The Bleak, Bleak World of Thomas Ligotti

[CaledonianGonzo]

This month, I've mostly discovered the obscure prose stylings ofThomas Ligotti.  Good lord, he's a find and a half. 

I gave up reading horror fiction in my early teens, but from what I'd heard beforehand, it sounded like Ligotti was a class apart.  And so it proves.  The stories are for the most-part non-explicit and non-violent, preferring to keep the visceral stuff offstage.  He's got more in common with someone like Jorge Luis Borges or Nabokov than Clive Barker or Garth Marenghi.  Sex is also pretty much noticeable by its absence.

However, he's master at evoking a sense of dread, an icy, pervasive bleakness that pervades his work.  This is powerfully opressive fiction, with an unremitting sense of the shadows that lie behind other shadows, with protagonists caught in a world slipping out of all coherence.  Poe and Lovecraft are obvious touchstones, but without the former's archaic stylings and the latter's cosmic aliens.

Ligotti himself seems to live it like he writes it.  Judging from this interview, he's a bit of an odd fish, but a fascinating one nontheless.

So - as I say - this is a new enthusiasm and I've got a lot more reading to do to have read the 'canon', but are there any other readers on here?  Or if you like a cerebral bit of alienation, he should be right up your street.

[Hank_Kingsley]

I have read Noctuary and The Nightmare Factory, I heard about him through Current 93 if memory serves. 'The Frolic' is a particularly chilling little story.
His books are often out of print aren't they? I know they seem to go for silly prices at Amazon.

[CaledonianGonzo]

I got this for a few quid, as it seemed like a good place to start, but The Nightmare Factory goes for about 40 notes.

Yeah - it seems that Ligotti and David Tibet are quite good mates, though I've not heard any of their collaborative works.

[Hank_Kingsley]

No, me neither. David Tibet is an interesting character in his own right.

I wish I had more to say about Ligotti, but it's been a while since I read his stuff. I just remember being blown away by the sense of tension and dread in his work, i'm a Barker fan too but I don't recall ever being quite so weirded out by an author before...

A search, out of curiousity, on IMDB shows that at least one of his stories has been adapted for a film. My favourite in fact:
http://imdb.com/title/tt0997064/

Anyone seen it?