[4NN]⇒ [PDF] Teatro Grottesco Thomas Ligotti 8601300458168 Books

Teatro Grottesco Thomas Ligotti 8601300458168 Books

Download As PDF : Teatro Grottesco Thomas Ligotti 8601300458168 Books

Teatro Grottesco Thomas Ligotti 8601300458168 Books

After the somewhat baroque fantasias of "Grimscibe" and "Songs of a Dead Dreamer," the stories in this collection might seem surprisingly understated. Reading them, one gets the impression of watching a black-and-white film with a lot of grays in the palette. To a certain extent, one's appreciation for Thomas Ligotti might depend on one's acceptance of his nihilistic, darkness-at-the-heart-of-nothingness philosophy, which is on full display here (and which I personally don't accept); however, a reader who can summon up a certain degree of objectivity might be able to appreciate the stories simply as dark fantasies and not have to worry about agreeing or disagreeing with whatever message Ligotti might be wanting to convey. One doesn't have to agree with a writer's philosophy to recognize the quality of the writer, and there's no point pretending that Ligotti is not a good writer.


Tags : Teatro Grottesco [Thomas Ligotti] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <div><div>This collection features tormented individuals who play out their doom in various odd little towns,Thomas Ligotti,Teatro Grottesco,Virgin Books,0753513749,FIC015000,Horror,AMERICAN HORROR FICTION,Colombia,FICTION Horror,FICTION Short Stories (single author),Fiction,Fiction - Horror,Fiction-Horror,GENERAL,General Adult,Horror & ghost stories,Horror - General,United States

Teatro Grottesco Thomas Ligotti 8601300458168 Books Reviews

-- not for the suicidal. This is my first exposure to the author's incisively bizarre imagination which is expressed in precise and clinically sterile language typical of a detached observer rather than a participant, the narration being in first person notwithstanding. The often hypnotic and, with subtle alterations, repetitive prose serves perhaps to intuit the incessant chatter within the disturbed psyche of obsessed individuals fixated on the inexplicable and abysmal nature of their perceived realities.
Reclusive oddball loners with haunting secrets of murder and unnatural repercussions (fueled by the need of some sort of vengeance by the parties involved) and hopeless treadmill wage-slaves, maintaining the system with their monotonous daily grinds at the assembly blocks or in drab storefront offices, inhabit the gloomy landscape of some godforsaken, foggy northern border town gradually fading into the bleak environment of oblivion. Occasionally, grim and seemingly indifferent clowns, a marionette puppet menacing in its persistence, and the garb of a jester/fool join the surreal parade as messengers of fate/death, as manifestations of the trickster archetype of liminality.

"Our company [Teatro Grottesco Ventures] is so much older than its own name, or any other name for that matter. (And how many it's had over the years - The Ten Thousand Things, Anima Mundi, Nethescurial.)...I go around with a trunkful of aliases, but do you think I can say who I once was really?...Possibly I was the father of Faust or Hamlet - or merely Peter Pan" (p. 180).

Featured in three short stories ('the town manager', 'my case for retributive action' and 'our temporary supervisor'), although explicitly named only in two of them, is the shadowy and dreaded Quine Organization, the all-pervading presence of which is conveyed by the writer in a tangentially Kafka-esque, Dickian fashion. It is a monopolist entity, a political as much as a commercial one, "whose interests and activities penetrate into every enterprise, both public and private,...[and] in whose employ are all the doctors [and pharmacists] on this side of the border...and perhaps also on your side" (pgs. 82, 88, 97, 99).
Common threads that run through several or all of the five stories from the last (3rd) segment dubbed 'The Damaged and the Diseased', albeit varied in articulation and intensity, are artistic underworld, art-magic, schizophrenia/split personality, women dressed in purple/crimson/emerald green, "backstreet hospital with dated fixtures and a staff of sleepwalkers" (p. 175), and, last but not least, gastrointestinal agony induced by a sense of anxiety "to be a success at doing something and at being something" (p. 261), or by bacterial/amoebic infestation. Either way, I wonder, without revealing too much, if the hilarious and somewhat gross concluding piece ('the shadow, the darkness') is, in part, a not so veiled assessment of post-modern art.

Finally, T. Ligotti's diagnosis of the human condition is encapsulated in the following passage

"We should give thanks...that a poverty of knowledge has so narrowed our vision of things as to allow the possibility of feeling something about them...[W]ithout the suspense that is generated by our benighted state...who could take enough interest in the universal spectacle to bring forth even the feeblest yawn, let alone exhibit the more dramatic manifestations which lend such unwonted color to a world that is essentially composed of shades of gray upon a background of blackness?...All our ecstasies, whether sacred or from the slime, depend on our refusal to be schooled in even the most superficial truths and our maddening will to follow the path of forgetfulness. Amnesia may well be the highest sacrement in the great gray ritual of existence. To know, to understand in the fullest sense, is to plunge into an enlightenment of inanity, a wintry landscape of memory whose substance is all shadows and a profound awareness of the infinite spaces surrounding us on all sides" ('a soft voice whispers nothing', pp. 143-4).

And what solution is offered as a way out of this entrapment?

"I wanted to believe that th[e] artist had escaped the dreams and demons of all sentiment in order to explore the foul and crummy delights of a universe where everything had been reduced to three stark principles first, that there was nowhere for you to go; second, that there was nothing for you to do; and third, that there was nothing for you to know" ('the bungalow house', p. 214). In other words, non-striving and disengagement through non-attachment. Easier said than done (sigh).
Not as strong a collection as "Songs of a Dead Dreamer & Grimscribe," but still very much worth checking out. It feels like the stories here tip more into the realm of philosophical/psychological horror as opposed to the fantastic horror that forms the majority in "Songs..." But if your a fan of Ligotti's vivid imagery and otherworldly, albeit pessimistic, imagination, there's a lot to be enjoyed here )
Thomas Ligotti, is certainly an interesting writer, his stories are very unique and he has a demand of the dark, creepy, weird and horrific atmosphere quite like no other horror writer. This is actually the first "total" collection of Ligotti shorts that I have read. All my other experiences have been with his stories included in compilations. As much as I love Ligotti, I have to admit, it gets to be a bit slow at times when reading his stuff back to back. But this still doesn't detract from the awesome story telling force that ligotti is.
His stories about the "Northern Border Town" and the deeply wooded, gray and dreary nature of it, remind me ALOT of where I grew up in a small town in Northern Minnesota deep within the woods.
Absolutely excellent, you like scary stories, well give him a try.
After the somewhat baroque fantasias of "Grimscibe" and "Songs of a Dead Dreamer," the stories in this collection might seem surprisingly understated. Reading them, one gets the impression of watching a black-and-white film with a lot of grays in the palette. To a certain extent, one's appreciation for Thomas Ligotti might depend on one's acceptance of his nihilistic, darkness-at-the-heart-of-nothingness philosophy, which is on full display here (and which I personally don't accept); however, a reader who can summon up a certain degree of objectivity might be able to appreciate the stories simply as dark fantasies and not have to worry about agreeing or disagreeing with whatever message Ligotti might be wanting to convey. One doesn't have to agree with a writer's philosophy to recognize the quality of the writer, and there's no point pretending that Ligotti is not a good writer.