she is in her bedroom. But what she now thinks of as her "bedroom" is from all appearances actually an archaically furnished hall with the dimensions of a small theater. The room is dimly lit by some jeweled lamps along the walls, the lights shining "with a strange glaziness" upon an intricately patterned carpet and upon the massive pieces of antique and highly varnished furniture around the room. She perceives the objects of the scene more as pure ideas than physical things, for details are blurry and there are many shadows. One thing, though, she visualizes quite clearly as the dominant feature of the room: there is a wall that from the floor to the lofty ceiling is completely missing. In place of the absent wall is a view of star-clustered blackness, which she sees either through a great window or irrationally in the depths of an equally great mirror. In any case, this maze of stars and blackness appears as an enormous mural and suggests an uncertain location for a room formerly thought to be nestled at the cozy crossroads of well-known coordinates. Now it is truly just a lost point within an unknown universe of sleep.
The dreamer is positioned almost on the opposite side of the room from the brink of the starry abyss. Sitting on the edge of an armless, backless couch of complex brocade, she stares and waits "without breath or heartbeat," these functions being quite unnecessary to her dream self. Everything is in silence. This silence, however, is somehow charged with strange currents of force, which she can't really explain, an insane physics electrifying the atmosphere with demonic powers lurking just beyond the threshold of sensory perception. All is perceived with, elusive dream senses.
Then a new feeling enters the dream, one slightly more tangible. There seems to be an iciness drifting in from the area of the great mirror or window, perhaps now merely a windowless aperture looking out on the chilly void. Suddenly our dreamer experiences a cumulative terror of everything that has happened, is happening, or will happen to her. Without moving from her place on that uncomfortable couch, she visually searches the room for clues to the source of her terror. Many areas are inaccessible to her sight -- like a picture that has been scribbled out in places -- but she sees nothing specifically frightening and is relieved for a moment. Then her horror begins anew when she realizes for the first time that she hasn't looked behind her, and indeed she seems physically unable to do so now.
Something is back there. She feels this to be a horrible truth. She almost knows what the thing is, but afflicted with some kind of oneiric aphasia she cannot articulate any words or clear ideas to herself. She can only wait, hoping that sudden shock will soon bring her out of the dream, for she is now aware that "she is dreaming," for some reason thinking of herself in the third person.
The words "she is dreaming" somehow form a ubiquitous motif for the present situation: as a legend written somewhere at the bottom of the dream, as echoing voices bouncing here and there around the room, as a motto printed upon fortune cookie-like strips of paper and hidden in bureau drawers, and as a broken record repeating itself on an ancient Victrola inside the dreamer's head. Then all the words of this monotonous slogan gather from their diverse places and like an alighting flock of birds settle in the area behind the dreamer's back. There they twitter for a moment, as upon the frozen shoulders of a statue in a park. This is actually the way it seems to the dreamer, including the statue comparison. Something of a statuesque nature is back there.
Approaching her. Something that is radiating a searing field of tension, coming closer, its great shadow falling across and enlarging her own mere upon the floor. Still she cannot turn around, cannot move her body, which is stiff-jointed and rigid. Perhaps she can scream, she thinks, and makes an attempt to do so. But this fails, because by then mere is already a firm and tepid hand that has covered her mouth from behind. The fingers on her lips feel like thick, naked crayons. Then she sees a long slim arm extending itself out over her left shoulder, and a hand that is holding some filthy rags before her eyes and shaking them, "making them dance." And at that moment a dry sibilant voice whispers into her ear: "It's time to get dressed, little dolling."
She tries to look away, her eyes being the only things she can still move. Now, for the first time, she notices that all around me room -- in the shadowed places -- are people dressed as dolls. Their forms are collapsed, their mourns opened wide. They do not look as if they are still alive. Some of them have actually become dolls, their flesh no longer supple and their eyes having lost the appearance of moistness. Others are at various intermediate stages between humanness and dollhood. With horror, the dreamer now becomes aware that her own mouth is opened wide and will not close.
But at last, through the power of her fear, she is able to turn around and face her menacer. At this crescendo of the dream she awakes. She does not, however, awake in the bed of the mannikin dresser in her first and outer dream, but instead finds herself directly transported into the tangled, though real, bedcovers of her secretary self. Not exactly sure where or who she is for a moment, her first impulse on awaking is to complete the movement she began in the dream -- that is, turning around to look behind her. The hypnopompic hallucination that followed she claims as a "strong motivating factor" in her seeking the powers of a psychiatrist. For when she turned around in her bed, there was more to see than a dumb headboard with a blank wall above. Projecting out of that moon-whitened wall was the anterior half of a head, the face upon it that of a female mannikin. And what particularly disturbed her about this illusion (and here we go deeper into already dubious realms) was that the head didn't melt away into the background of the wall the way other post-dream projections she'd seen in the past had done; but instead, this protruding head, in one smooth movement, withdrew back into the wall. Her screams summoned a few unsympathetic eavesdroppers from neighboring apartments.
End of dream and related experiences.
Now, my darling, you can probably imagine my reaction to the above psychic yarn.-Every loose skein I followed led me back to you. The character of Miss Locher's dream is strongly reminiscent, in both mood and scenario, of matters you have been exploring for some years now. I'm referring, of course, to the all-around astral uncanniness of Miss Locher's dream and how eerily it echoes certain notions (very well, theories) that in my opinion have become altogether too central to your oeuvre as well as to your vie. Specifically I mean those "other worlds" you say you've detected through a combination of occult studies and depth analysis.
Let me digress for a brief lecture apropos of the preceding.
It's not that I object to your delving into speculative models of reality, sweetheart, but why this particular one? Why posit these "little zones," as I've heard you call them, having such hideous attributes, or should I say anti-attributes (to keep up with your lingo). To whimsically joke about them, as I've heard you do, with phrases like "pockets of interference" and "cosmic static," belies your talents as a thinker in general. And the rest of it: the hyper-uncanniness, the warped relationships that are supposed to obtain in these places, the "games with reality," and all the other transcendent nonsense. I realize that psychology has charted some awfully weird areas in its maps of the mind, but you've gone so far into ultramental hinterlands of metaphysics that I fear you will not return (at least not with your reputation intact).
To speak of your ideas with regard to Miss Locher's dream, you can see the connections, especially in the tortuous and twisting plot of her narrative. But I'll tell you when these connections really struck me with a hammer blow. It was just after she had related her dream to me. She was now riding the saddle of her chair in the normal position, and she made a few remarks obviously intended to convey the full extent of her distress. I'm sure she thought it de rigueur to tell me that after her dream episode she began entertaining doubts concerning who she really was. Secretary? Attirer of mannikins? Other? Other other? She knew, of course, the identity of her genuine, factual self; it was just some "new sense of unreality" that undermined complete assurance in this matter. (So what else is newrotic?)
Surely you can see how the above identity tricks fit in with those "harassments of the self that you say are one of the characteristic happenings in these zones of yours. And just what are the boundaries of self? Is there a communion of all things or just some things? How do animate and inanimate relate? Really boring... zzzzz.
It all reminds me of that trite little fable of the Chinese (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 butterly now dreaming, etc. The question is, "Do things like butterflies dream?" (Ans.: no. Recall the lab studies on the subject, if you will for once.) The issue is ended right there. However -- I'm sure you would continue -- suppose the dreamer is not a man or butterfly, but both... or neither, something else altogether. Or suppose... really we could go on and on like this, and we have. Possibly the most repellent concept you've developed on this subject is that which you call "divine masochism," or the doctrine of a Bigger Self terrorizing its little splinter selves, precisely that Something Else Altogether scarifying the man-butterfly with uncanny suspicions that there's a game going on over its collective head.
The trouble with all this, my dear, is the way you're so convinced of its objective reality, and how you sometimes manage to infect others with your peculiar convictions. Me, for instance. After hearing Miss Locher tell her dream story, I found myself unconsciously analyzing it much as you might have. Her multiplication of roles (including the role reversal with the mannikin) really put me in mind of some divine being that was splintering and scaring itself to relieve its cosmic ennui, as indeed a few of the more conventional gods of world religion supposedly do. I also thought of your "divinity of the dream," that thing which is all-powerful in its own realm. Contemplating the realm of Miss Locher's dream, I came to deeply feel that old truism of a solipsistic dream deity commanding all it sees, all of which is only itself. And a corollary to solipsism even occurred to me: if in any dream of a universe one has to always allow that there is another, waking universe, and then the problem becomes, as with our self-scaring Chinese, knowing when one is actually dreaming and what form the waking self may have; and this one can never know. The fact that the overwhelming majority of thinkers reject any doctrine of solipsism suggests, perhaps, the basic horror and disgusting unreality of its implications. And after all, the horrific feeling of unreality is much more prevalent (to certain people) in what we call human "reality" than in human dreams, where everything is absolutely real.
See what you've done to me! For reasons that you well know, I always try to argue your case, my love. I can't help myself. But I don't think it's right to be exerting your influence upon innocents like Miss Locher. I should tell you that I hypnotized the girl. Her unconscious testimony seems very much to incriminate you. She almost demanded the hypnosis, feeling this to be an easy way of unveiling the source of her problems. And because of her frantic demands, I obliged her. A serendipitous discovery ensued.
She was an excellent subject. In hypnosis we restricted ourselves to penetrating the mysteries of her dream. I had her recount the events of the dream with the more accurate memory of her hypnotized state. Her earlier version was amazingly factual, only one thing missing, which I'll get to in a moment. I asked her to elaborate on her feelings in the dream and any sense of meaning she experienced. Her response to these questions was more in the incoherent language of delirium than literal sense, or even dream logic. She said some quite horrible things about life and lies and "this dream of flesh." I don't think I need expand on the chilling nonsense she uttered, for I've heard you say much the same in one of your "states." (Really, the way you dwell on and in your zones of the metaphysically flayed self is appalling.)
And you, my dear, were present in Miss Locher's hypnotic statement in more than just spirit. That little thing which Miss Locher mentioned only under hypnosis, and which I temporarily omitted above, was a very telling piece of info. It told on you. For when my patient first described the scenes of her dream drama to me, she had forgotten -- or just neglected to mention -- the presence of another character hidden in the background. This character was her boss at the clothes store and proprietor of the nameless establishment, played by a certain lady psychoanalyst. Not that you were ever on stage, even in a cameo appearance. But the hypnotized Miss Locher did remark in passing on the identity of the employer of her oneiric self, this being one of the many underlying suppositions of the dream.
I found this revelation immensely helpful in coordinating my and my patient's separate items of evidence against you. The nature of the evidence, however, was such that I could not rule out the possibility of a conspiracy on your and Miss Locher's part. So I refrained from asking her anything about the relationship between you two, and I didn't inform her of what she said about you under hypnosis. My assumption was that she was guilty until proven otherwise.
Alternatives did occur to me, though, especially when I realized Miss Locher's extraordinary susceptibility to hypnosis. Isn't it just possible, sweet love, that Miss Locher's incredible dream was induced by one of those post-hypnotic suggestions, which you're so good at? I know that lab experiments in this area are sometimes eerily successful, and the eerie is, without argument, your specialty. Still another possibility involves the study of dream telepathy, in which you have no small interest. So what were you doing the night Miss Locher underwent her dream ordeal? (You weren't with me, I know that!) And how many of those eidola on my poor patient's mental screen were images projected from an outside source? These are just some of the bizarre questions, which lately seem so necessary to ask.
But the answers to such questions would still only establish your means in this crime. What about your motive? That I know very well, too well. It seems there is nothing you won't do to impose your ideas upon common humanity -- deplorably on your patients, obnoxiously on your colleagues, and affectionately (I hope) on me. I know it must be hard for a lonely visionary like yourself to remain mute and ignored, but you've chosen such an eccentric path to follow that I fear there are few spirits brave enough to accompany you into those zones of deception and pain, at least not voluntarily.
Which brings us back to Miss Locher. By the end of our first, and only, session I still wasn't sure whether she was a willing or unwilling agent of yours; hence, I kept mum, very mum, about anything concerning you. Neither did she mention you in any significant way, except of course unconsciously in hypnosis. At any rate, she certainly appeared to be a genuinely disturbed young lady, and she asked me to prescribe for her. As Dr. Bovary tried to assuage the oppressive dreams of his wife with a prescription of valerian and camphor baths, I supplied Miss Locher with a program for serenity that included Valium and companionship (the latter of which I also recommend for us, dolling). Then we made a date for the following Wednesday at the same tune. Miss Locher seemed most grateful, though not enough, according to my secretary, to pay up what she owed. And wait till you find out where she wanted us to send the bill.
The following week Miss Locher did not appear for her appointment. This did not really alarm me, for, as you know many patients --armed with a script for tranquilizers and a single experience of therapy -- decide they don't need any more help. But by men I had developed such a personal interest in Miss Locher's case that I was seriously disappointed at the prospect of not being able to pursue it further.
After fifteen patientless minutes had elapsed, I had my secretary call Miss Locher at the number she gave us. (With my former secretary -- poor tiling -- this would have been done automatically; so the new girl is not as good as you said she was, doctor. I shouldn't have let you insinuate her into my employ... but that's my fault, isn't it?) Maggie came into my office a few minutes later, presumably after she'd tried to reach Miss Locher. With rather cryptic impudence she suggested I dial the number myself, giving me the form containing all the information on our new patient. Then she left the room without saying another word. The nerve of that soon-to-be-unemployed girl.
I called the number -- which incidentally plays the song about Mary's lamb on the push button phone in my office -- and it rang twice before someone answered. This someone had the voice of a young woman but was not our Miss Locher. In any case, die way this woman answered the phone told me I had a wrong number (the right wrong number). Nevertheless, I asked if a Miss Locher could be reached at that number or any of its possible extensions, but the answering female's voice expressed total ignorance regarding the existence of any person by that name. I thanked her and hung up.
You will have to forgive me, my lovely, if at this point I had begun to feel like the victim of a hoax, your hoax to be exact. "Maggie," I intercommed, "how many more appointments for this afternoon?" "Just one," she immediately answered, and then without being asked to, said: "But I can cancel it if you'd like." I said I would like, that I would be gone for the rest of the afternoon.
My intention was to pay a visit on Miss Locher at the, probably also phony, address on her new patient form. I had the suspicion that the address would lead to the same geographical spot as had the electronic nexus of the false phone number. Of course I could have easily verified this without leaving my office, but knowing you, sweet one, I thought that a personal visit was warranted. And I was right.
The address was an hour's drive away. It was in a fashionable suburb on the other side of town from that fashionable suburb in which I have my office. (And I wish you would remove your own place of business from its present location, unless for some reason you need to be near a skid-row source that broadcasts on frequencies of chaos and squalor, which you'd probably claim.) I parked my big black car on the street I was looking for, which also turned out to be the main street of the suburb's shopping district. Harwell Ave. is its name, as you know.
This was last Wednesday, and if you'll recall it was quite an unusual day (an accomplishment I do not list among all your orchestrated connivings of my adventure). It was dim and moody most of the morning, and so prematurely dark by late afternoon that there were stars seemingly visible in the sky. Presumably a storm was imminent -- though I don't recollect our really having one -- for the air was appropriately galvanized with a pre-deluge suspensefulness. The display windows of stores had on their nightlights, and one jewelry sellers I passed twinkled with electric glory in the corner of my eye. Shivering in the stillness were the little leaves upon a row of curbside trees, each slender trunk emerging from a complex mosaic planted in the sidewalk.
Of course, there's no farmer need to describe the atmosphere of a place you've visited many times, dear love. But I just wanted to show how sensitive I was to a certain kind of portentous -mood, and how ripe I'd become for the staged antics to follow. Very good, doctor!
Distance-wise, I only had to walk a few gloomy blocks before arriving at the address I sought, the address purported to be the home of our Miss L. By then it was pretty clear what I would find. There were no surprises so far. When I looked up at the neon-inscribed name of the place, I heard a young woman's telephone voice whispering the words into my ear: Mademoiselle Fashions. A fake French accent here, S.V.P. And this is the store -- no? -- where it seems you acquire so many of your own lovely ensembles. But I'm jumping ahead with my expectations.
What I did not expect were the sheer lengths to which you would go in setting up a weird experience and revelation for your beloved. Was this, I pray, done to bring us closer in the divine bonds of weirdness? Anyway, I saw what you wanted me to see, or what I thought you wanted me to see, or some combination of the two, in the window of Mile. Fashions.
The thing was even wearing the same plaid-skirted outfit as, or one very similar to, the one worn by Miss Locher on her only visit to my office. And I have to admit that I was a bit shocked -- perhaps attributable in part to the strange climatic conditions of the day -- when I saw the head of the thing. Then again, I was looking for a resemblance and possibly made myself see an exaggerated likeness between Miss Locher (your fellow conspirator, whether she knows it or not) and the figure in the window. You can probably guess what I noticed, or thought I noticed, about the figure's eyes -- what you would have had me think of as a partially human moistness, like those metamorphosizing things in Miss Locher's dream.
Unfortunately, I was unable to linger long enough to positively confirm the above perception, for a medium-intensity shower began to descend at that point. The rain sent me running to a nearby phone booth, where I had some business to conduct anyway. Retrieving the number of the clothes store from my memory, I phoned them for the second time that afternoon. That was easy. What was not quite as easy was imitating your voice, my high-pitched love, and asking if the store's accounting department had mailed out a bill that month for my, I mean your, charge account. My impersonation of you must have been very good, for the voice on the phone reminded me that I'd already taken care of all my recent expenditures. You thanked the salesgirl for this information, apologizing for your forgetfulness, and then said good-bye. Perhaps I should have asked the girl if she was the one who helped rig up that mannikin in the window to look like Miss Locher, if indeed the situation was not the other way around. In any case, I did establish a definite link, of which I was almost sure beforehand, between you and the clothes store. It seemed you might have accomplices anywhere, and to tell you the truth I was beginning to feel a bit paranoid standing in that little phone booth.
The rain was coming down even harder as I made a mad dash back to my black sedan. A bit soaked, I sat in the car for a few moments wiping off my rain-spotted glasses with a handkerchief. I said I was becoming a bit paranoid and what follows proves it. While sitting there without my glasses on, I thought I saw something move in the rearview mirror. My visual vulnerability, combined with the claustrophobic feeling of being in a car with rain-blinded windows, together added up to a momentary but very definite panic on my part. Of course I quickly put my glasses on and found there was nothing whatever in the backseat. But the point is that I had to check in order to relieve my spasm of anxiety. You had succeeded, my love, in getting me to experience a moment of self-terror, and in that moment I, too, became your accomplice against myself. Bravo!
You have indeed succeeded -- assuming all my inferences thus far are for the most part true -- perhaps more than you know or ever intended. Having confessed all this, possibly now I can get to the real focus and "motivating factor" of this correspondence. This has much less to do with A. Locher man it does with us, dearest. Please try to be sympathetic and, above all, patient.
I have not been well lately, and you well know the reason why. This business with Miss Locher, far from bringing us to a more intimate understanding of each other, has only made the situation worse. Horrible nightmares have been plaguing me every night. Me, of all people! And they are directly due to the well-intentioned (I think) influence of you and Miss L. I'll describe one of these nightmares for you, and therefore describe them all. This will be the last dream story, I promise.
In the dream I am in my bedroom, sitting upon my unmade bed and wearing my pajamas (Oh, will you never see them). The room is partially illuminated by beams from a streetlight shining in through the window from outside. And it also seems to me that a whole galaxy of constellations, although not actually witnessed firsthand, are contributing their light to the scene, a ghastly glowing which unnaturally blanches the entire upstairs of the house. I have to use the bathroom and walk sleepily out to the hallway... where I get the shock of my life.
In the whitened hallway -- I cannot say brightened, because it is almost as if a very fine and luminous powder coats everything -- are these things lying up and down the floor, on the upper landing of the stairway, and even upon the stairs themselves as they disappear into the darker regions below. These things are people dressed as dolls, or else dolls made up to look like people dressed as dolls. I remember being confused about which it was.
But people or dolls, their heads are all turned in my direction as I emerge from the bedroom, and their eyes shine in the white darkness. Frozen -- yes, with terror -- I merely return a fixed gaze, for some reason wondering if my eyes are shining the same as theirs. Then one of the doll people, slouching against the wall on my near left, turns its head laboriously upon a stiffened neck and looking upward speaks to me. Its voice is an horrific cackling parody of speech, but even more horrible are its words. It says: "Become as we are, sweetie. Die into us." Suddenly I begin to feel very weak, as if my life were being drained out of me. Summoning all my powers of movement, I manage to rush back to my bed to end the dream.
I don't wake up until the next morning, and even then my heart pounds like anything. This very much disturbs me, for I've read studies of the relationship between nightmares and heart attacks. For some poor souls that imaginary incubus sitting upon their chest can do very real harm. And I do not want to become one of these cases.
You can help me, sweetheart. I know you didn't intend it to turn out this way but that elaborate joke you perpetrated with the help of Miss Locher has really gotten to me. Consciously, of course, I still uphold the criticism I've already expressed about the basic silliness of your work. Unconsciously, however, you seem to have awakened me to a stratum (zone, you would say) of uncanny terror in my mind-soul. I will at least admit mat your ideas form a powerful psychic metaphor, though no more than that. Which is quite enough, isn't it? It's certainly quite enough to inspire the writing of this letter, in which I now beg you to get in touch with me so that we can resolve this whole situation. I can't go on like this! You have strange powers over me, as if you didn't already know it. Please release me from your spell, and let's begin a normal romance. Who really gives a damn about the metaphysics of invisible realms anyway? It's only emotions, not abstractions, which count. Love and terror are the true realities, whatever the unknowable mechanics are that turns their wheels, and our own.
In Miss Locher I believe you sent me a concrete message of your deepest convictions, a love note if you will. But suppose I start admitting weird things about Miss L? Suppose I admit that she was somehow just a dream. (Then she must have been my secretary's dream too, for she saw her.) Suppose I even admit that Miss Locher was not a girl but actually a multi-selved thing -- pan Man, part mannikin -- and with your assistance dreamed itself for a time into existence, reproduced itself in human form just as we reproduce ourselves with an infinite variety of images and shapes, including mannikins? You would like to have me think of things like this. You would like to have me think of all the mysterious connections between different things. So what if there are? I don't care anymore.
Forget other selves. Forget the third (fourth, nth) person view of life; only first and second persons are important (I and thou). And by all means forget dreams. I, for one, know I'm not a dream. I am real, Dr. ----. (There, how do you like being anonymized?) So please be so kind as to acknowledge my existence.
It is now after midnight, and I dread going to sleep and having another of those nightmares. You can save me from this fate, if only you can find it in your heart to do so. And you must hurry. Time is running out for us, my love, just as these last few waking moments are now running out for me. It is late in the night but still not too late for our love. Please don't destroy everything for us. You will only hurt yourself. And despite your high-flown theory of masochism, there is really nothing divine about it. So no more of your tricks with strange places and communications. Be simple. Good night, and then. Good
Night, my foolish love. Hear me now. Sleep your singular sleep and dream of the many, the others. They are also part of you, part of us. Die into them and leave me in peace. I will come for you later, and then you can always be with me in a special corner all your own, just as my little Amy once was. This is what you've wanted, and this you shall have. Die into them. Yes, die into them, you simple man, you fool, you lover, you silly dolling. Die with a nice bright gleam in your eyes.

[The_Dancing_Clown]

Enjoy!!  

[Milosh]

Ej Ghoule, sibni mi na mejl to sto imas od Ligotija.

Unapred zahvaljujem.  

[dwyd]

Enjoy!!  

Hey, Thanx!

Ghoule, faca si ako mi šaljneš stories!
Imaš moj mejl na PM-u!

[Ivan Bevc]

...sta reci do...

ivanbevc@hotmail.com





p.s. ghoule...pa ti si riznica pesama za decu

[zakk]

Thomas Ligotti
MY WORK IS NOT YET DONE
najavljeno kod Bevca u Booki za april 2014.

[Ghoul]

Thomas Ligotti
MY WORK IS NOT YET DONE
najavljeno kod Bevca u Booki za april 2014.

pomereno za septembar.

[Ghoul]

SREĆAN ROĐENDAN!






Tomas Ligoti: majstor horora

http://ljudska_splacina.com/2011/06/tomas-ligoti-majstor-horora.html


THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE HUMAN RACE – Thomas Ligotti

http://ljudska_splacina.com/2014/03/the-conspiracy-against-human-race.html

[Albedo 0]

eo da i ovdje napišem da sam počeo da čitam Conspiracy, koja se za sada pokazuje kao gotovo diletantska knjiga. Ne znam kakve su mu horor priče, možda su i fenomenalne, ali Conspiracy je čisti amaterizam. Nije on baš pajac, ali svakako je amater, i ako želite ozbiljni filozofski realizam sigurno potražite drugog autora, nekog ipak školovanog da objasni stvari. Ligoti je jednostavno suviše orijentisan ka trivijalnom, i tretira neke besmislice kao fundamentalne, da lako možete da se osjetite kao Levi Stros koji proučava primitivne kulture, koje pričaju nekim zamuljenim jezikom, u koji Stros pokušava da učita logičke procese, dokazujući da ti divljaci nisu inferiorni, već da takođe posjeduju razum, koji doduše funkcioniše na njima svojstven način.

Ono što pokušavam reći jeste da Ligoti svakako nije gluperda, ali da, kao i neki domorodac koji pri prvom susretu sa automobilom u isti ulazi kroz prozor, čini početničke, štaviše, vrlo zabavne greške, koje ponekad mogu i da postanu opasne. Kad neko ne zna šta radi onda ulazi u filozofski problem kroz prozor zadnjih vrata automobila.

Važno je napomenuti i da je velika neistina da Ligoti pripada manjini. Možda u smislu da je jedan od rijetkih koji eksplicitno iznosi neke stavove, ali njegova filozofija ne da nije manjinska – ona je mainstream već 500 godina. Zato ligoti i može da zabavlja neku kvazihororelitu, koja se osjeća posebnom dok čita kao neke provokativne misli, a ono niđe veze, čista komercijala, što se tiče stila i nivoa kompleksnosti. Taj diletantizam je nešto ukorijenjeno u individualističkoj američkoj kulturi, koju Ligoti navodno kritikuje, a u stvari je stalno njen sastavni dio.

Za sada se kao problemi mogu detektovati to što je Ligoti umislio da priča o Homo Erektusu, kao da je diplomirao antropologiju, ili da trtlja o teoriji evolucije i razvoju svijesti, pozivajući se na izvor star 80 godina. Da je malo pročešljao novije neuroscience nalaze o tome kako svijest funkcioniše, mislim da bi se pokrio ušima, pošto ga ti nalazi direktno pokopavaju. Usput izigrava kosmologa, otprilike ispod nivoa čak i one francuske plastične braće s Megatrenda.

Takvi nespretni do-it-yourself temelji na kojima za sada postavlja čitavu priču izgledaju ne retro, jer to bi još bilo simpatično, već prosto izgubljeno u prostoru i vremenu. Problematizacija svijesti u filozofiji se ne vrši tako što idete u potragu za homo erektusima i njihovom tretiranju smrti, jer svijest je u filozofiji pojam star svega 500 godina, i svijest je neizostavni dio samo ove, današnje civilizacije, a ne i nekih prethodnih civilizacija, koje nisu počivale na individualizmu.

Samim tim što je i vrapcima na grani već jasno da kada su temelji svijeta sa mitoloških prešli u racionalističke, sa Boga na čovjeka, sami temelji su se urušili, jer čovjek jeste nestalna i potrošna roba. Samim tim, individualistička filozofija kao takva mora da dovede do krize koju ispoljava Ligoti, ali on pokušava tu tendenciju da predstavi kao kosmičku karakteristiku. A za to, kao što rekoh, koristi prastare knjige iz doba kada su nacisti gledali jevrejske lobanje i mislili da su cutting edge nauke. Kao što rekoh na drugoj temi, ovo je filozofska verzija akademika Deretića.

Nastavljam sa čitanjem, pa javljam dalje utiske.

[Albedo 0]

Drugo poglavlje i dobar dio trećeg su me podsjetile na Slinin doktorat. Ono kad Radulović kaže da je on dokazao uticaj menadžmenta tako što je pitao stotinjak zaposlenih ''da li misle da menadžment utiče''... Ligoti prosto tresne šakom o sto i kaže da se pesimisti rađaju, da nema nikakvog posebnog dokaza za to, oni su specijalna manjina štasvene, they just are.

Uostalom, to i ne čudi, budući da pesimizam izvire iz takozvane malograđanske filozofije, od Šopenhauera pa nadalje. A znamo svi kako je Šopenhauer bio ljut na majku jer je bila u ljubavnoj vezi sa Geteom, što naravno sinčić nije odobravao. Veliki teret na njegovim plećima, zna Ligoti kako je to kad u privatnom životu od muve praviš magarca. Iz takvih vitalističkih naklapanja mora čitavo drugo poglavlje da prođe u nekim poprilično haotičnim, nabacanim primjedbama u vezi američke literature iz popularne psihologije, kako biti ok a ostati vitak i zašto loše kad je bolje dobro, smršati i ostati optimista... i on stvarajući tog imaginarnog neprijatelja izjednačava pravu filozofiju sa nekim psihopriručnicima, pošto valjda samo njih može ''argumentovano'' da pobije.

Ovo poglavlje me baš razočarava, prvo je još i dobro udaralo, drugo gmiže po blatu. Neki malo manje bijedan pokušaj od ovih analiza lajf koučeva je navodno suprotstavljanje determinizma i slobodne volje, pri čemu, valjda je to američki usud, pitanje slobodne volje povezuje sa problemom moralne odgovornosti, kao da to automatski ima veze jedno s drugim, a ne samo u hrišćanolikim ideologijama. Njegovi primjeri odgovornosti su maltene da li si kriv ako je neko imao saobraćajku na putu ka tvojoj kući, kako bi ti pomogao oko nečega, a ti si ga zvao iz zaebantskih razloga, da mu vratiš za neki polomljeni prst i šio mi ga Džordž. U tom dijelu kao da je neki desetogodišnjak pisao dnevnik, a ne mator konj navodno filozofski esej. Iskustvo nula.

Naravno, očigledno je kojem uzrastu je ovo namijenjeno, ali valja naglasiti da je podjednaka podvala kao Otac Joil koji kao sprečava neku transplantaciju srca. Isti nivo gluposti. Uostalom, ko pri zdravoj pameti priziva determinizam kad je brutalno očigledno da je to više nego neistinita tvrdnja. Šta god da kao primjer uzmete, uvijek ćete među bijelim labudovima naći crne, da ga jebeš, naći ćete ih.

Zato Ligoti i mora da se drži malograđanske filozofije, jer determinizam i ne može da nađe u društvenoj oblasti, te priziva u pomoć nekog neurobiologa ilištaveć kako bi on našao deterministički gen urezan u meso. Vidi ti to, dnk bez ličnosti, sve je upisano, sve su to hemijske reakcije, sve je očekivano, nismo mi individue nego kiseline itd. Nevjerovatno je koliko Ligoti pokušava da naturalizuje sopstveni antinatalizam, iako čitavo životinjsko carstvo dokazuje suprotno. Ne znam čega se plaši, argument bi bio mnogo snažniji kada bi totalno iskočio iz pokušaja uprirođivanja teze, i to nakon što je iznio stav da priroda djeluje anarhično, bez pravila, da jebe sve po spisku i da je sklona ekcesima poput stvaranja svjesnog ljudskog uma, koji je monstruozan sam po sebi.

Nakon te prvobitne stavke on prelazi u drugom poglavlju u dokazivanje da ta ista priroda u stvari nije stvorila svijest, već gomilu uslovljavajućih refleksa koju mi nazivamo sviješću. Pa šta je onda tačno, prvo ili drugo? Je li, što bi reko Picolato a drugi ga optužiše za besmisleni plagijat, svijest tragični raskorak u evoluciji, ili uopšte nije raskorak, budući da je niz uslovljavajućih refleksa, kao i kod svih životinja?

Ovdje je problem licemjeran odnos prema prirodi. Ne možete istovremeno biti i determinista i tvrditi da je čovjek evoluciona greška, pa u determinizmu nema grešaka, pobogu i pošejtanu. Čim ima grešaka to nije determinizam. Ko može pri zdravoj pameti da istovremeno tvrdi da je kosmos jedan proždirući haos i da njime vladaju deterministički zakoni? Ko pri zdravoj pameti... Oh wait... No, to je sve moguće kod priučenog Ligotija, koji nažalost iz nekih privatnih razloga nije sposoban da izveze svoj esej tako da stvarno ima smisla i da nesmetano gmiže od početka do kraja. Njegovi navodni neistomišljenici su za sada TV evanđelisti, lajf koučevi, poneki pisac, samo ne stvarna intelektualna elita, koja bi ga iskoristila za čačkalicu poslije doručka.

Na sreću, bar shvata da onaj ko bi prihvatio da je obična lutka kojom se poigrava njeno genetsko ustrojstvo svakako bi izgubio razum, te Ligoti pretpostavlja neko postepeno raspadanje, anestezirani samogenocid, što se u stvari sasvim poklapa sa onim psihopriručnicima koje gore spominje, i koji ublažavaju emocionalne tegobe pacijenata i slično. Dakle, iako bi čovjek pomislio da je ovo neki natčovječanski poduhvat, Ligoti u stvari priželjkuje neko kolektivno bensedinsko iskorijenjivanje, baš krasno, i kukavički pride. Čemu onda čitava priča o ukidanju te besmislene rase ako on toliko brine o njenom pain free nestanku. Čudo još nije spomenuo Hitlera.

To be continued, valjda...

[Anomander Rejk]

Ne znam gde ovo staviti, nije online, biće štampano, ali odlučio sam ipak ovde?
http://www.booka.in/uskoro-2

[Ghoul]

moj osvrt na ligotijev jedini roman, odnedavno dostupan i na srpskom!





http://ljudska_splacina.com/2014/12/nedovrseni-posao-tomas-ligoti.html

[Ghoul]

SPEKTAKL!
PRVE DVE LIGOTIJEVE ZBIRKE NAJZAD U SVIMA-DOSTUPNOM PINGVINOVOM IZDANJU, SA RAZUMNOM CENOM!
U OKTOBRU!

Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe
Thomas Ligotti
Foreword by: Jeff VanderMeer

FORMAT
Paperback

PRICE
$17.00

Paperback

ISBN 9780143107767
464  Pages

6 Oct 2015

Penguin Classics

Adult

http://www.penguin.com/book/songs-of-a-dead-dreamer-and-grimscribe-by-thomas-ligotti/9780143107767

[Alexdelarge]

nedovršeni posao, strana 68, zakruljilo, kruljenje u zidovima. kog vraga to znači?

[Ghoul]

bojim se da prevodilac te knjige, skrobonja, odavno ne učestvuje na ovom forumu (zahvaljujući bicmanu bobanu), pa ćeš morati da ga pitaš na fejsbuku.

[Mme Chauchat]

Kruljiti znači isto što i krčati (ja sam nailazila uglavnom u kontekstu želuca&creva).

[Albedo 0]

 изводити  испрекидане,  јаке  оштре  гласове  (
свињама). 2.  крчати,  бурлати  (р
празном  желуг&,  празним  цревима)


EDIT: Matica srpska je izvor, kopi pejst je očajan, pobrisah par hijeroglifa, al jasno je šta je

[Alexdelarge]

pa bolje onda i kruljiti nego burlati. da mi je zaburlalo u zidovima na stani 68 tačno bi zafrljačio knjigu o zid.

[C Q]

THOMAS LIGOTTI'S TEN CLASSICS OF HORROR POETRY

1. "A Dream within a Dream," by Edgar Allan Poe. In this poem, Poe
says all there is to say about the horror and unreality of human
existence.

2. The Flowers of Evil, by Charles Baudelaire. Tribute must be paid to
the collection that inspired all others of a lavishly degenerate
and fantastical kind that followed. Without Baudelaire's flowers,
those of George Sterling, Ambrose Bierce, Clark Ashton Smith,
David Park Barnitz, and Richard Tierney (among other luminaries
past and present of American small-press horror poetry)
would not exist.

3. "City of Dreadful Night," by James Thomson ("B.V."). In the greatest
horror poem ever written, Thomson guides the reader on a tour of
nightmarish illuminations. As Dante's Inferno is an excursus on
how awful it is to be in hell, "The City of Dreadful Night" expatiates
on how awful it is to be at all. The bad news: Life is a farrago
of madness and suffering. The good news: God does not exist.

4. Lead (Plumb), by George Bacovia. Poems from a Romanian backwater
town where the season is either autumn or winter, the time of day
is twilight, the atmosphere is thick with anxiety or melancholy,
the streets and parks are deserted, claustrophobic rooms look out
on cemeteries and slaughterhouses, and there is always a funeral
to attend. Some titles: "Autumn Twilight," "Winter Twilight,"
"Violet Twilight," "Black," "Grey," and "Ancient Twilight."

5. The Fungi from Yuggoth, by H. P. Lovecraft. A summation of Lovecraftian
themes and sentiments in thirty-six sonnets. The horrors are
all here as well as the dreams. Gods cavort in a Godless cosmos.
New England serves as both a landscape of infinite doom and as
charmed ground where one may "stand alone before eternity."

6. Something Breathing, by Stanley McNail. The standard for horror
poetry as a genre. Spooky and macabre tales in verse. Things
gibber and shamble. McNail specialized in miniature ballads of
evil little girls.

7. Nightmare Need, by Joseph Payne Brennan. As a writer, Brennan's
best work is represented by his poetry rather than by his fiction
(with a few classic exceptions like "Canavan's Back Yard" and
"Levitation"). Nightmare Need is his most distinguished collection
and extensively demonstrates his signature subjects: desolate
scenery, crummy ruins, lamentations for departed pets, loneliness
and alienation, agonizing nostalgia, and death, death, death.

8. "Mr. Blue," by Tom Paxton. An unrivaled poetic fantasy of sociopolitical
paranoia. Paxton's words might have been spoken by Big
Brother to Winston Smith in George Orwell's 1984. It begins:
"Good morning, Mr. Blue / We've got our eyes on you."

9. "In the Court of the Crimson King," by King Crimson (lyrics by Peter
Sinfield). One of the great examples of the Symbolists' rule that
poetry does not have to make sense to make an impression. In
this case, the impression is that of sardonic grandeur.

10. Paper Mask, by Thomas Wiloch. This is but one, almost arbitrarily
chosen, collection among the numerous volumes of prose poems
by Wiloch. He is the best at what he does, and what he does
is seduce his readers into a world of quiet apocalypses, bitter
ecstasies, and tiny derangements. While the prose poem form is
compact by its nature, Wiloch's imagination is vast with sinister
conceits.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQvcJ7d93Zs

[C Q]

Ovu listu iznad pronašao sam u comment section - PoemHunter-a ali ona je originalno dostupna u The Book of Lists: Horror, isto važi i za tekst sa Richard Stanley - Italian horror films.

Zabavna knjiga, savršena za copy-paste spam - http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Lists-Collection-Introduction/dp/0061537268

[Ghoul]

SPEKTAKL!
PRVE DVE LIGOTIJEVE ZBIRKE NAJZAD U SVIMA-DOSTUPNOM PINGVINOVOM IZDANJU, SA RAZUMNOM CENOM!
U OKTOBRU!

Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe
Thomas Ligotti
Foreword by: Jeff VanderMeer

a evo i korice.
iznenađujuće ružne, al jbg.

[Father Jape]

Dobra je naslovna.

[C Q]

Ne može biti gora od sprske ali nije ni ovo dobro. Ja sam se nadao da će skinuti nekoga simbolistu 

[C Q]

The Book of Jade by Park Barnitz

Hippocampus Press 324 pages 1 May 2015

http://www.hippocampuspress.com/mythos-and-other-authors/poetry/the-book-of-jade-by-park-barnitz


Thomas Ligotti -Thoughts Concerning A Decadent Universe -

There is some engaging quality about a volume of decadent poetry—or, more precisely, the idea of such a volume—that is suggestive of the forbidden book in its truest form: not simply a book that is outlawed by social propriety or legal statute, but one that in some way should not even exist, except perhaps in the manner of a myth or a dream. H. P. Lovecraft, who in his letters drew many readers' attention to The Book of Jade, invented a fascinating instance of the decadent poetry collection as a forbidden book in the form of The People of the Monolith, by the "notorious Baudelairean poet" Justin Geoffrey, which figures incidentally in 'The Thing on the Doorstep' and was perhaps inspired by David Park Barnitz's volume. As usual with bibliographic impostors of this type, the actual substance of The People of the Monolith is, as they say, left to the reader's imagination, which in this case (and possibly all others) is a completely false conception, since the whole allure of these works is that they are quite impossible to imagine in a conventional sense. One does not mentally compose a single imaginary phrase that might belong to this slim or massive text, and certainly one cannot even begin to conceive the guiding concepts behind this or any other volume that could be said to revel in an ideal blasphemy, an ideal degeneracy, and an ideal forbiddeness. And yet, whenever the title of a book like The People of the Monolith is mentioned in a story, or perhaps overhead in dream conversation, some peculiar sensations do begin to simmer within the reader (or the eavesdropping dreamer): something happens which is less like the workings of the imagination than it is a surge of wordless, pictureless pleasure or pain... if not a state which moves beyond any common terms of physical and emotional sensation.

In his ghost story 'The Turn of the Screw,' Henry James deliberately withheld any particulars of what his child characters were up to with the spirits of Quint and Jessel, thereby, according to James's scheme, leading the reader to "think the evil." This device has often enough worked effectively, for James and others, but not because it arouses any special "thoughts" in a reader. After all, if something can in fact be confronted as a mere mental phenomenon, whether as an abstract idea or a scene inside the skull, then there cannot be very much to it, at least in the context of a literary work (a point that James himself makes just before turning full about and going on to talk about making the reader think certain thoughts—some probably nasty and others merely naughty). When James used the phrase to "think the evil," he may have meant to "think the unthinkable," or rather to confront the reader's mind with its very incapacity to think the unthinkable, to imagine the unimaginable, to name the unnameable, with the consequence that in such a position that the mind is sadistically blocked off from every known avenue of light and order and is forced into a wonderful blackness or given a glimpse of apocalyptic panic.

Details serve to settle the mind, while their deprivation unnerves it. And ultimately this must be the point of a forbidden book, which a little more than a century ago began to appear in the form of certain volumes of decadent poetry.

It was the distinctive manner of the fin de siecle to supply readers not with details but with hints—secret sins, impossible desires, a glorious or gruesome blur of synaesthetic heavens and hells. This manner is shared alike by decadent poetry and supernatural horror stories, both of which were of course instigated in their purest and most potent forms by Poe. His were the first modern works whose central purpose was to stultify the brain with the blackness of the unthinkable rather than enlighten it by way of lucidity, to arouse with the panic of the unimaginable rather than soothe with all the well-reckoned nonsense that had been in vogue for so many centuries. Since that time of a little more than a hundred years ago there have been many more artistic attempts along the same lines as decade by decade the unthinkable became a familiar mode of experience, the natural reaction to the unimaginable confrontation that takes place with ever greater frequency in the world within ourselves as well as the world around us—a world which, we seem to be realizing, should not even exist except perhaps in the manner of a myth or a dream.

http://www.bookofjade.com/criticism/Thoughts-Concerning-A-Decadent-Univers

[C Q]

Stigao je TL. Znaci tipicno Penguin Classics izdanje, 447 stranica sa prve dve TL kolekcije, jedino sto vrjedi pomenuti je da je knjiga tehnicki nesto kvalitetnija nego sto je to inace slucaj sa ovom edicijom, npr tipa - The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories...

[Ghoul]

Stigao je TL. Znaci tipicno Penguin Classics izdanje, 447 stranica sa prve dve TL kolekcije,

uz malo sreće, možda je dobijem sa ligotijevim potpisom.

uglavnom - moj članak + intervju s ligotijem izlazi u decembarskom RUE MORGUE. 

[C Q]

Nadam se da hoces, holy shit Do it Ghoul's Way.

Provjericemo i intervju kad bude dostupan. Mnogo ljepih vjesti u vezi Ligotija u zadnje dve godine.

[Ghoul]

Mnogo ljepih vjesti u vezi Ligotija u zadnje dve godine.

'jedino' što nije lepo je to što mi kaže ligoti da su ga muze za pisanje priča skoro sasvim napustile, i da je mrka kapa po pitanju očekivanja nečeg NOVOG, proznog, od njega...

[C Q]

Da, moglo se to naslutiti iz nekoliko zadnjih razgovora sa njim, zapravo i sam Spectral Link je na neki nacin produkt sretne/nesretne okolnosti u kojoj se TL zadesio.

I da dodam u vezi Penguin izdanja - znaci radi se o redigovanim verzijama za Subterranean Press koje su jos naknadno izmjenjene i poboljsane za potrebe ove kolekcije.
I sto je zanimljivo Jeff Vandermeer kao sto je i obecao udaljava Ligotija od HPL i granica Weird Fiction-a, te kroz cjeli predgovor naglasava njegovu, uslovno receno, univerzalnost i uzore koji cesto zbog HPL i Weird-ekipe bivaju skrajnuti - Kafka, Bruno, Nabokov... cak je i David Lynch pomenut. Uglavnom, nista novo za one koje prate.

[Ghoul]

dobro, vandermer je jedan od nimalo male grupe savremenih pisaca koji se iz petnih žila trude da umanje HPL-ov značaj za ligotijevu prozu (a i šire), iako su se poprilično okoristili o njegov legat (a to čine i dan-danas; npr. lerd beron, koji stalno uvaljuje priče u HPL-antologije, čak i kad s njima imaju malo ili nimalo veze, kao npr. ova noveleta u CTHULHU FHTAGN).

međutim, nikad nećeš čuti ligotija da 'pere ruke' od HPL-a, naprotiv.

kad sam ga pitao kako bi opisao svoje prve 2 zbirke nekome ko njegovu prozu do sada nije čitao, on mi je pre neki dan kazao:
"These two collections are composed entirely of supernatural horror stories in the tradition of Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, and writers who in nineteenth-century France would have been described as "cursed.""

prema tome, uz sve poštovanje prema vandermeru, može on malko da jede govna.

[Ghoul]

a vandermer je izgleda pročitao ovaj moj post na sagiti jer je malopre na fejsu našao za shodno da izruči OVO:

You know, I've thought a lot about Lovecraft the last couple of days, in part because of being asked to do a radio show to talk about Lovecraft's influence on my work--which is nil, and I've told them that. And then because of the Ligotti reissue from Penguin Classics, in which I contain Lovecraft within a footnote so I can set him aside to talk about what I think are more interesting elements of and influences on Ligotti's work (and less of a cliche in talking about Ligotti)...and, honestly, this is where I'm at...When people express a very hardened and scoffing disbelief that I'm not influenced by Lovecraft it's pretty much no different than not being part of a certain religion whose more radicalized adherents believe that their God influences all and atheists must at the very least be deep into their own "belief" as a *reaction* against their God. When, in fact, it's not a reaction of any kind. It's a separate through-line.
Another way to look at it is if U.S. general literature was defined entirely by the influence of, say, Hemingway and Faulkner. Writers protest, no, I wasn't influenced by those two writers at all, don't like them, haven't even read most of their work. And yet the prevailing culture is like, "Yes you were. You must have been." How fucking stupid would that be? That's how some define weird fiction--Lovecraft is where it begins and ends.
But no matter what it is--a fervent cult that has the arrogance to believe it knows everyone's state of mind and their background and believes that anything they say to the contrary is a lie; or a kind of devotion to a pigeon-poop splattered statue in a public square of some great figure of the past--it's totally stupid and wrong.
Nothing about me or anyone else writing weird fiction and being inspired by the real world and diverse and extreme biology stops anyone else from worshipping (or reading) whatever God they want to worship. So, those of you who are radicalized adherents, can just fuck off.

[C Q]

Da, HPL se u predgovoru spominje samo u fusnoti na prvoj stranici - i to kao bukvalno fusnota u odnosu na Ligotija (Left his dry husk behind him), tip kao pise da je TL jedan or rjetkih koji je consumed HPL a da ih ovaj nije prozdrao... Zanimljvo je da na Amazonu ta prva famozna stranica nije vise dostupna za Look-Inside a juce sam je gledao, vjerovatno slucajnost.

Svjestan sam ekipe koja je protiv HPL, ili recimo ekipe koja sere po STJ iz slicnih razloga, ali nisam znao da je JV jedan od njih. Ovaj dole komentar je prilicno ocajan. Mislio sam da je to zbog prirode ovog izdanja - najveci tiraz i popularnost - pa su mozda htjeli idiotima koji su TL otkrili preko True Detective reci da je TL vise od iznad prosjecnog Chambers-a i HPL, a i Penguin kad svrsta nekoga u Classics trazi neku dodatnu univerzalnost (Jebo ih Morisej), pa reko Jeff se potrudio da im udoli, ili cak da time nastavlja 'prosirenje podrucja borbe' na svojoj verziji Weird 'mitologije'. Ispada da je buthurt seronja. Znao sa da Laird voli ponekad da cinicno podjebava HPL, npr cak je i TL kao trolao(?) u jednoj od svojih prica, sve manje volim lika.

Uglavnom ja sam, po onome sto znam, totalno na HPL 'strani', a uostalom i sam Ligoti je rekao da je HPL najvaznija osoba u njegovom zivotu, dok je STJ svrstao Last Feast u najbolju pricu inspirisanu Lavkraftom ikada, pa nek se puse. 

[Ghoul]

full disclosure po pitanju učesnika i teme:
ni ja ne mislim da je HPL alfa i omega i nisam njegov zaluđeni akolit koji ga slepo brani ili meće u sve živo i mrtvo - ali pisao sam dovoljno o njemu da je onima koji moj rad prate to poznato i ne bih ovde naširoko o tome.

džoši nije cvećka, i pored svojih ogromnih zasluga i kvaliteta, ima i ozbiljne nedostatke koji se račvaju iz 2 izvora: 1) taj što nikad nije ušao u akademski svet, nije doktorirao, i pisanje mu često sklizne u neakademsko, neozbiljno, neutemeljeno, presubjektivno; i 2) lični karakter (svađalački, autoritarni) i fixacija na neke teme, pristupe i gledišta koje fundamentolski tretira i često ih slepo primenjuje i gde treba i gde ne treba (vidi moj pogovor m.r. džejmsu za osvrt na to). ipak, on je daleko više u pravu po pitanju HPL značaja i vrednosti.

beron i kompanija su prilično agresivni i bezobrazni, a što je najgore - licemerni. ako hoće da 'pere ruke od lavkrafta' zašto onda ne propušta priliku da zaradi na konto HPL brenda i utrapi još jednu svoju generičku pričicu još jednoj HPL antologiji? osim što mi je kao osoba sve nesimpatičniji, beron je zaista počeo da smara sa svojom mačo formulom: u poslednje vreme sve mu priče imaju ISTU strukturu - tough guy(s)/chicks on a mission, idemo da nekoga/nešto nađemo i dovedemo/donesemo a onda kreće delirično nejasni sukob sa nečim konfuznim što kulminira frustrirajuće mutnim krajem.

vandermer je dobar urednik, THE WEIRD je fundamentalna antologija, a kao pisac - bem li ga. sve mi je više antipatičan pa odlažem ulaženje u njegovu prozu. ono svoje pisanije što je metno u THE WEIRD nije mi se uopšte svidelo, a kad pomislim da je on jedno svoje delo nazvao ZALJUBLJENI DRADIN, okrene mi se stomak. talk about 'lost me at hello'!

ligoti je u svemu ovome najveći gospodin: oko tru detektiva se uopšte nije izjašnjavao (pametno!), svoje uzore nikad nije krio, lavkrafta je uvek isticao - pa eto i pre neki dan u ovome što je meni rekao - i uopšte, on je toliko IZNAD svih gorepomenutih (osim HPL-a, s kojim je na ravnoj nozi) da to čak nije ni smešno.

[PTY]

Mene se te diskusije o HPL uticaju uvek nekako doimaju kao spinofi one kontroverze o WFA statueti. Vandermer je dosta političan, pa možda zato stičem taj dojam. Jer u principu je besmisleno opovrgavati ičiji prozni uticaj na tako kategoričan način, mislim, svaka pročitana knjiga valjda utiče na čitaoca, u ma kako malom procentu, i na ma koji način, pozitivan ili negativan. A pročitati više od jednog dela bilo kog originalnog autora, ili pročitati većinu njegovog opusa, pa to neminovno ostavlja nekakav uticaj, makar i krajnje podsvestan.

Možda je tu u pitanju više politički manevar, recimo neka vrst aktivnog distanciranja od HPLa i kontroverzi po pitanju rasizma...

[Ghoul]

svaka pročitana knjiga valjda utiče na čitaoca, u ma kako malom procentu, i na ma koji način, pozitivan ili negativan. A pročitati više od jednog dela bilo kog originalnog autora, ili pročitati većinu njegovog opusa, pa to neminovno ostavlja nekakav uticaj, makar i krajnje podsvestan.

ti sad ovo redukuješ do apsurda.
HPL-ov uticaj na ligotija je fundamentalan, daleko veći od jedne fusnote.
NARAVNO da u slučaju jedne takve gromade kao što je ligoti taj uticaj nema oblik epigonstva, pa čak ni nastavljanja- ligoti se jeste razvio u nešto sasvim svoje, ali čak i u tome vidljivi su HPL tragovi.
druga je stvar što neko NEĆE da to vidi, iz POLITIČKIH razloga - tj. zbog političke korektnosti zbog koje je danas nedopustivo reći da voliš HPL-a BEZ ograde tipa 'dobar pisac al đubre od čoveka', tj. 'imao je mašte al gadi mi se onaj njegov rasizam' itsl.

[PTY]

To se uglavnom odnosilo na ovaj deo izjave: "When people express a very hardened and scoffing disbelief that I'm not influenced by Lovecraft it's pretty much no different than not being part of a certain religion whose more radicalized adherents believe that their God influences all and atheists must at the very least be deep into their own "belief" as a *reaction* against their God. When, in fact, it's not a reaction of any kind. It's a separate through-line."

Razumem njegovu frustraciju. Naravno, ne opravdavam je, niti je smatram suštinski iskrenom, ali razumem da čoveku poput njega može teško da padne bilo kakvo dovođenje u vezu sa nekim (ili nečim) što fundamentalno prezire.

[Ghoul]

Razumem njegovu frustraciju. Naravno, ne opravdavam je, niti je smatram suštinski iskrenom, ali razumem da čoveku poput njega može teško da padne bilo kakvo dovođenje u vezu sa nekim (ili nečim) što fundamentalno prezire.

neka on svoju frustraciju zadrži za sebe ili za svoje intervjue ili napise u kojima govori o SEBI.
prilično je glupo, moraš priznati, ako svoje privatno nedopadanje prema nekom trećem koristi u napisu o nekom drugom, koga taj treći JESTE influencirao, kako bi umanjio značaj/vrednost/uticaj tog trećeg.

to je kao kad bi ti, recimo, smatrala da je e.a.po bio pijandura, narkoman, pedofil i trećerazredno piskaralo, pa sutra kad te PINGVIN il tako neki veliki izdavač pozove da pišeš predgovor lavkraftu (!), a ti kažeš: 'pih, taj po nije imao NIKAKAV uticaj na HPL-a, to su obične tlapnje, oni vezu s vezom nemaju, HPL je iza sebe odbacio suvu praznu ljušturu e. a. poa'!

[PTY]

Ma naravno da se slažem, uostalom, doživeo je da ga sam Ligoti demantuje, pa gde ćeš većeg blama?
Ja samo ukazujem kako je ama baš sve oko HPL postalo užasno ispolitizovano, i najglasniji su ekstremisti obaju strana.

[Ghoul]

pitali ligotija:
What do you see as the distinction between your work and that of Lovecraft?


a on reko:
There are a few ways I could answer this question. One of them is that in Lovecraft's defining stories, meaning such later works as "The Shadow out of Time" and "At the Mountains of Madness," there is a sense of adventure. In his letters, Lovecraft often wrote of experiencing moments of what he called "adventurous expectancy," by which he meant feeling oneself on the brink of some weird and hyper-exciting revelation that is always held in suspension and never known in its particulars. This is patently an aesthetic perception of existence. Borges described a similar feeling of the imminence of a revelation that never occurs as the definitive aesthetic experience. In Lovecraft's work, unlike that of Borges, the origin of his feeling of adventurous expectancy derives from something terrible that is associated with the inconceivable spatial and temporal nature of the physical universe. I think that a great many people experience the same thing in their lives. I have myself. But it never occurred to me to express this feeling as a source of adventure in my stories.

My focus has fairly consistently been on what I have thought of as an "infernal paradise," a realm where one wallows in something putrid and corrosive that lies beyond exact perception. In his stories, Lovecraft's adventurous expectancy ultimately has its origin in something terrible, and not the child's picture-book wonderland you find in the work of a lot of writers of fantastic fiction. But it's still thrilling in its own way. It isn't purely hellish, as is the case with my stories. Lovecraft was an astronomy buff as a child and so this feeling probably stemmed from that time. I was a pathological Catholic as a child, and one might make a connection between my early life and my later writings on that basis. Ultimately, the difference I'm trying to articulate between Lovecraft's adventurous expectancy and my infernal paradise may seem superficial. I would say as much myself. But it seems to me that what captivates a reader's interest in one writer's work as opposed to another's is quite often based on superficial qualities, even when there are deeper likenesses. Anyone can think of examples among both popular and literary writers. Lovecraft's defining works portray a variety of monsters. Mine seldom do. What's the difference? Not much on the deepest level. But monsters are a great literary hook and there is necessarily a surface adventure in dealing with them. If asked to name the definitive image in Lovecraft, one might likely say its tentacles flailing from the body of a monster. For me it would be probably be puppets, manikins, and clown-like things, even though these are more often a matter of metaphor than a literal presence of a monstrous type. Nevertheless, if Lovecraft's tentacle monsters and my puppets and so on fought each other, I think the monsters would win.

tako kaže ligoti u novom, odličnom intervjuu:
http://weirdfictionreview.com/2015/10/interview-thomas-ligotti-and-the-realm-of-nightmares/

[Ghoul]

vandrmr je i dalje budala.
kaže na fejsu:
"I recorded a bit for NPR about Thomas Ligotti today. They also asked about Lovecraft. I know I'm a terrible human being, but when they asked what I thought about Lovecraft I just started laughing and couldn't stop for like fifteen seconds. No idea if they'll cut that or not."

...krrreten!

[C Q]

Radi se o tipu od 47 godina 

...krrreten!

Ispada da je buthurt seronja.

[Ghoul]

nisam mogao da izdržim ovo njegovo sranje - morao sam da reagujem.
zapazi njegov klinački odgovnor.

[C Q]

 

[Ghoul]

jutros mi stigla knjižica sa posvetom autora: 

[Ghoul]

i još mi piše ligoti u mejlu:
"I did receive the December issue of Rue Morgue, thanks. Truthfully, I thought it was better than the New Yorker piece on me. Seriously. That one was really screwed up by the editor, though what was left was fine. But yours was more knowledgeable and interesting."

[C Q]

  :


S.King -




T.Ligotti -

[Ghoul]

i do sada su ljudi imali poteškoća da razluče ligotija od kinga, a tek sad ima da ih brkaju!

[Anomander Rejk]

16.decembra ove godine u novosadskoj knjižari Most, održan je književni klabing, na kome se diskutovalo o knjizi Nedovršeni posao-Tomas Ligoti. Većini se prilično dopala, ponekima nikako, ali zanimljivo je da niko nije bio ravnodušan prema knjizi. Interesantno mi je bilo slušati viđenje ljudi kojima je, nekim od njih, po sopstvenom priznanju, ta knjiga bila prvi horor koji su pročitali. Naravno, imali su potpuno drugačija očekivanja od onog što su dobili u knjizi, nema vampira, čudovišta, stravične atmosfere, bog zna kako jezivih scena,  jedna potpuno drugačija podloga za priču i priča od one koju su očekivali.